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Janae Pierre: Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Thursday, March 27th. Here's the midday news from Veronica Del Valle.

Veronica Del Valle: Developers are set to turn an abandoned police station in Brownsville, Brooklyn, into affordable housing after reaching an agreement with the city. WNYC's David Brand reports on the plan.

David Brand: The project hinged on a deal with the New York City housing authority. NYCHA's board agreed to transfer a sliver of land on the edge of its Howard Houses campus to the owners of a lot next door. That property is the site of a boarded-up NYPD precinct house that's been vacant since the 1980s. The transfer of land and development rights will allow the owners to build a 95-unit affordable housing complex. In exchange, the developers pledged to reserve at least eight apartments for Howard House's residents. NYCHA officials say it's the first deal of its kind in New York City.

Veronica Del Valle: Two best-selling authors are hosting an unusual live auction on Tuesday at Chinatown's iconic Golden Unicorn dim sum restaurant. Writer Otessa Moshfegh and writer and celebrity chef Eddie Huang are selling some of their personal items. That includes a used toothbrush and a fake Birkin bag. Huang says he thought it would be fun and he's excited to partner with a writer he admires.

Eddie Huang: My wife actually gave me her book and My Year of Rest and Relaxation was probably the best book I read in 10 years. When I got on Substack, the first person I looked for was her and found it, and we just became buddies.

Veronica Del Valle: The event is held in partnership with the newsletter platform Substack. It's part of the company's push to host more live events. Tickets are free, first-come, first-serve, to paid subscribers of either writer's newsletters. Right now it's 43 and sunny today, highs in the low 50s. Tonight, a slim chance of showers before midnight around 43. On WNYC, I'm Veronica Del Valle.

Janae Pierre: Stay close. There's more after the break.

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Sean Carlson: On WNYC, I'm Sean Carlson. City and state officials say wildfires are becoming more frequent in New York City and New Jersey as dry conditions in the Northeast continue. Just last Sunday, the New Jersey Forest Fire Service said firefighters contained a wildfire in a state park that grew to about 2,300 acres. What does this all mean for firefighters' mental health?

Well, joining us now to talk more about it is founder of Friends of Firefighters, Nancy Carbone, a counselor at Friends of Firefighters, Kia Carbone, and current FDNY firefighter and member of the Uniformed Firefighters Association, Michael Schreiber.

Nancy, can we start with you? Can you just tell us more about Friends of Firefighters and what led you to start it?

Nancy Carbone: I started it almost immediately after 9/11 when I, along with other people, went to a local firehouse to see how I could help. I met a firefighter there, John Sorrentino. After two or three months, he asked, along with other firefighters, if I could start a counseling facility outside of the department. It was very tiny, but it was functional. We now operate out of a firehouse as circa 1870s. That's, I think, part of why the firefighters are comfortable, because they are going to a firehouse and they feel at home.

Sean Carlson: Michael, generally speaking, I think it's fair to say that conversations about mental health have gotten less stigma as the years have gone on. Can you talk about the culture around mental health in the FDNY and how it has evolved over the past, say, 20 years?

Michael Schreiber: After 9/11, the services increased, the awareness increased, as well as the need. Slowly, I think the awareness throughout the population-- Again, we're not that much different from everyone else to today, where it is widely acceptable, we have peer counselors coming to the firehouse and offering services and leaving cards, and members reaching out for a variety of different reasons. I always say the FDNY, it's an aircraft carrier. It takes a long time to turn, but it does turn.

The fire department does an excellent job with this counseling services unit, which has been around for over 20 years. It's grown, but there's just not enough of them. I mean, we have 8,500 members. That's just firefighters, not including the 3,000 or so officers. That service is just overwhelmed. We have members that want to seek treatment but don't necessarily want their job to know exactly what's going on in their lives.

Friends with firefighters is a great opportunity for our members to seek that treatment and get the care that they need outside the department without worrying about any duty status change that might occur for them.

Sean Carlson: Kia, what kind of things do you hear from firefighters about their mental health and how has that changed, say, before and after the pandemic?

Kia Carbone: I think before the pandemic, there wasn't a lot being said. Then after the pandemic, I think we all realized we're on the same page and all kind of losing it together. I would say that my experience is more about the children. I have 11 kids that I see. The anxiety that they're coming in with, they're eight years old, and it's like adult-level anxiety. I think that that's definitely something that's changed since the pandemic.

I think the stressors that firefighters go through, they bring it home, but that strains the marriage, that strains the family dynamic, and the kids pick up on that. The things that the kids went through in the pandemic, they were home, doing school from home, not socializing. The anxiety of not knowing what was going on during the pandemic, I think we all experienced that even as adults, but you have a 5-year-old who doesn't know what's going on, 6, 7, 8, 12 years old, they're missing out on socializing.

