The Century Foundation, Robin Hood, and Next100 Have Developed 'From Crisis to Opportunity: A Policy Agenda for an Equitable NYC'
...When a new mayoral administration takes office in January 2022, alongside a City Council with dozens of newly elected members, they will face the herculean task of getting New York City back on its feet. Unprecedented challenges and a wide range of immediate concerns, in nearly every area of public life, will await city leaders on day one. An equitable recovery will require deft policymaking, creativity, innovation, genuine engagement with New Yorkers, and collaboration with the private, nonprofit, and philanthropic sectors.
To help guide and hasten that recovery, our three institutions—Robin Hood, The Century Foundation, and Next100—have developed a bold and ambitious policy agenda for the incoming mayoral administration to create a more fair, equitable, and just New York City. The agenda was developed through a comprehensive, inclusive policy process that combined the knowledge and experiences of New York City’s largest anti-poverty organization and its community partners with the expertise of two leading think tanks with a proven record of effecting policy change at all levels of government.
In developing From Crisis to Opportunity: A Policy Agenda for an Equitable NYC, our teams relied on focus groups and conversations with residents, advocates, nonprofits, and other stakeholders. After conducting a large initial survey of New Yorkers and analyzing data on various hardships New Yorkers experienced during the pandemic, we identified six key issue areas that present both considerable challenges for residents, as well as opportunities for policy impact: child care, education, economy and jobs, housing, policing, and human services.
Across the six issue areas, we convened a series of roundtables to gain insights from New Yorkers with lived experience, grassroots community organizations, and local and national policy experts. Our policy recommendations are informed by what we heard from those conversations, as well as by evidence, best practices, and lessons learned from across the country. The agenda was also shaped by data from Robin Hood’s pioneering Poverty Tracker, a longitudinal survey of 4,000 New York City households that provides a dynamic view of poverty, hardship, and disadvantage in the city. We structured the report such that each issue area provides goals for a new mayor; followed by background on the problem and current needs; and concludes with a series of recommended policy responses, which include projections for the impacts associated with different policies as well as new polling showing overwhelming, enthusiastic support for the proposals across the board...