The pace appeared to pick up last year, with 16 calls on the schedules and seven more in the first two months of this year. Fourteen city workers assisting McCray cost taxpayers $2 million a year most of it buried in the payrolls of various city agencies until former Post reporter Yoav Gonen pulled together the details for online paper The City. Same for her $65,000 associate director of advance.. McCray says her hope is that the Office of Community Mental Health, created via an executive order, continues long after she leaves Gracie Mansion, but also admits the rebranding was an effort to move away from the negativity surrounding the ThriveNYC moniker. Mr. Walker recalled that he would often get calls from Patricia E. Harris, who served as the previous fund chairwoman while she was the first deputy mayor to Mr. Bloomberg, to invite him to meetings to talk about donating to programs, like Mr. Bloombergs initiative to plant one million trees. [6][32] Asked about her sexuality, McCray has stated that she hates "labels". Anyway, for details the mayoral missus deferred to one Susan Herman, who does the day-to-day management and makes the decisions., Turns out that ThriveNYC director Herman had no more firm a grasp on detail than did McCray telling the hearing that her agency employs 400 benchmarks to measure effectiveness but that all of those metrics are being refined.. Bronx Councilman Ritchie Torres criticized ThriveNYC, stating that there was "no evidence its working". Uncovering The Satanic Panic: South Dakota. Its an approach McCray says helped the city respond to the high demand for mental health services during the height of the coronavirus pandemic. McCray is the proprietress of ThriveNYC, a mental-health-related something-or-other created four-plus years ago to give a little heft to the conceit that Bill and Chirlane were elected as co-mayors which is nonsense on stilts. The new forecast gives Republicans and Democrats a matter of weeks to reach an agreement on raising the nation's roughly $31.4 trillion borrowing limit. The fact that we've added more services, the fact that we now have an Office of Community Mental Health is in direct response to what people have been asking for, and that is more, more and more more mental health providers, especially mental health providers of color, says McCray. The administration has said their approach to mental health has never been done before at this level anywhere in the country. From mid-2002 through mid-2014, the fund raised an average of $32 million a year, although that number is inflated somewhat by a spike in donations after Hurricane Sandy (and includes large donations from Mr. Bloomberg). They need supportive housing, for example, where there are services available where they live, to be able to function. While writing articles, she also continued to write poetry, trying to bring about a social change through them. By this fall, every public school will have at least one full-time social worker on hand or school-based mental health clinic, and when 911 calls are made for a mental health disturbance, EMTs are now accompanied by social workers police are often called in to assist. #MyDayNYC pic.twitter.com/e8LWu8jxh9, Chirlane McCray (@NYCFirstLady) April 2, 2020. Even as the city has poured money into mental health . How many other big-bucks initiatives are in similar straits is unknowable mostly because bureaucrats never blow the whistle on themselves and also because Gothams formal watchdog, city Comptroller Scott Stringer, is among the most incurious individuals ever to hold the office. The previous February, Mr. de Blasio had announced plans to build a streetcar line along the Brooklyn-Queens waterfront, in neighborhoods where Two Trees has developments. The inquiries were closed in 2016 without charges being filed. There are people who need supportive care. And while it sounds good to spend heavily on a mental health initiative, it appears that nobody has noticed any real benefits from that investment. who recorded the first lady baking cookies during the pandemic. In 1972, she entered Wellesley College, where she found social acceptance for the first time. In school, where for a time she was the only Black student, she had to face intense racism and endure bullying by her white classmates. Born into a middleclass African-American family and raised primarily in an all-white locality, she suffered racial abuse both in and outside school. Glenn Youngkin declines 2024 White House bid 'this year'. I bet you're never seen this story reported on the nightly newsbut don't worry, we'll show it to you! Nothing had been measured in the past, so what are we measuring for? But this is 2019, and the general feeling at least in the deBlasio administration is that if theres not a lot of dough attached to the spousal sinecure, it doesnt really matter enough. She now had her own staff and a larger role to play. [28], ThriveNYC drew harsh criticism over allegations of mismanagement and accusations that it had failed to produce records of tangible results. And while the funds bylaws define the chair as the lead fund-raiser, officials struggled to show her direct involvement with those efforts. Other families in the neighborhood circulated petitions demanding they leave. 