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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. With us now David Jones, president, and CEO of Community Service Society, which describes itself as a nonprofit organization that promotes economic advancement and full civic participation for low-income New Yorkers. Now, David Jones is also on the Advisory Council of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and very relevant to the conversation we're about to have, he's an MTA board member.

One of the reasons we invited him back on the show for today. He's a member of the blue ribbon MTA panel, now involved with finding solutions to fare evasion, we'll talk about that. We'll talk about the New York City rent guidelines board, preliminary vote last night, raising rent-stabilized rents from 2% to 6% depending on your lease, and more. David, always good to have you on, welcome back to WNYC.

David Jones: Thank you very much, Brian. I appreciate it.

Brian Lehrer: Let's get right to fare evasion. We had MTA chairman, Janno Lieber on the show on Wednesday, and here's some of what he said about the fare evasion issue when I asked if creating this panel risks contributing unnecessarily to mass incarceration of largely young Black and Latino New Yorkers for small violations.

Janno Lieber: I'm not interested in criminalizing a kid who makes a mistake. That's not the point of this. That's why I put so many civil rights leaders who have spoken out about fareness in the enforcement of fare evasion on this panel.

Brian Lehrer: I guess you're one of those civil rights leaders. One more clip, he didn't even like me referring to this as a crackdown.

Janno Lieber: I lean away from the crackdown idea because what we're trying to do is to develop a strategy, that's not a crackdown that's not over-reliant on enforcement, but as I said, you use the tools of education and affordability, as well as a more balanced and even-handed enforcement approach.

Brian Lehrer: David, maybe we can enter right there, where he says this is not a crackdown, but tools of education and affordability. Can you go into what education and affordability might mean if you also accept that language?

David Jones: Yes. I think I've been raising this issue for my last three and a half years on the board of the MTA. I'm pleased that Janno Lieber has talked about equity and fareness. The problem has been that enforcement has been very selectively targeted at Black and brown communities. The numbers were staggering when I first heard them. Well over 90% of the stops and arrests involved young people of color.

This hopefully, is a new departure. I'm taking the chair at his word, that we're going to work out something more equitable. I think this is also about the fact that when we really dig into the numbers, the real problem of fare evasion isn't in the subways. It's actually in the buses, and particularly in Staten Island but there's never been an enforcement of fare evasion in that regard. I think education should be obviously alerting all people, all customers, that this can lead to unforeseen consequences, and whether that's in signage or talking to young people in schools, that's clearly one way to go about that.

It's also we have to use structures. Essentially the slam gates, which most of your listeners know about, that's been one of the chief ways, at least in the subways. Someone goes through with a stroller, and then a whole crowd of people follow through. It clearly is not universal, but almost in every community, you see this problem. My concern has been in every other community, there is no enforcement.

There's a commitment by the MTA and Janno that we're going to see even-handed enforcement that will not only hit people in Bedford-Stuyvesant or at Fulton in Nostrand near where I grew up but also in Wall Street. Again, this is a first step but we have to deal with it. I'm not calling for a free pass for people not to pay their fare. I think it does have a disturbing impact on people who do pay and they say, "What kind of SAP am I? I'm paying and no one else is."

Brian Lehrer: Yes. That came up with Janno Lieber on Wednesday. He said people who pay the fare increasingly feel like suckers when they see people fare beating and that that's on the rise, but I'll tell you he got a big response on Twitter, from some of our listeners saying they really don't feel that way.

David Jones: Again, I've raised the question about using fully armed police officers to be the main vehicle for stopping fare evasion. I think it's long-headed. I think other systems, and I've suggested over and over again, that we should deploy what the equivalent of meter people in front of all the gates in uniform. Not to get into arguments with people, but to at least have a uniform presence. I think that would have a large impact in deterring people.

Moreover, it would be just like meter people are trained not to get into a fight when they're given a ticket. We tell people that, do not go into a whole business if someone just adamantly refuses or physically threatens, but at least having a radio on the meter person who could alert armed personnel. I'm just terrified every confrontation, that could potentially take place between an armed police officer and a young person can escalate into awful outcomes for either the police officer or for the young person involved. It's just too dangerous to do it that way.

Brian Lehrer: By the way, credit to our transportation reporter Stephen Nessen, who tweeted out that part of the Janno Lieber segment here that reference to Lieber saying people feel like suckers. It was Stephen's tweet that brought a lot of responses from people saying they as individuals, anyway, don't feel that way. You mentioned the buses as being a bigger problem than the subways. How do you enforce against fare invasion on a bus? The driver is not a cop?

