Documented
“According to a report from the Street Vendor Project...there are around 20,000 people regularly selling merchandise, food, and art on city streets. The overwhelming majority are immigrants and people of color. Out of the survey group, 71% do not have permits and are at risk of getting fines, arrests and confiscation of their goods.”Gothamist
“'This is not ‘compassionate,’ it is a tragedy,' said Helen Strom, with the Safety Net Project of the Urban Justice Center. “'It’s time to stop this cruelty and redirect his focus to offering people housing.'”City Limits
“'People deserve privacy and safety,' advocates from the Urban Justice Center’s Safety Net Project tweeted Tuesday. 'There are thousands of empty hotel rooms,' they added, furthering a call to provide more desirable accommodations for people coming off the streets.”The 74
"David Shalleck-Klein believes child welfare agencies routinely violate the Constitution by carrying out unlawful searches and family separations — with disastrous consequences for the low-income Black and Hispanic families they disproportionately investigate... The attorney last week launched what he says is the nation’s first civil rights organization dedicated to fighting back against such violations: the Family Justice Law Center [which is part of the Urban Justice Center's SJA].”Wall Street Journal
“'Sweeps really only chase people from place to place, resulting in destabilization and criminalization,' said Helen Strom, benefits and homeless advocacy director at the Safety Net Project of the Urban Justice Center, in a statement Tuesday. 'If Mayor Adams were serious about resolving street homelessness, he would stop repeating the same inhumane, failed policing strategies of the past.'”World Socialist Website
“The latest sweeps against the homeless are not a new tactic. According to the advocacy group the Urban Justice Center, there were a total of 9,600 such actions between 2016 and 2021, more than 6,000 of them in the last year of the de Blasio administration.”Gothamist
“The city conducted 6,604 sweeps during the last year of the de Blasio administration, according to data obtained through Freedom of Information requests from the Safety Net Project of the Urban Justice Center.”AM NY
"We are at a historical moment. With The Tombs set to be replaced, and Rikers required to close by 2027, we must all be laser focused on two things: reducing incarceration, and protecting the human rights of people who are still detained."The Ticker
“Currently, vending without a permit results in a $1,000 fine, a punishment that Street Vendor Project Advocacy Director Mohamed Attia has said 90% of underground market operators have gone through.”New York Times
“Craig Hughes, a supervising social worker at the [Safety Net Project of the] Urban Justice Center, said the mayor’s plan was an escalation of a longstanding city approach that 'has always been an effort to hide homelessness rather than to get people housed' and that invariably 'leaves people more precarious than they were beforehand.'"© 2024 Urban Justice Center | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