2023 NYP Holdings, Inc. All Rights Reserved, former Post reporter Yoav Gonen pulled together. But the co-mayor made performance promises when he initiated the Renewal program, few of which even remotely were met, and presently gravity prevailed: The program caved in on itself. 2023 NYP Holdings, Inc. 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McCray, who is reportedly looking torun for Brooklyn borough president, has a staff of 14 people,sources told The CIty. Despite its ranks and generous salaries, the team hasnt posted an update to McCrays public schedule since last year. In 2004, she left Thompsons service to join Maimonides Medical Center, where she served possibly till 2009, trying to promote a culturally sensitive environment and make it attractive to a wider clientele. Even as fund-raising has stalled, the fund has moved into larger offices which include a new, private office for Ms. McCray and the cost of running the operation has increased by more than 50 percent in the last two years. Economic growth has slowed, but inflation remains persistent in key areas, raising concerns that the Feds balance-sheet size could force the Fed to take rates even higher. She published an essay in Essence in 1979 entitled "I Am a Lesbian". Bill de Blasio, Chirlane McCray, Chiara de Blasio and Dante de Blasio Chirlane is the loving mom of Chiara de Blasio and Dante de Blasio. Ms. McCray last stopped by in May 2017, Ms. Olson said. We are measuring.. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio's wife, Chirlane McCray, was given $900 million to start a mental health initiative focusing on helping the homeless in the city. But very soon, she realized that publishing was not her cup of tea. Read our full Disclosure. Thats because there never was any doubt what the program was about. He said that a better measure of the funds success was the number of programs that it finances a number that has also fallen. That makes a robust roster of 14 staffers double the amount she had in 2018. De Blasio's wife can't account for $850m given to mental health scheme https://t.co/gTEJcrCeob via @MailOnline, NYC Mayor De Blasio's wife spent $900 million in taxpayer moneywith no record of how it was used https://t.co/UGe8liu6L0, De Blasio and co-mayor wife have wasted $1.8B of taxpayer moneyFrankly Im surprised its not much more considering these two incompetent lazy stoners are at the helm. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); document.getElementById( "ak_js_2" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Thanks for contacting us. Sometime in late 1960s, she wrote a column in the school publication, in which she called out on her classmates for the cruelty they had inflicted on her. [8], When de Blasio became mayor, he hired publicist Rachel Noerdlinger to be McCray's chief of staff. [20] In May 2018, The New York Times reported that McCray had last visited the offices of the Mayor's Fund in May 2017. [3] As of March 2019, nearly $850 million in funding for McCray's mental health program was unaccounted for; furthermore, the program was on track to spend $1 billion over five years. On January 27, 2013, as her husband, Bill de Blasio, announced his candidacy for Mayor of New York City, Chirlane McCray took up a new role, accompanying him on his campaign. [13] She also worked as a speechwriter for the New York State Comptroller Carl McCall and for New York City Comptroller Bill Thompson. As WCBs 880's Rich Lamb reports, first lady Chirlane McCray's "Thrive" metal health initiative meant to help the mentally ill has spent $850 million over the past four years. And people did equate mental illness with homelessness, which is so wrong, says McCray. Certainly not the City Council, a legislative body comprising 50 stuffed cabbages and a speaker who wants to be mayor a fellow who stood by incuriously as the citys streets and subways slowly filled with insane people, many of them threatening and dangerous. But the fund itself has become a much larger operation, adding employees and salaries. [17] Later in 2014, Noerdlinger resigned her post following a series of controversies surrounding her behavior and that of persons close to her. This story has been shared 132,852 times. This is despite the city facing layoffs of 22,000 municipal workers over the coronavirus-induced budget crisis. The organization spent $753,000 on management and fund-raising in the fiscal year that ended in June 2017, 50 percent more than two years earlier. The three largest programs, according to the most recent tax filing for 2016, were federal grants for antipoverty initiatives, civic service programs and a Bloomberg-era effort known as the Young Mens Initiative aimed at supporting black and Hispanic men. [33] In 2012, when asked about her 1979 essay, she commented: "In the 1970s, I identified as a lesbian and wrote about it. It was reorganized and given its current name by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg after he took office in 2002, when the city was reeling from the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Mayor Bill de Blasio likes to say that there's plenty of money in New York City, but that it's in the wrong hands. Get the best experience and stay connected to your community with our Spectrum News app. Shell be happy; the mayor will be delighted and the unions and nonprofits will be delirious. It's a way of demonizing people who are suffering and saying they are not deserving of this.. After The Times reviewed its