ABC 7 NY

Advocates support Mayor de Blasio's decision to close Rikers, with conditions there rapidly deteriorating - it is dangerously overcrowded, filthy, and severely short-staffed. Many at Rikers are still awaiting trial, and are innocent until proven guilty. "They're not just inmates or people that are sitting there because they committed a crime or like I like to say, they were accused of a crime. They haven't had a day in court," said Edwin Santana.

Harlem World News

Urban Justice Center [Street Vendor Project]: $100,000 to help New York City’s street food vendors reduce pollution and protect their health and that of their customers by adopting greener technologies and practices. The Center will share environmentally friendly designs for food carts and trucks, as well as establish a citywide coalition to promote more sustainable and healthy street food vending.

Fox 5

The Urban Justice Center's Street Vendor Project has launched a citywide scavenger hunt to help local vendors rebound. "We wanted to raise awareness about the street vendor community to get New Yorkers to celebrate street vendors across the city and also support our work as an organization," said Mohamed Attia, the managing director of the Street Vendor Project.

CBS News

When a correction officer doesn’t come to work, people don’t eat. People miss medical appointments. People are committing suicide. People are dying,” said Brandon Holmes co-director of Freedom Agenda. “Now, this vaccine mandate, yes, can be a tool to make sure that they are held accountable.

Queens Daily Eagle

 The degree of civilization in the city can be judged by entering its jail, and it would be fair to say that we are living in a state of barbarism,” said Darren Mack, the co-director of Freedom Agenda. “I urge [the City Council] to move forward with the borough based plan if we want to rid ourselves of a barbaric system.

Gothamist

"The Mayor has failed to address the fact that thousands of guards are still collecting their paychecks without working, while incarcerated people have been abandoned in de-facto lockdown without adequate food, recreation, medical care, access to courts and more for months,” said Darren Mack, co-director of Freedom Agenda, an organization pushing for decarceration. “The guards who are working have also been abandoned by their co-workers who are abusing leave policies, and by COBA, whose leadership seems more concerned with the nearly one-third of their members who aren't working with incarcerated people than the 70% who are putting in overtime to cover for them.”

NY State

“Associate Director of the Government Affairs for Sex Workers Project of the Urban Justice Center Andy Bowen said, "With Governor Hochul's signature on the START Act, SWP sends its deepest thanks to the Governor, along with sponsors Senator Jessica Ramos and Assembly Member Richard Gottfried, for giving so many of our clients past and present greater hope for the future...With START's enactment, we will see many kinds of healing."