CITY Y TRIES TO
YMCAs lay off nearly half of staff over staggering COVID
The YMCA of Greater New York, which boasts 24 branches throughout the Big Apple and dozens more satellite facilities, has laid off nearly half of its staff — about 1,700 people — since the outset of the coronavirus pandemic.
The vast majority of those cuts, 1,599 in total, were reported to the state Sept. 15. Before the pandemic, the non-profit had a permanent staff of 3,600.
The financial pain began in March when the state ordered gyms to shut down, and it has been almost constant since then.
“It’s really hard,” Sharon
Greenberger, president of the Greater New York Y, told the Daily News. “There’s a lot of uncertainty.”
Greenberger estimates the Y has lost $80 million in revenue over a seven-month span, mostly from lost membership dues and having to shut its youth hostels.
“We stopped collecting memberships fees after March 15th, and realized a week or two into this that we were going to be losing a significant amount of revenue,” she said. “We furloughed a lot of people.”
The furloughs continued for months.
Then in June, the Y laid off 120 people permanently. The 1,599 workers reported laid off in September were already on unpaid leave. State law limits unpaid furloughs to six months, triggering the latest round of layoffs.
Patti Davis, a former vice president of development, lost her job in June. She has refinanced her mortgage and searched in vain for work.
“It’s been an emotional roller coaster,” she said.
Davis said she understands the economics of why the Y laid her off, but said it stings all the same.
“I knew the Y was going to have to take a knife to the personnel roles,” she said, recalling the gym closures. “Intellectually, I got it. But emotionally, it’s brutal.”
Davis is fully aware she’s not the only one suffering.
Sonia Atherly, executive director of the Bedford Stuyvesant YMCA, said nearly everyone on staff was furloughed in March. In the summer, when the BedStuy Y held a handful of fitness classes outdoors, only seven instructors were brought back.
About 30 more have come back since the Bed-Stuy Y reopened its doors in September, but many more remain out of work.
“We can’t afford to hire the staff we had before,” Atherly said.
Everyone has heard the 1978 Village People song praising the Y — groundskeepers at Yankee Stadium have for years danced to the iconic song between innings.
Mayor de Blasio is also a huge fan, though his devotion to the Prospect Park Y has resulted in years of derision over the long drives there from Gracie Mansion.
But in New York City, the YMCA is more than a chain of gyms.
Blacks fleeing the Jim Crow South found their first New York homes at the Harlem Y.
The Y continues to provide free after-school programs for
10,000 city public school kids, and it still offers services to scores of newly arrived immigrants. But Greenberger said those services could yet be lost to revenue shortfalls.
To save them, the Y started a $5 million revenue drive — an effort Greenberger is urging Y devotees to support.
“We will need extensive support to stay sustainable,” she said. “What we’re trying to say to folks is, ’Please come in and see what we’ve done. We’ve implemented a whole series of protocols that are focused on health and safety. We’re doing temperature scans, extra cleaning, social distancing of the equipment.’”
The savings carved out from furloughs and layoffs, as well as funding for programs sponsored by the city and other non-profits — such as pre-K classes and providing shelter for the homeless — has helped the Y stay afloat since March.
And the pandemic, while inflicting unprecedented pain on the Y, has also created new sources of money.
The non-profit already housed about 750 homeless people citywide before the pandemic. Now, it provides shelter to about 1,100.
“The city was seeing such a dramatic increase in need,”
Greenberger said. “It was a time when the subway was closing down at night and service providers were working to house those who would normally be sleeping on the subways.”
Seven Y facilities also host 300 children in pre-K and 3-K classes, and 22 Y locations host learning labs, which are projected to provide 4,300 children with a place to attend remote learning classes when they’re not attending school in-person.
The homeless and pre-K programs, funded by the city, provide the non-profit with much-needed revenue.
Y leaders are also finding other creative ways to serve people. Some fitness classes have migrated online and outside to the Y’s outdoor facilities and at least one city park.
The 24 YMCA branches in New York City are all open to some degree, but only 10 have re-opened gym and pool facilities at limited capacity.
The partial re-openings of gyms and pools are a glimmer of hope Greenberger aims to build on.
“We’ve been around for 170 years, and we are going to do everything we can to be around for another 170 years,” she said. “We know how important we are to the city.”