findings with staff at the Mayors Fund, officials on May 18 announced the addition of 19 members, including Ms. Simons, to its advisory board, a largely ceremonial position chiefly aimed at fund-raising. Living in a hospital, that model of institutionalizing people is kind of outmoded.. our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. Here they had to face extreme racism with the white residents circulating a petition that they leave the area. Bill is the mayor of New York City since 2014. Ms. McCray, the mayors wife, has not even set foot in the funds office for nearly a year; her public schedules in 2017 recorded less than 20 hours spent on Mayors Fund business during the entire year. Some critics have said that Thrive focused too little on those with serious mental illnesses. At its inception in 2015, ThriveNYC was a seemingly unwieldy 54 initiative program. If theres a program thats been found to be effective, we should continue it.. Contributions are stagnant, if not falling, and now support fewer programs. While the goals of ThriveNYC are lofty and are arguably needed, throughout its creation and expansion, many have questioned the inherent nepotism of the mayor placing his wife in charge of such a major overhaul. Mayor Bill de Blasio likes to say that theres plenty of money in New York City, but that its in the wrong hands. Legal Statement. Don't we want people to have a good quality of life? In December, the Simonses made another donation, of $250,000. Theres no money for regular trash pickups or to maintain city parks, but Mayor Bill de Blasios wife enjoys a 14-member staff including a $70,000 videographer who captured her baking cookies during the pandemic. The number of programs the fund supports has also declined, from 123 during Mr. de Blasios first year in office to 97 the next fiscal year. In several cases, donations to the fund coincided with city action on a particular project, though donors dispute any effort to curry favor with the administration. [29], In March 2018, McCray stated that she was "seriously considering" running for office in 2021 (the year that de Blasio's second and final term as New York City mayor ended). That two such scandals should bubble to the surface unannounced is bad enough. That it should happen in a single week is worse its an embarrassment. But also mayoral spouse Chirlane McCray, who has just been revealed as a world-class boondoggler in her own right. This story has been shared 119,457 times. Chirlane McCray, shown at New York City Hall on Feb. 25, created ThriveNYC as a mental-health initiative. That is, nobody appears to have kept receipts; the subways and street corners are still overrun with crazy people, and nobody in charge knows whats to happen next. https://twitter.com/davej08/status/1101441406667771904, https://twitter.com/WNYGeek81/status/1101500859299627008, harshly assessed the program's effectiveness. [6][9] McCray met Bill de Blasio in 1991, when they both worked at New York City Hall for then Mayor David Dinkins. [10] Some of her poetry is included in Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology. With their house filled with books, she developed reading habit early in her life. There were 85 programs at last count, according to Ms. Olson. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, Both of them periodically suffered from depression. ThriveNYC, a Mental Health Initiative, Comes Under Scrutiny. The programs at issue ostensibly are meant to assist particularly challenged people the helpless, often homeless, mentally ill and small children whose futures are forfeited because they landed in shamefully nonfunctional schools, an experience from which they will never recover. The City Hall budget shows $594 million in spending since ThriveNYC's inception. Ms. Harris missed only one board meeting in the last four years she served as chairwoman, the period for which records were available. On November 23, 2015, McCray launched ThriveNYC, a $1.2 billion dollar initiative, with the aim of improving the citys mental health and substance abuse services. Some of these were later published in 'Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology' (1983). Harold Fetner, a real estate developer who joined the funds advisory board in 2014, made multiple donations to the fund, through companies he owns, from 2015 through 2017, totaling $67,350. Laura Ingraham has even called it a "scheme". McCray and de Blasio were married in 1994 in Prospect Park, Brooklyn. That the co-mayors could fly under the radar to burn through $1.6 billion to no obvious good effect is an embarrassment but understandable in the abstract. McCray was born in Springfield, Massachusetts and spent her early years there. But under Mayor Bill de Blasio, the fund has not kept pace. It was . The First Lady has also been working with local leaders from municipalities across the country, part of the Cities Thrive Coalition. 2023 NYP Holdings, Inc. 