The Times added: "A spreadsheet of nearly 500 data points tracked by City Hall included almost none related to patient outcomes". The City Council discovered this shocking amount of potential waste during a meeting Wednesday. The program spearheaded by Chirlane McCray, wife of Mayor Bill de Blasio, has an annual budget of $250 million Chirlane McCray, shown at New York City Hall on Feb. 25, created ThriveNYC as a . The U.S. economy no longer looks so exceptional. Ms. Baierlein was hired last year as director of development. McCray says the citys mental health hotline, NYC Well, logged 33,000 texts, chats and calls this January up from 18,000 the year before, an 83% increase in use. Some critics have said that Thrive focused too little on those with serious mental illnesses. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Make some of my familys favorite cookies with me: Ginger snaps! The couple has two children, a son called Dante and daughter called Chiara. "[2] She chaired the Mayor's Fund to Advance New York City and was appointed by her husband to lead a billion-dollar initiative called ThriveNYC. That is, once upon a time, first spouses were content to pretend to be in charge of prettifying highways and things. Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more Fox News politics content. And it's only (your) money even if it is quite a lot of it. The rejection by her friends sowed the seeds of social and political activism. McCray says she is not running the Office of Community Mental Health Susan Herman is. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Thanks for contacting us. Fast-forward to Wednesday, when the City Council was startled to discover that McCray and Team Thrive are closing in on having spent an eye-popping $900 million since the programs inception and nobody seems to have a clue on what. From her mothers previous marriage, she also has a half brother called Reginald Jackson. How many other big-bucks initiatives are in similar straits is unknowable mostly because bureaucrats never blow the whistle on themselves and also because Gothams formal watchdog, city Comptroller Scott Stringer, is among the most incurious individuals ever to hold the office. That it should happen in a single week is worse its an embarrassment. Refined through trial and error and a global pandemic, the mental-health effort is now focused on 30 services and has been rebranded as the Mayors Office of Community Mental Health. The inquiries were closed in 2016 without charges being filed. McCray and de Blasio were married in 1994 in Prospect Park, Brooklyn. During the tenure of President Clinton, she worked for the New York Foreign Press Center as a public affairs specialist. That two such scandals should bubble to the surface unannounced is bad enough. [22][23] ThriveNYC promotes a shift from a traditionally more reactive model, which can strain police, prisons, hospitals, and schools,[24] to an integrated public health approach focusing on awareness and early identification. This seems laughingly obvious, except that this is Gotham and Mrs. Mayor may simply be fronting her programs principal beneficiaries the municipal unions and the nonprofits. 2023 NYP Holdings, Inc. All Rights Reserved, De Blasio and McCray's pathetic NYPD meddling, The suite life: Debt-ridden de Blasio spending thousands to live large at Brooklyn hotel, Taken for a ride: De Blasio still gets NYPD security, despite misuse pay refusal, Not thriving: Rebranded mental health agency needs leader, says critics. We have elected officials or health commissioners or both, in more than 200 cities, who share information, share best practices, get together and talk about what they're doing so that they can duplicate each other's programs, says McCray. But in the end, McCray insisted Tuesday, all the spending is to the benefit of every New Yorker. McCray says they are working to help those very people, by connecting them to services rather than placing them in psychiatric wards. This naked abuse of his public trust puts the lie to all de Blasios endless moral sanctimony. The mayors most recent budget deal includes another $115 million in mental-health spending, an effort McCray says to respond to the mounting mental health care needs of city residents after months of uncertainty and trauma brought on by the pandemic. A company representative, David Lombino, said Ms. McCray did not solicit the donation, which went to an internship program known as Ladders for Leaders. This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. The other two are immigration and youth work force. As the wife of New York City Mayor, Bill de Blasio, she is also the First Lady of New York City since 2014. Fourteen city workers assisting McCray cost taxpayers $2 million a year most of it buried in the payrolls of various city agencies until former Post reporter Yoav Gonen pulled together the details for online paper The City. That is, once upon a time, first spouses were content to pretend to be in charge of prettifying highways and things. McCray added that she would not run for mayor of New York City. TRUE All Along? Ms. Harris missed only one board meeting in the last four years she served as chairwoman, the period for which records were available. [29], In March 2018, McCray stated that she was "seriously considering" running for office in 2021 (the year that de Blasio's second and final term as New York City mayor ended). They include the $70,000 videographer McCray brought on in February. Even as fund-raising has stalled, the fund has moved into larger offices which include a new, private office for Ms. McCray and the cost of running the operation has increased by more than 50 percent in the last two years. We have statistics from the very beginning. https://t.co/fqUIyfFc8Z. One can only imagine what a mad scramble those meetings are. Several people on the list, when asked about the call, either did not remember the interaction or did not recall discussing donations. She/her. Fellow contender, City Councilman Antonio Reynoso (D-Brooklyn), slammed the spending. Chirlane McCray was assigned a $850million budget for her ThriveNYC program But records show scheme has failed to keep track of what it spent the money on The small amount of data that was. Four years later, no one seems to know what that money was actually used for, according to the New York Post. That the co-mayors could fly under the radar to burn through $1.6 billion to no obvious good effect is an