David Jones: Well, no. Drivers have made it very clear because they've had some instances where drivers have been physically assaulted when they start to question why people haven't paid a fare. They've made it clear, "We are here to drive the bus not to enforce." Now, there are other parts of the world where they do this. They have ticket collectors, who are on the bus. We have something called the eagle team, which is not a police officer, but someone well trained, who's supposed to go on and check but it hasn't been particularly effective.

The new OMNY system will hopefully have some impact, but I think we're going to have to have people going through buses more routinely, to check whether people have actually paid their fare. Other systems around the world have been in front of this and dealt with it. I think [unintelligible 00:08:22] said, "You're not going to be able to eliminate fare evasion entirely, but you can bring it down to manageable levels." That's what we should be looking for.

What I get concerned about I don't want to conflate the issue of fare evasion, with violent crime. That was the scariest thing that starts to evolve. The argument is, well, most of the people who were involved in some of these problems, didn't pay the fare. As I've said to people, it may not be a good analogy, if I stopped 100,000 people in Wall Street, I could find a number of people who are bad actors too. It's just too big a sweep, and I don't want the public to confuse fare evasion with violence.

Moreover, I'm very concerned that this demeans our police force. As I found out early on about two-thirds of the work at least back when I was asking of the police force in the subways was geared to fare evasion. If you ask people on a random basis, what they want the police force for, they want them walking through the trains. They want them policing the platforms to make sure that no one gets attacked.

They want to make sure like this poor woman who fell down the stairs with her baby in a stroller because it was icy. I want police officers doing like the old golden books, helping people rather than spending all this expertise on fare evasion prevention.

Brian Lehrer: You are going in one direction it seems like Mr. Lieber is going in another direction.

David Jones: I don't think that's quite fair. I think obviously what we're talking about is that we spearheaded the effort for the half-price fare, fair fares. Clearly, we have alternatives but the pickup rate for fair fares it's about a quarter of a million people who signed up but its utilization is not widely known. Particularly among communities in Queens and the rest, they don't know about it. We have to amp that whole process up so people know that they can get a half-price fare if they're below poverty.

This is particularly not only true for the general population, this is true for immigrants. This is true for young people trying to get to community college and college because it starts to mount up. If you have a part-time job and have to go to community college, what can mean $5 around trip can end up $10 before you're finished with a day. For a community college student that becomes a lot of money fair fares could help there but there are other ways to do it.

The question of diversion maybe if you get a tab summons which is what it's called, you owe $100. If you couldn't pay $2.75 the notion that you're going to be able a couple of $100 is ridiculous. It may be a diversion program. Maybe you have to sit through a 30 or 40-minute video on what can happen if you get a criminal even if a misdemeanor arrest record. How it can hurt your future or you can do community service, whatever it is we have to find alternatives.

That's what I'm going to be certainly pushing for on this panel. We've got to find something better than this and we have to assure that young person at Nostrand in Fulton that the system is not only targeting them but also targeting people in three-piece suits. Used to be three-piece suits before the pandemic. Suits who have more than adequate resources and they shouldn't even blink for $2.75 or even less if you get a weekly, a monthly pass.

Brian Lehrer: Used to be three-piece suits. Now it's pajamas in their dens. My guest is David Jones president and CEO of the Community Service Society which promotes economic advancement and full civic participation for low income New Yorkers. He's also on the MTA board. Now on the MTA panel involved with finding solutions to fare evasion. You mentioned fair fares, that half-fare program for people who qualify. Sheldon on Twitter writes the solution to fare evasion is getting rid of fares altogether. Want to get people to use less cars and save the planet get rid of bus and subway fares, pie in the sky, David?

David Jones: At this point I would like to say and I think many of us on the board would like to see alternative revenue streams to support our subway and buses. It is the glue that holds the whole region actually MTA together. I think what the individual says would be ideal. Looking at the finances ever of MTA at this point, I don't see that happening anytime soon. In the meantime, we have to come up with serious discounts for people who don't have the resources to travel to work and school.

I do agree that the ideal would be a free transportation system and it has been suggested in many places around the world, it hasn't come to fruition yet. Particularly because our MTA system is extraordinarily more than most systems dependent upon the farebox. That's a mistake I think we have to have revenue streams coming in because we have to recognize the business and social imperative of having our transportation system accessible to everybody.

Brian Lehrer: Shahid in Bed-Stuy you're on WNYC with David Jones. Hi, Shahid.

Shahid: Hey, good morning everyone. I believe Mr. Jones is hitting on a number of salient points. Number one I think the idea of the subway system being used to transport people back and forth to their daily workplaces is a prime motivation for the purpose of the subway anyway in a capitalist system like this in New York. It should be free because it's not charged people and criminalized them a lot.

