Well, he didnt actually say rathole, and the price tag has doubtless been lowballed but he also had no credible explanation for the debacle, nor did he apologize for it. Ms. McCray last stopped by in May 2017, Ms. Olson said. In February, 2014, she was named as the chairperson of the Mayors Fund to Advance New York City. Sign up for our free email newsletter, and we'll make sure to keep you in the loop. 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. McCray says she believes history will judge her mental health programs more fairly, and counters that much of the opposition to the dollars spent on Thrive programming is rooted in ignorance and bigotry. Glenn Youngkin declines 2024 White House bid 'this year'. (Her spokeswoman, Kate Bernyk, estimated she spends 10 percent of her time on fund business.). Market data provided by Factset. The couple has two children, a son called Dante and daughter called Chiara. Thereafter, she worked briefly for the public relation department of the City Group, but could not fit in. Bob McManus is a contributing editor of City Journal. 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. 2023 NYP Holdings, Inc. 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[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. Certain communities and communities of color suffer more than other communities. This story has been shared 375,122 times. 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. ", Sometimes you look at a headline like this and think: "that can't possibly be true.". "[34], McCray and de Blasio have a daughter, Chiara, and a son, Dante. In December, the Simonses made another donation, of $250,000. Of the 78,000 newborn deliveries in the city annually, only 28,560 new mothers have been screened by the Thrive program. 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. Seven mayors attended a 2017 national mental health conference in New York City. . As the city pulls out of the pandemics fog, many of those critics point to what appears to be a growing number of homeless and mentally disturbed people wandering the streets and subways. Chirlane McCray was born on November 29, 1954 in Springfield, Massachusetts into an Afro-American family that had migrated from Barbados and St. Lucia. Learn More. 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. #MyDayNYC pic.twitter.com/e8LWu8jxh9, Chirlane McCray (@NYCFirstLady) April 2, 2020. Another is a $143,000-a-year PR director whose job, by definition, is to boost her image, not to serve the public. He also made maximum contributions to Mr. de Blasios inaugural fund in 2013 and to his 2017 re-election campaign. Almost every single one of our programs continued throughout the pandemic.. The U.S. economy no longer looks so exceptional. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. The mayor's most recent budget deal includes another $115 million in mental-health spending, an effort McCray says to respond to the mounting mental health care needs of city residents after. However, of the 25 one-on-one calls identified on the schedules, in only three cases did the person or the organization they were associated with follow up with a donation, according to a list of contributions provided by the fund. That two such scandals should bubble to the surface unannounced is bad enough. Some of the Chirlane McCray staffers, who cost city taxpayers nearly $2 million a year combined, work for the first ladys $1.25 billion mental health initiative ThriveNYC, which has come under fire for its lack of metrics. She also received books as Christmas gift. [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 119,457 times. Legal Statement. The chairwoman of the Mayors Fund to Advance the City of New York, Chirlane McCray, has largely been missing in action: She has attended less than half of the funds board meetings, and her outreach to donors has been sporadic. [3] She has also published poetry and worked in politics as a speechwriter. And Mayor Bill de Blasios excuse for it is beyond laughable. And it's only (your) money even if it is quite a lot of it. The administration has said their approach to mental health has never been done before at this level anywhere in the country. 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. [22][23] ThriveNYC promotes a shift from a traditionally more reactive model, which can strain police, prisons, hospitals, and schools,[24] to an integrated public health approach focusing on awareness and early identification. Chirlane always wanted kids, but it was a bit tough for her to adjust to the added responsibility and limited freedom. Not one to take all these humiliations lying down, she began to pour her anger into poems. 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? One of the main reasons we started Thrive was because of stigma. 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. Though, data on what the program has accomplished is hard to find. We've received your submission. Thereafter, she served Bill Thompson, New York City Comptroller, possibly from 2002 to 2004. Most people who are homeless don't have a mental illness. In the first 10 months of the current fiscal year, the fund raised $14 million, according to a spokeswoman, Cynthia Olson, putting the fund on pace for its lowest annual revenues in more than a decade. Get the best experience and stay connected to your community with our Spectrum News app. Photo by Spectrum News NY1. This story has been shared 375,122 times. I think theres added benefit. We've received your submission. 