Evening Roundup: State Eyes Subway Safe Spaces, Mayor Adams Unveils Budget Proposal, Proposed Rent Hikes for Housing Vouchers, Neglect of Prison Nurses, and ...

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Janae Pierre: The New York State budget could fund safe spaces within the transit system for homeless people. Mayor Adams's City budget proposal, a proposed rent hike for New Yorkers with housing vouchers, the neglect of prison nurses, and a mayoral candidate's plan for homeless New Yorkers. From WNYC, this is NYC NOW. I'm Janae Pierre.

Governor Kathy Hochul wants a safer transit system for New Yorkers, and she's using the state's new budget to make it happen. The budget includes money to add a handful of new spaces in subway stations where mental health outreach workers can connect with homeless people. Hochul says the new spaces will allow outreach workers to have more privacy while they connect with those in need.

Governor Kathy Hochul: You don't have to have this conversation with thousands of commuters around. Dial down the stress of it for everybody and have it in a place where you can have more positive outcomes.

Janae Pierre: Governor Hochul says the budget is expected to expand who can be involuntarily hospitalized for mental health treatment. That's state dollars. Now let's get even more local. We have our first look at New York City Mayor Eric Adams's executive budget proposal. He'll have to negotiate a final version with the city council by July 1st, but his $115 billion plan includes new spending on policing, affordable housing, and an expansion of after-school programs. Adams is calling his spending plan "the best budget ever." The rosy budget comes despite looming federal budget cuts and an uncertain economy brought on by President Trump's tariffs.

City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams is among the candidates running to unseat Mayor Adams, and it remains to be seen how that will affect budget talks.

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Janae Pierre: Although the mayor's budget includes funding for affordable housing, thousands of low-income tenants who use city assistance to cover their housing costs could soon face a rent hike. WNYC's David Brand reports on a new proposal from the Adams administration.

David Brand: The city's social services agency is proposing a change to its CityFHEPS's Rental Assistance Program due to ballooning costs. The agency wants some voucher recipients to pay 40% of their income toward rent after five years, up from the current rate of 30%. About 52,000 low-income households use the vouchers. Agency Commissioner Molly Park says the change would affect about a quarter of them. Critics of the plan warn the increase will leave some families unable to pay for housing and put them at risk of becoming homeless. The city will hold a public hearing on the proposal, May 30.

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Janae Pierre: Reporters at The Marshall Project, an organization that focuses on criminal justice, are looking into prisoners' safety in jail infirmaries, calling them dens of hidden violence. More on that after the break.

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Janae Pierre: The beating death of a man in a New York state prison is once again renewing focus on the safety of correctional facilities in the Empire State. Late last year, 43-year-old Robert Brooks died after an attack by corrections officers at Marcy Prison. Now, many of the guards involved face charges, including murder, manslaughter, and gang assault. The officers involved allegedly beat the man in the jail's infirmary.

Joe Neff: A striking thing is that there are two nurses standing in the hallway looking into the infirmary.

Janae Pierre: That's Joe Neff with The Marshall Project, a journalism organization focused on criminal justice.

Joe Neff: Robert Brooks is handcuffed, and the guards are casually taking turns beating, choking him, and the nurses are out in the hallway, and they've ceded their workplace for the guards to commit act of violence against a handcuffed incarcerated person. That was really striking to us.

Janae Pierre: In addition to Robert's unlawful death, Joe and his colleague Alysia Santos are shedding light on some of that make prisons dangerous. Specifically, cases in which it was alleged that a prisoner was attacked by officers and then the medical staff neglected treatment or even an examination, failing to document any injuries. Alysia says they found at least 61 allegations like that since 2010. She shares one of the more serious cases.

