WORLD WORLDWIDE USA New York NY New York City NYC the city THE CITY News Journal Update - Limited pathways for NYC’s foster youth on display in Westchester residential program controversy, a first holiday at home after 27 years behind bars,

 

Dear New Yorkers,

Pleasantville — a quiet, leafy village in the town of Mount Pleasant, less than 20 miles north of New York City — feels like the movie-set version of an affluent Northeastern suburb.

If you talk to town officials, they will tell you that mayhem has arrived.

For more than 100 years, the village has coexisted more or less peacefully with the Pleasantville Cottage Campus, a residential program that currently houses about 160 young people with behavioral challenges. But recently, town officials and locals have accused the program of losing control of its young residents.

Nearly all those youth are in foster care, and most are from New York City. Pleasantville is 87% white, and almost all of the youth on the campus are Black or Latino.

An investigation by THE CITY and ProPublica found that Pleasantville is an extreme example of something occurring at similar programs across the state: Government child welfare authorities are placing kids with acute mental health challenges in facilities that are ill-equipped to handle them, largely because there’s nowhere else for them to go.

New York has shut down one-third of its beds for youth in state-run psychiatric hospitals since 2014 under a cost-capping “transformation plan” rolled out by former Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

The state has also greenlit the closure of more than half of the beds in residential mental health programs during the past decade, while failing to deliver on promises to expand home- and community-based mental health services to hundreds of thousands of young people.

Among the consequences: The shortage of mental health care is creating chaos at foster care programs like the Pleasantville campus.

Read more about the challenges in Pleasantville — and the state’s limited options for kids in such programs — here.

Weather scoop by New York Metro Weather Wednesday's Weather Rating: 6/10. Partly cloudy skies continue today, with high temperatures a bit warmer than yesterday — reaching the mid 40s. All things considered, this is another decent winter day. The vibes are all right!

Our Other Top Stories

After nearly three decades in state prison, David Herion, 50, was overjoyed to leave Sing Sing for his aunt’s apartment in Brooklyn last fall after Gov. Kathy Hohcul commuted his sentence. This is the story of his first holiday season at home after 27 years behind bars. Like many others newly freed from prisons, Herion found that adjusting to day-to-day life in mid-2020s America came with challenges. But with family and community support, Herion counts himself among the lucky ones: “Some people in my predicament, or those coming home right now, don’t have the luxury that was given to me,” he said. What’s up with City Hall’s approach of calling reporters “clowns”? The FAQ NYC podcast kicks off 2024 with a discussion of that and much more.

Reporter’s Notebook

Hochul Vetoes Wrongful Conviction and Family Compensation Bills

In the waning days of the legislative session, Gov. Kathy Hochul vetoed a slew of bills, including the Grieving Families Act and the Challenging Wrongful Conviction Act.

The Grieving Families Act would have made it easier for relatives of wrongful death victims to sue for emotional harm. But Hochul’s veto message cited concerns over how the law could potentially hurt small business owners and lead to a spike in insurance premiums.

Leszek Wiszowaty, whose 18-year-old son, Matthew, drowned in the turbulent waters of Queens’ Rockaway Beach in August 2021, slammed the move.

“We believe that this accident could’ve been prevented and the city is liable not only for our financial losses, but also for the emotional damage it caused,” he told THE CITY.

As for the Challenging Wrongful Conviction Act, the legislation would have made it easier for people to get potentially wrongful convictions heard by a judge and guaranteed access to a lawyer.

Hochul said she supported the intent of the legislation but worried the act would “flood the courts with frivolous claims.”

— Reuven Blau

Shook Ones: Mini-Quake Centered in Astoria

People in Queens and Manhattan woke up early Tuesday to rumbling caused by a 1.7 magnitude earthquake.

The seismic action happened underneath Astoria at 5:45 a.m., according to the United States Geological Survey. Soon after, the FDNY started receiving calls of loud explosions on Roosevelt Island, but couldn’t find the cause, officials said.

"I heard, it was like a big boom, and then the room shook," one person on the island told NBC New York.

At his weekly open press briefing Tuesday, Mayor Eric Adams said he didn’t feel the temblor, while his chief of staff Camille Joseph Varlack noted, “We’re waiting to get additional information.”

Earthquakes are rare in the city. Some New Yorkers felt tremors from a 5.8 magnitude earthquake in Virginia on Aug. 23, 2011 —  interrupting a press conference held by then-Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance.

— Katie Honan

City Hall Eyes Toxic Shelter Site

Officials with the Adams administration say a new migrant shelter planned for a potentially contaminated site along the Gowanus Canal will be heavily scrutinized before being approved.

Last month THE CITY reported that the building at 130 Third St. in Brooklyn sits in a zone so hazardous that a city board in 2004 rejected residential conversion of the site over concerns about its proximity to the canal and other highly toxic properties — including a former gas plant.

When asked about the shelter and potential dangers at Mayor Eric Adams’ weekly off-topic press conference on Tuesday, Deputy Mayor of Operations Meera Joshi said the site will be checked by multiple agencies and if it doesn't pass muster, "it will be taken off the list."

— Greg B. Smith

Things To Do

Here’s what’s going on around the city this week.

Friday, Jan. 5: “Vertigo of Color: Matisse, Derain, and the Origins of Fauvism,” a drop-in drawing workshop with teaching artists and all materials provided. Free with museum admission from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Met Fifth Avenue, Gallery 963 in the Robert Lehman Wing. Saturday, Jan. 6: Winter Tea in Prospect Park, featuring a nature walk followed by tea, music and a multilingual poetry performance. Free (RSVP required, limited space) from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Boathouse in Prospect Park. Saturday, Jan. 6 and Sunday, Jan. 7: Mulchfest: Chipping Weekend, in which the Parks Department will chip your Christmas tree and turn it into a bag of mulch for you to take home. Free from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at various locations in the five boroughs.

THE KICKER: The first New Yorker born in 2024 was delivered at NYC Health + Hospitals/South Brooklyn Health — by the same doctor who’d delivered the newborn’s father at that hospital 23 years earlier. It was also the hospital’s fifth year in a row delivering the first baby born in the city.

Thanks, as always, for reading. Make it a great Wednesday.

Love,

THE CITY

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