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. We have statistics from the very beginning. This story has been shared 119,457 times. It's just the kind of small, yet crucial revolution that drove Chirlane McCray into public service in the first place, and this week, she saw it realized . The nonprofit was created in 1994 by Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani to raise private-sector money to finance some of his pet projects, including a childrens book featuring his dog. 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. Right up there with co-Mayor Bill, who started the week on his own sour note announcing that his signature Renewal school program was closing up shop after pounding $773 million down a rathole. With the aid of the citys First Lady, Mayor de Blasio launched a massive overhaul of the citys mental-health system in 2015. In 1991, I met the love of my life, married him. One can only imagine what a mad scramble those meetings are. 2023 NYP Holdings, Inc. All Rights Reserved, former Post reporter Yoav Gonen pulled together. Think Stockholm syndrome, rolled into a big ball with the United Federation of Teachers. 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. The first spouse went before the City Council . Her performance left council members blinking. By 2017, the movement she started expanded to 200 cities. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); document.getElementById( "ak_js_2" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Thanks for contacting us. The shooter, who is listed as a Department of Health employee in city records, filmed the first lady making ginger snaps on April 2 during the coronavirus lockdown. 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. 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. Council members learned Tuesday that only $30 million of Thrives $250 million annual budget an anemic 12 percent is spent on the seriously mentally ill, with the remainder of that enormously expensive burden shunted off to the citys more traditional social services agencies. A company representative, David Lombino, said Ms. McCray did not solicit the donation, which went to an internship program known as Ladders for Leaders. And while the funds bylaws define the chair as the lead fund-raiser, officials struggled to show her direct involvement with those efforts. The inquiries were closed in 2016 without charges being filed. It is not, in the end, just about money. The Phantom of the Opera The Final Curtain, California Consumer Limit the Use of My Sensitive Personal Information, California Consumer Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information, McCray says the citys mental health hotline, NYC Well, logged 33,000 texts, chats and calls this January, Some critics have said that Thrive focused too little on those with serious mental illnesses, The mayors most recent budget deal includes another $115 million in mental-health spending. Her public schedules indicate she spends even less: a total of 19.5 hours spent on fund activities in all of last year; 35 hours in 2016. .css-16c7pto-SnippetSignInLink{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;cursor:pointer;}Sign In, Copyright 2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Social PROOF Trump Indictment Will Likely Win Him 2024! 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. In January 1, 2014, de Blasio was sworn in as the Mayor and with that McCray became the First Lady of New York City. In at least two cases, a person made a campaign donation to Mr. de Blasio within days of one of Ms. McCrays calls on behalf of the fund. Same for her $65,000 associate director of advance.. A spokesman for Mr. Fetner, Sam Spokony, said there was no link between the donations and the development project. If you love what we do, please consider a $1/month donation to keep us live! But there are other mysteries out there, too. 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. Fast-forward to Wednesday, when the City Council was startled to discover that McCray and Team Thrive are closing in on having spent an eye-popping $900 million since the programs inception and nobody seems to have a clue on what. And its only (your) money even if it is quite a lot of it. There was little help from her parents, who had their own battles to fight. But she has at least six other city employees deputized to her office from other public agencies, as was first reported by The City. 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. All rights reserved. Jane Meyer, a spokeswoman for the mayors office, said that Ms. McCrays public schedules listed fund-raising calls made on behalf of the fund, but an analysis of those schedules showed just three such calls in the first three years Mr. de Blasio was in office. 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? The discovery shocked many of her dormitory mates. 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. The first spouse went before the City Council Tuesday tripping spectacularly over her own tongue while removing any doubt that her billion-dollar husbandly indulgence, ThriveNYC, amounts to an epic public policy swindle gussied up as a mental health program. Get hyperlocal forecasts, radar and weather alerts. Four years later, no one seems to know what that money was actually used for, according to the New York Post. Nearly a third of New Yorkers may be out of work thanks to the pandemic and lockdowns, but first lady Chirlane McCrays staff is thriving. Entitled, I Am a Lesbian, it tried to dispel the myth that there was no gay in Black community and also to assure Black lesbians that they were not alone. