City Limits — By Jeanmarie Evelly
City Hall was supposed to begin reporting more details on how it removes homeless New Yorkers from public spaces, sharing data on where each sweep took place, the agencies involved, how many people were affected and the costs. But a month after the first due date, advocates and lawmakers are still waiting.
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Gothamist — By Catalina Gonella
A new report shows wide disparities in the amount of affordable housing built in different New York City Council districts — with more going up in predominantly lower-income Black and Latino neighborhoods.
The third annual NYC Housing Tracker from the advocacy organization New York Housing Conference found that the city produced 14,227 units of affordable housing last year, which was the highest yearly number in recent decades.
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City Council members said renewed concerns about the safety of biometric data in the face of cyberattacks make passing the laws all the more urgent.
STATESCOOP — By Keely Quinlan
The New York City Council considered two pieces of legislation during an oversight hearing on Monday that would ban businesses like music venues, theaters and supermarkets from using biometric recognition technology to identify customers, and ban the tech in residential buildings.
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Spectrum News NY1 | By Louis Finley Manhattan
PUBLISHED 9:54 PM ET Jun. 10, 2024
Technology that can identify a person through things like facial scans or fingerprints, for some, may be a thing of the future. But for a group of lawmakers, they say it’s a problem now.
“I’m all too familiar with the negative consequences of using fear to justify excessive and bias surveillance,” Councilmember Shahana Hanif said.
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“As the Gaza Solidarity Encampments continue to grow on college campuses across the United States, I commend the masses of brave student protesters who are in-line with countless movements against war and genocide that precede their time. As a CUNY alum, I, too, exercised my right to freedom of speech and protest with peers on campus grounds, particularly to speak out against the post-9/11 Muslim surveillance program and how NYPD informants infiltrated CUNY campuses.
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By TIFFANY CABÁN, SHAHANA HANIF, SANDY NURSE AND ALEXA AVILÉS
What we saw couldn’t be more different from the dire warnings of rampant antisemitic threats and pervasive danger coming from City Hall, Albany and the White House.
If you only go by the recent statements from Mayor Eric Adams, Gov. Kathy Hochul, and
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City & State | By Mia Hollie April 25, 2024
Despite their increasing visibility, women in government must still contend with gendered biases about the ways in which they choose to present themselves.
New York City Council Member Shahana Hanif represents many firsts for the New York City Council. Not only is she the first woman to represent her district, but she is also the first-ever Muslim woman on the Council and one of two members of South Asian descent.
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By Council Members Alexa Avilés and Shahana Hanif
As we enter into the thick of election season, Republicans are running back their tried-and-true playbook of demonizing immigrant communities to rile up their base. This time, they are zeroing in on a supposed “migrant crime wave” that is provably false and blatantly misinforming the public about how New York City’s sanctuary policies function.
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Public library systems are calling on the City Council to reverse the mayor’s proposed cuts to next year’s budget.
Leaders of the library systems insist the cuts will mean further reductions to service and delaying indefinitely the reopening of more than a half dozen branches undergoing renovations.
The city’s public libraries are facing a $58.3 million budget cut for 2025.
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The number of newly arrived immigrants in the city’s care is now around 64,000, officials testified before the City Council Friday, down from more than 69,000 in mid-January—what City Hall attributed, in part, to its controversial 30- and 60-day shelter deadlines.
But while Mayor Eric Adams says the limited shelter stays are intended to help new arrivals take “the next step in their journey,” the administration also admits that it isn’t tracking where people go after they leave the system.
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