What I see in the children across the board, anxiety, and they're having trouble sleeping. These are kids, they're supposed to sleep soundly at night and not care about anything. A lot of suicidal ideation, a couple suicide attempts from 12-year-olds that I see. It's devastating, but at the same time, they're all experiencing it. Just bringing them together is something that I want to do. That's why we have a children's program. If they all see that they're sharing those symptoms and ideas and heartaches, I think that will make it easier for them to help each other and themselves.

Nancy Carbone: There's just one thing. I don't want anybody to go away with the idea that the parent who is the first responder is coming home enraged. I think a lot of the first responders come home and they think they're hiding it, and so they swallow it, and it does bleed out. It bleeds out if they drop orange juice on the floor and it's an immediate response. They're not telling the stories about what they saw and what they did. It's a puzzle for the family sometime. It has a ripple effect. They think they're numb to it and they think they're not bringing it home, but it is coming home now.

Sean Carlson: Kia, I think firefighters witness some pretty horrific things day to day throughout the course of doing their job. How do the mental health needs of firefighters differ from folks who aren't in the FDNY or firefighters in general?

Kia Carbone: If you have a civilian who's not trained in any sort of first responder job, they can see one catastrophic thing in their life, somebody getting hit by a car, and that stays with them forever. That's the day-to-day for a firefighter. We hear about things on our apps like saying somebody jumped in the tracks, or there was an accident, or whatever. It's just a headline to us. Firefighters are seeing it. They're picking up pieces. They're keeping civilians away from the site. They're seeing a lot more than the average person ever sees in a lifetime.

Michael Schreiber: Absolutely. We see people on the worst days of their lives and we're expected to make it all better. Even if you have a successful outcome, that doesn't mean the trauma that you experienced in affecting that rescue or that resuscitation isn't long-lasting and isn't real.

Sean Carlson: Michael, can you talk more about the wildfires that we talked about that are happening more frequently? You listen to the news, you watch the news, you see it all the time. We saw this orange skies a year or two ago.

Michael Schreiber: We had a third alarm brush fire in Manhattan. That's never happened. You can blame it on whatever you want, but the reality is it's real. Departments all over the country are changing. We are a metropolitan department. We fight house fires, track fires, car fires. Large departments like ours are learning how to work the interface, as it's called. That's between the city and the wildlife, having these brush fires come in. We all know what happened with LA. That was a catastrophic, unforeseen, just taxed the ability of all of the resources that existed. In New York City, we can do brush fires. We don't do wildfires. That's actually something that we're looking at expanding and being able to send our members to be able to help in that capacity.

Sean Carlson: Nancy, we should note that there's a wait list for Friends of Firefighters and FDNY's Counseling Services unit. What would you like to see the City do to address firefighters' mental health needs?

Nancy Carbone: We need the financial support to expand. We expanded from two counselors in 2019 to 11 counselors, and we could easily hire five more and have them filled within two weeks. I understand Counseling Services Unit is having the same problem. They have referred people to us. We have the highest regard for them as well, but the wait list reached 60 people, with 20 of them children. That's just unacceptable to me to have people wait.

If they call for help themselves, we need to be there without a wait list. We need to be ready to take them in. Generally, when a first responder calls, it's already what they would refer to as a May Day. They don't say they see something coming. It doesn't feel right. It's usually there's already quite a few things that perhaps have damaged the relationships, or maybe substance abuse. The most dreadful would be suicide. Our goal would be to take suicide off the table. If we don't have a counselor, then to have the person connected to a peer, so we do have a peer program, and we have spouse groups for help.

Kia Carbone: I just want to add, if somebody calls in distress, we don't put them on the wait list. We talk to them and we get them the resources they need. Anybody who is on the waitlist, we check in with them periodically.

Nancy Carbone: There's an understanding that when you're depressed or upset, the phone- and we all know the phone weighs nothing- it could feel like 300 pounds because to make that call is very difficult. Especially for a first responder to say that, okay, I'm in a position now that I really need help is difficult. I would say a lot of the firefighters come to us because other firefighters say, you know what, go to Friends of Firefighters or go to CSU, you need help, but it's not the first thought, I think. I think their first thought is, "Oh, yes, I got this. Don't worry."

Sean Carlson: That was founder of Friends of Firefighters, Nancy Carbone, counselor at Friends of Firefighters. Kia Carbone, an FDNY firefighter and member of the Uniformed Firefighters Association, Michael Schreiber. Thanks so much to all three of you for coming on.

Nancy Carbone: Thank you.

Kia Carbone: Thank you.

Michael Schreiber: Thank you.

Sean Carlson: If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health, you can call 988 or visit NYC Well online. New York City teens can also access a free online therapy program called TeenSpace.

Janae Pierre: Thanks for listening. This is NYC Now from WNYC. Be sure to catch us every weekday three times a day for your top news headlines and occasional deep dives. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. See you this evening.

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