Alysia Santos: We looked at a case that had happened at Greenhaven Prison, where a prisoner who was in a psychotic state was brought down to the infirmary for medication, and when he went to take it, it looked like he was going to spit it out, and they shoved his head down to put a spit hood on him, and they severed his spinal cord. He went from talking a lot to listless, as the state records state. Then when he was brought to his cell with a nurse present, the nurse just asked, "Are you hurting anywhere? Nothing hurts you? Oh, okay," and left and didn't examine this man, who then laid on the floor of his cell for 24 hours, was brought to the hospital, he had a severed spine and he ended up passing away.

Janae Pierre: Alysia says the state ended up firing the nurse involved because of neglect. However, Joe says there's a pattern. He adds that a nurse's first duty is to protect the health and well-being of their patients.

Joe Neff: That's their ethical guidelines, but they also have a dual loyalty to the guards who protect them as they escort them around the hospital or around the prison. Those competing loyalties can really trip things up.

Janae Pierre: In the case of Robert Brooks, who was beaten in the infirmary, Joe says the nurses did file reports, but those reports aren't available since it's part of a current investigation. It'll eventually come out through the court process, though. When it comes down to nurses being disciplined for not following proper protocol, retired investigators have said that the courts seldom charge nurses with bad behavior for cover-ups, partly because they feel sympathy. In a way, they call the nurses victims due to the violence in their workplace. Alysia reached out to the corrections union, but it didn't respond to a request for comment. She also reached out to the nurses' union.

Alysia Santos: The nurses' union responded with a statement saying that the safety of their members is their top union priority in dangerous institutional settings like prisons. That was the entirety of the statement. Then the commissioner of the Department of Corrections, he said in a statement that they're working with people and organizations inside and outside the department to make impactful change and try to end the violence. That was what they responded to us with.

Janae Pierre: That's Alysia Santos and Joe Neff, reporters with the Marshall Project.

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Janae Pierre: Many of the mayoral candidates have been talking about how they'd tackle homelessness on the subways. Zohran Mamdani is pitching a new idea that would base social services underground. WNYC's Elizabeth Kim met Mamdani at the Times Square station to learn more.

Elizabeth Kim: Rush hour commuters are zipping by us. A performer belts out Greatest Love of All, the song made famous by Whitney Houston. In the corner, Mamdani shows me an underground retail spot. It was once home to the legendary music store Record Mart, but it closed during the pandemic. Mamdani says he's eyeing the empty space for a new purpose.

Zohran Mamdani: Even if you just think about New Yorkers who are in a moment of crisis, in a mental health crisis, to just have a place they know they can go to, that is in the subway station where they can get just a moment of relief, a moment of care, a moment of guidance, it could be all the difference.

Elizabeth Kim: The Queen's assembly member is proposing a $10 million plan to convert vacant retail into social service hubs that can deliver services for the homeless. The idea has been successfully tried in Philadelphia. That city has a much smaller underground transit system and a total homeless population of around 5,000. Mary Brosnahan is the former head of the Coalition for the Homeless. She says the approach could work here.

Mary Brosnahan: From the perspective of just the everyday New Yorker or even people who are working on the front line, I think that this is a win-win, and I think that all the candidates should embrace this.

Elizabeth Kim: Mamdani isn't the only candidate who likes the idea. State Senator Jessica Ramos from Queens also backs it and says she's envisioning a "one-stop shop" that could assist New Yorkers with a host of issues beyond homelessness. Other candidates, like Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Adams, want the city to focus on hospitalizing those with severe mental illness on the subways. The MTA declined to comment on the feasibility of the model.

Janae Pierre: That's WNYC's Elizabeth Kim. Before we go, a quick history lesson to mark the day. Up until World War II, May 1 was known as Moving Day, the one day a year when people in New York City moved from one home to another because everybody's leases expired at the same time. Could you imagine it? Thousands of New Yorkers moving out of their apartments into another all at once. Man, I can only imagine the foot traffic as droves of people tote their belongings across town. So happy we're beyond those days. Anyway, that fun fact is courtesy of the New York Historical Society. Thanks for listening to NYC NOW from WNYC, I'm Janae Pierre. We'll be back tomorrow.

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