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A company representative, David Lombino, said Ms. McCray did not solicit the donation, which went to an internship program known as Ladders for Leaders. News Corp is a global, diversified media and information services company focused on creating and distributing authoritative and engaging content and other products and services. This seems laughingly obvious, except that this is Gotham and Mrs. Mayor may simply be fronting her programs principal beneficiaries the municipal unions and the nonprofits. You've successfully subscribed to this newsletter! U.S. Government Docket No. His latest startup follows a decade of being outmaneuvered in his quest to steer the development of artificial intelligence. [27] In a March 2019 article on ThriveNYC, The New York Times reported: "Public health officials credit the plan for drawing attention to mental health At the same time, some initiatives failed to get started, while others placed unrealistic demands on already strained mental health services". "I like the fact that money is going toward mental health, but when they say we're seeing a benefit in all areas, I take exception to that, because I don't see it everywhere," Queens Councilman Robert Holden told The Post. Though, data on what the program has accomplished is hard to find. In 1974, she became a member of The Combahee River Collective, a Black feminist organization that looked into the issues relating specifically to the Black lesbians. But another pattern is revealed by the calls: almost half of those contacted by Ms. McCray were contributors to her husbands mayoral campaigns (the Simonses each gave the maximum donation to Mr. de Blasios re-election campaign last year). The Times further reported that according to McCray's public schedule, she had spent 19.5 hours in 2017 on work for the Mayor's Fund; however, her spokeswoman estimated that McCray spent 10% of her work schedule on Mayor's Fund business. [35] The family lived in Park Slope, Brooklyn,[6][12] until their 2014 move into Gracie Mansion,[36] the official residence of the Mayor of New York City. New York is supposed to be better than that. An almost decadelong runup has left the greenback heavily overvalued, some analysts say. Of the 78,000 newborn deliveries in the city annually, only 28,560 new mothers have been screened by the Thrive program. But it was quickly turned into rejection when a classmate found her in an intimate embrace with another woman. Download it here. This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Thanks for contacting us. Well over a billion dollars has been spent on these mental health programs, and one of the main criticisms lobbed at the de Blasio Administration and McCray particularly. DE BLASIO EXTENDS STATE OF EMERGENCY IN NEW YORK FOR ANOTHER 30 DAYS, "That article [referring to The City story]didn't take into account the work that's being done," de Blasio said. De Blasio is an Italian-American. The First Lady manages a robust portfolio and her team works tirelessly to carry out goals and priorities on issues like mental health and domestic violence that will improve the lives of New Yorkers, she said. One exception was Marilyn Simons, a philanthropist married to the hedge fund billionaire James Simons. He said that she does not typically make direct requests for money, which is a task that he or another staffer will do in follow-up calls. This principally is on the co-mayors, of course, but it is also on Stringer who wants to be mayor, but who shrinks from demonstrating that he deserves the job. The first spouse went before the City Council . The only friend that she had was her Spanish teacher, Michael McCarthy. She discovered Black writers like Toni Morrison, which convinced her that she too had a story to tell. Eventually, she started an organization called Black Women in Publishing. Office of Community Mental Health we are bringing mental health to the communities.. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact Does anybody know how well more likely, how poorly the co-mayors hugely expensive pre-K program is working, especially that portion consigned to the citys notoriously problematic not-for-profit sector? Chirlane McCray was assigned a $850million budget for her ThriveNYC program But records show scheme has failed to keep track of what it spent the money on The small amount of data that was. This story has been shared 132,852 times. Other members of the shadow staff who participated in a Team Lunch in The Bronx in January 2019, according to McCrays public schedule, are a $143,000-a-year public relations director, also from the Department of Health, and a special assistant from the mayors office who makes $115,000. https://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/chirlane-mccray-50935.php. The Thrive program, which had its budget raised to $250 million per year in 2019, has produced some underwhelming numbers in terms of how many people it impacts. A year later, she announced the formation of the Cities Thrive Coalition with aim of launching a more consolidated nationwide mental health system. Ms. McCray declined a request for a follow-up interview to discuss the funds activities in more detail. We've received your submission. With over 22,000 layoffs of city workers looming, the mayor cant seriously expect to keep funding full-time, highly paid speechwriters and professional videographers for his wifes political ambitions. The council redeemed itself only slightly Tuesday, asking McCray too politely for the circumstances to explain herself, and then settling for a non-answer answer for the ages: ThriveNYC was my idea, she said. Mayoral Photography Office Nearly a third of New Yorkers may be out of work thanks to the.

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