Now listen I, myself have heard Donald Trump on television say, "For you to pay your taxes is for you to be accepted." Now when four people or when less endowed people with finance hear that, what do you think we think about when it's time to go to work if you don't have your money? If either you don't go to work, just leaving your job, or drop the subway turns out in Bed-Stuy where I live.

Brian Lehrer: Shahid, I'm going to go because we have a terrible connection but please call us back another time. He's making a point. I think I heard through the crackle about people who really can't pay the fare trying to go to work. You can say how much of a problem you think that is. This is not a segment in which I thought Donald Trump would come up. Shahid makes the interesting point about Trump setting that template for-- Of course, I try to pay as little tax as possible which almost helps give permission to people to say, "Of course, I try to get away without paying my fare share to the government in fares."

David Jones: Actually, the fair fare campaign kicked off out of some research we did. We do an annual survey called The Unheard Third and out of the blue we started to get people saying that they were having real difficulty paying for just the basic cost of transportation to and from work and school. That kicked this off. There is, a quarter of our respondents outer below poverty coming back with us. What seems to be a pittance to many New Yorkers is a big barrier to others.

That's why the fair fares program occurred and that's why we're terrified of penalizing people who really because of financial problems can't afford this and being denied the right to get to school and work and contributing in their taxpayers. It's not like this is any free ride. They're paying taxes to the city and state. I think we have to just get off this and try to distinguish the different problems in fare evasion. One is economic there's no question. The other I'll take the Trump way, "If I can get away with it let me do it," but I don't want to conflate everything together. People have different motivations and we should treat them differently.

Brian Lehrer: This is WNYC FM HD and AM New York WNJT FM 88.1 Trenton, WNJP 88.5 Sussex WNJY 89.3 Netcong, and WNJO 90.3 Toms River. We are New York in New Jersey public radio and live streaming at wnyc.org at eleven o'clock, a few more minutes with David Jones, president of the Community Service Society. In our last few minutes, one of the things I want to do is get your take on the rent guidelines board vote last night a preliminary vote not final but that would allow rent increases for rent-stabilized departments of 2% to 4% for one year leases and 4% to 6% for two-year leases.

Now during the low inflation de Blasio years as you know David, the increases were smaller sometimes zero. Now we have landlords arguing inflation is taking a toll on them. Tenant advocates arguing there is an eviction crisis in the making if rents go up, where do you come down?

David Jones: I am concerned. I think this is very dangerous partially because the arguments for these increases have been framed that this is going to hurt or if not available will hurt smaller homeowners and their tenants. Apparently, when you look at the data, rent-stabilized apartments are overwhelmingly in larger multiple apartment buildings. We're talking about big landlords. We're not talking about like my parents they had one or two tenants in Crown Heights and that helped them pay the mortgage. That's not who's at risk here. These are moneyed interests who are putting out a lot of things but using as a vehicle to justify this, that this is an attack on small homeowners who have renters, it's not. I'm afraid of that, but also this is like a zero sum game. If we further impoverished or lead to an even greater eviction problem which is in the offering because of the ending of the moratorium, our homeless crisis which is extraordinary now. I think 80,000 people homeless will balloon credibly. We'll look back at these days, Oh, we just had 80,000. Now we have hundreds of thousands.

That's really the danger here that in this sense, by pressing renters who are already at the edge, who are already reporting in anything you see in the data that they can't afford even what they've got, you're going to drive the homeless numbers and the cost to ordinary taxpayers is huge of supporting a homeless population in substandard housing and in substandard conditions will cost taxpayers multiples of what we're discussing here. I am opposed to significant increases.

I do not want to hurt small homeowners with apartments, but I don't want to say that these larger renters who have pockets should suddenly get an advantage of this. That's my feeling.

Brian Lehrer: Is there any structure that you could propose to the Rent Guidelines Board, the notorious RGB to separate small landlords and big corporate landlords because I think they've always come under the same category for the making of this policy but what you say makes a lot of common sense that there are different kinds of faiths and fortunes at risk among the landlords.

David Jones: I think it might be interesting if we start having the Rent Guidelines Board actually make that data available, just how many apartments and who owns those apartments, and what the scale is? Then the public can see maybe a differential. Maybe you say, if you're small and little you've got a couple of apartments. You can get some rebate of some sort, some advantage. Maybe we can lower taxes or do other methods to keep people in place I'm trying desperately not to lead to more mass evictions.

That's what has to be the overriding discussion that goes on in the city of New York. We can't lead to another mass eviction crisis. We're already seeing sharp jumps in evictions and that spells an incredible burden, obviously for those people and their families, but also for the tax paying public

Brian Lehrer: David Jones, president, and CEO of the Community Service Society. David, we always appreciate when you come on with us. Thank you so much.

David Jones: Any time, Brian.

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