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. With a quarter of a billion dollars (!!) Theres a $117,000-a-year speechwriter, even though McCray held that same position under former Mayor David Dinkins, and a $150,000-a-year senior adviser who was recruited in April after de Blasio announced a hiring freeze to help close a $7 billion deficit caused by the coronavirus. We want to make sure that the mental health services are embedded and all of our city agencies wherever it's appropriate so that people have the services, where they live, where they work, where they go to school, McCray says. It was honorable work, it didnt cost very much and it filled up the spouses free time. From the fiscal year that began in July 2014 the first year the fund was under full control of Mr. de Blasio and Ms. McCray through June 2017, the fund raised an average of $22 million a year. And we were fortunate to have an infrastructure of services that people could turn to, says McCray. But lets be clear: If your boondogglery sets the New York City Council back on its heels, you truly are soaring with the eagles. Theres no separation as a practical matter.. 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. If theres a program thats been found to be effective, we should continue it.. The reason I say that all of Thrives budget is tailored to [all city residents] is because its very difficult to say [what] is the percentage of our population that is seriously mentally ill, concluded Mrs. Mayor without laughing. 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. They also mocked her, often contorting their mouths to make their lips look big. In that essay, McCray "frankly discussed her sexuality and expressed gratitude that she came to terms with her preference for women before marrying a man". The First Lady has also been working with local leaders from municipalities across the country, part of the Cities Thrive Coalition. [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. McCray says the citys mental health hotline, NYC Well, logged 33,000 texts, chats and calls this January up from 18,000 the year before, an 83% increase in use. Market data provided by Factset. And people did equate mental illness with homelessness, which is so wrong, says McCray. How about the Hurricane Sandy recovery effort six years, uncountable delays and billions of dollars later? The amount of time it takes to manage a $50,000 program or project is not infrequently the same amount of time that it might take to manage a $5 million program or project, said Darren Bloch, the executive director of the Mayors Fund, defending the staffing increase. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Thanks for contacting us. On Wednesday, councilmembers were huffing that de Blasio has been showering his wife with tax dollars with embarrassing results. And its only (your) money even if it is quite a lot of it. 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. Insight from Dr. Oscar Odom, former NYPD detective. Inside there is a small desk with a computer; a bookshelf is adorned with bibelots and certificates of appreciation with her name in fancy script. Don't we want people to be healthy? He also attended a meeting of philanthropic organizations at Gracie Mansion to discuss the initiative, at which Ms. McCray spoke. This story has been shared 110,413 times. She added, This is 2018; work can get done in all kinds of ways.. She was born eldest of her parents three children; she has two younger sisters named Cynthia and Cheryl. We've received your submission. McCray has a core team of eight staffers, according to a recent list provided to The Post following a Freedom of Information Law request filed in October 2019. [37], "Chirlane McCray in sling after birthday injuries", "De Blasio gripes about rules barring spouses from paid gigs in government", "Chirlane McCray, de Blasio's Wife, Is Questioned Over His 'Revolutionary' $1 Billion Mental Health Plan", "NYC'S New First Lady Makes Barbadians Proud - Caribbean and Latin America Daily News", "Chirlane McCray: From Gay Trailblazer to Politician's Wife", "Once Alienated, and Now a Force in Her Husband's Bid for Mayor: Chirlane McCray Plays Key Role in de Blasio Campaign", "Ancient History: The Lesbian Past of Bill de Blasio's Wife", "Bill de Blasio's wife, Chirlane McCray, on the "fluidity of love" and the political spotlight", "Pioneering Black Feminist Makes History Again", "The Family Bible Is a Guest for the Oath, but Not a Participant", "Bill de Blasio's wife, Chirlane McCray, opens up on her role as the mayoral race's most visible spouse", "At City Hall, Backstage Player Is Cast in Main Stage Uproar", "Rachel Noerdlinger, former Chirlane McCray aide, kept ex-con boyfriend updated through controversy", "De Blasio Appoints Chirlane McCray, His Wife, to Lead Nonprofit Group", "Once-Thriving City Nonprofit Sputters Under Mayor's Wife, Chirlane McCray", "NYC First Lady Chirlane McCray Weighs in on Federal Mental Health Reform", "ThriveNYC: A Mental Health Roadmap for All", "Chirlane McCray and the Limits of First-Ladyship", "With opaque budget and elusive metrics, $850M ThriveNYC program attempts a reset", "There's too much money in Chirlane McCray's hands", "First Lady Chirlane McCray considering run for office in 2021", "Chirlane McCray's latest hires hint at run for public office", "Family in the Spotlight: De Blasio's Wife, Children Provide Multiracial Backdrop to Likely Mayoral Bid", "Bill de Blasio's wife recalls him first learning that she was a lesbian", "When Bill de Blasio's Wife Was a Lesbian", "De Blasio Finally Settles Down at Gracie Mansion", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Chirlane_McCray&oldid=1144515944, This page was last edited on 14 March 2023, at 04:47.
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