Eviction often just a bill away in NYC
It happened in the early hours of the morning. A hastily written bill to repeal Obamacare – the last in a quick succession of singleparty parliamentary manoeuvres choreographed by the Republican Senate majority – was defeated.
All Democratic senators, and three Republican senators, voted no. In the GOP, John McCain joined Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska in a vote of opposition to the bill. In doing so, he made good on a promise made earlier in the week to redevote himself to the core principles of the Senate:
‘‘Let’s trust each other,’’ he said. ‘‘Let’s return to regular order. We’ve been spinning our wheels on too many important issues because we keep trying to find a way to win without help from across the aisle. That’s an approach that’s been employed by both sides, mandating legislation from the top down, without any support from the other side.’’
Having arrived back to Washington DC from his Arizona hospital bed on Tuesday, it initially appeared McCain was not going to take the advice he eloquently – if haltingly – gave on the Senate floor. He voted to begin negotiations on repealing and replacing Obamacare, even though no senator had seen the bill they would be voting on in a matter of days. That ‘‘yes’’ vote was a blow to Democrats, who hoped McCain would stop the half-cocked process in its tracks.
But early Friday morning – DC time – McCain kept his word. When asked as he departed the Senate why he killed the bill, he simply said, ‘‘because it was the right vote’’.
This is a massive black mark against President Donald Trump, who campaigned hard on repealing and replacing Obamacare. Trump often quipped The President, who announced he was waiting ‘pen in hand’ to sign an Obamacare replacement, never delved into the policy details, never developed his own ideas, and never sold his vision to the politicians or the people. that it would be ‘‘easy’’, while promising not to touch Medicare or Medicaid – government programmes for low-income and elderly Americans. Trump also promised that he would ‘‘take care of everybody’’ in reforming healthcare.
None of this was true. The process was, of course, tortuous. Bills introduced by Senate Republicans would have deeply wounded Medicare and Medicaid and resulted in at least 15 million fewer Americans with health insurance.
There is plenty of blame to go around. Republicans in the House and Senate opposed Obamacare for seven years, and ran on repealing it in four elections.
But they did not use that time to craft a good alternative that resulted in better coverage and lower costs. The President, who announced he was waiting ‘‘pen in hand’’ to sign an Obamacare replacement, never delved into the policy details, never developed his own ideas, and never sold his vision to the politicians or the people.
McCain will return to Arizona soon to continue treatment for brain cancer. He hopes to leave behind a chastened, less dysfunctional Congress, willing to work across party lines to find a healthcare solution. It will be difficult. Both sides agree that a healthy economy demands healthy citizens. Both sides agree that more coverage, lower costs, quality healthcare, and greater efficiencies are the endgame. Both sides agree that having a pre-existing condition, or an illness that is expensive to treat, should not result in financial ruin.
But how to get there is where the ideological divide resides. Republicans believe that the market can solve the healthcare quandary, and that government mandates – setting minimum requirements for healthcare coverage, and requiring all Americans to have healthcare plans – make Americans less free.
Democrats believe that mandating coverage creates a large pool of insured people with varying healthcare costs that lowers the average costs for all. And that real ‘‘freedom’’ means access to quality, affordable healthcare that doesn’t carve out pre-existing conditions or impose lifetime caps on coverage.
On Tuesday night, John McCain reminded senators: ‘‘The success of the Senate is important to the continued success of America. This country – this big, boisterous, brawling, intemperate, restless, striving, daring, beautiful, bountiful, brave, good and magnificent country – needs us to help it thrive. That responsibility is more important than any of our personal interests or political affiliations’’.
As he returns to Arizona for the fight of his life, his fellow senators would do well to take his advice.
New York is a bright beacon of energy and opportunity that its residents and visitors feel – viscerally.
But that light doesn’t shine on everyone, most notably the city’s homeless population of more than 60,000 – including nearly 23,000 children, who sleep each night in the city’s shelter system.
The symbol of New York’s homeless isn’t the man sleeping on cardboard in a storefront in Times Square, it’s a child, often with a working parent, evicted from her home and forced to sleep alongside strangers in a shelter, night after night after night.
Music, light, and the plight of New York’s homeless formed a stirring conference on Wednesday night as British rock band Muse took the stage before an intimate crowd at the Central Park Summerstage. The band approached New York City’s Coalition for the Homeless to play this tiny venue. They wanted to perform a benefit concert in aid of the city’s children in need.
A drizzly afternoon gave way to a dry evening as cloud intermittently revealed blue sky and sunset’s glow. The stage was lit up like an ultraviolet UFO as Muse belted out their soaring brand of orchestral rock.
And we all forgot about life for a while. Well, almost. At the time, I reflected on the fact that the sky I revelled under I could leave behind for a secure bed 23 floors above the city. Not so for the people our tickets would go to support.
I spoke this week to Coalition for the Homeless policy analyst Jacquelyn Simone about the extent and causes of New York’s homelessness problem. She assured me that although ‘‘the homelessness crisis in New York City is deep . . . it is not intractable.’’
Housing in New York is just too expensive. And so families who earn minimum wage, who are one paycheque from eviction, are often cast into the shelter system after they go financially offbalance – after an unexpected bill, for example, that eats up some or all of a rent cheque.
New York City’s shelter system is a robust, billion-dollar system, established after courts in the 1980s determined that under the New York State Constitution, there is a right to shelter. But expanding the shelter system is not, according to the Coalition, the answer. Simone noted that ‘‘advocates for the homeless have long urged the city to devote more resources to permanent housing solutions for homeless families, which are far more humane and often more costeffective than the current overburdened and sometimes dangerous shelter system’’.
A 2016 study by the National Low Income Housing Coalition revealed that to afford a two-bedroom home in New York City, you have to earn US$30 an hour. New York City’s mandatory minimum wage is about $11 an hour. Many lowincome workers can’t earn anywhere near what it takes to survive in this city. Even people in the outer boroughs – Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island – are now crowding shelters.
So what is the way forward? New York State just recognised a right to a lawyer in housing court, meaning that defence against evictions will be institutionally strengthened. Governor Andrew Cuomo just released significant funds for the construction of 20,000 affordable housing units statewide over the next 15 years, many of which will be built in New York’s five boroughs.
I’m convinced that this is a problem that is solvable. All it needs is the right funding, political will and thoughtful communities who themselves feel the sharp bite of New York City’s expense.
Having British rockers play the odd show to help highlight the issue can’t do any harm, either. Many lowincome workers can’t earn anywhere near what it takes to survive in this city.