embarrassment but understandable in the abstract. If youre civic-minded, youre probably involved in campaign support as well as philanthropy and the rest of it, so its hard to. [8] McCray cites her early experience with racism and bullying as part of the reason she began to write, using her poetry as an outlet for her anger. But another pattern is revealed by the calls: almost half of those contacted by Ms. McCray were contributors to her husbands mayoral campaigns (the Simonses each gave the maximum donation to Mr. de Blasios re-election campaign last year). [25][26] In February 2019, Politico criticized ThriveNYC for having an "opaque budget" and "elusive metrics". On January 27, 2013, as her husband, Bill de Blasio, announced his candidacy for Mayor of New York City, Chirlane McCray took up a new role, accompanying him on his campaign. How much taxpayer money will the mayors wife pilfer before leaving office? Read our full Disclosure. [11], In 1991, McCray entered politics. So, ipso presto, co-Mayor Bill coughed up enough cash to break a pack mules back and sent it off to co-Mayor Chirlane who then went forth to cure Gothams mental-illness problems. Learn More. The rescue deal will see JPMorgan take on all of First Republics $92 billion in deposits and buy most of its assets, heading off a collapse that threatened to reignite the recent banking crisis. That is bad news for the dollar. Same for her $65,000 associate director of advance.. But also mayoral spouse Chirlane McCray, who has just been revealed as a world-class boondoggler in her own right. With over 22,000 layoffs of city workers looming, the mayor cant seriously expect to keep funding full-time, highly paid speechwriters and professional videographers for his wifes political ambitions. A year later, she announced the formation of the Cities Thrive Coalition with aim of launching a more consolidated nationwide mental health system. But he said that he had no in-depth conversations with her about fund business. That is, reversing Bloomberg administration plans to shut down 100 miserably malfunctioning schools, thus saving the jobs of barely competent teachers and administrators and shutting up small bands of noisy parents who loved the schools despite their failings. [6][7] During a portion of her high school years, McCray was the only black student in her school. The chairwoman of the Mayors Fund to Advance the City of New York, Chirlane McCray, has largely been missing in action: She has attended less than half of the funds board meetings, and her outreach to donors has been sporadic. Jane Meyer, a spokeswoman for the mayors office, said that Ms. McCrays public schedules listed fund-raising calls made on behalf of the fund, but an analysis of those schedules showed just three such calls in the first three years Mr. de Blasio was in office. who recorded the first lady baking cookies during the pandemic. Thank you! Outside school, she was excluded from boy-girl mixers. She was born eldest of her parents three children; she has two younger sisters named Cynthia and Cheryl. The funds federal tax returns say that she spends only an hour a week on fund business. Her father, Robert Hooper McCray, a World War II veteran, was an inventory clerk at a military base while her mother, Katharine Clarissa Eileen ne Edwards, was an assembly worker at an electronics factory. Fast-forward to Wednesday, when the City Council was startled to discover that McCray and Team Thrive are closing in on having spent an eye-popping $900 million since the programs inception and nobody seems to have a clue on what. That is, nobody appears to have kept receipts; the subways and street corners are still overrun with crazy people, and nobody in charge knows whats to happen next. Please share your thoughts about this article below. Don't we want people to have a good quality of life? Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. She discovered Black writers like Toni Morrison, which convinced her that she too had a story to tell. A spokesman for Mr. Fetner, Sam Spokony, said there was no link between the donations and the development project. Office of Community Mental Health we are bringing mental health to the communities.. But she has at least six other city employees deputized to her office from other public agencies, as was first reported by The City. Mr. de Blasio had to seek permission from the citys Conflicts of Interest Board to name his wife to chair the fund, because city rules barred him from giving the job to a relative. Get the best experience and stay connected to your community with our Spectrum News app. McCrays office provided The CIty with names of eight full-time employees whose salaries added up to about $1.1 million. There is no limit to the size of donations to the fund, as there is for campaign contributions, and as a nonprofit controlled by the mayors office, the fund has routinely and legally raised money from donors who gave to Mr. de Blasios campaigns and his political causes. We want to make sure that the mental health services are embedded and all of our city agencies wherever it's appropriate so that people have the services, where they live, where they work, where they go to school, McCray says. She defended her tenure and said that she frequently took part in activities outside the fund offices, like visiting programs that it had financed. our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law. De Blasio is an Italian-American. All rights reserved. This is 2018, Ms. McCray said, work can get done in all kinds of ways., and given its current name by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. Well, he didnt actually say rathole, and the price tag has doubtless been lowballed but he also had no credible explanation for the debacle, nor did he apologize for it. This story has been shared 375,122 times. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio's wife, Chirlane McCray, was given $900 million to start a mental health initiative focusing on helping the homeless in the city. But also mayoral spouse Chirlane McCray, who has just been revealed as a world-class boondoggler in her own right. The shooter, who is listed as a Department of Health employee in city records, filmed the first lady making ginger snaps on April 2 during the coronavirus lockdown. In May 2017, Fetner Properties was named by the city as the developer of a project to build affordable and market rate apartments on New York City Housing Authority land in Harlem. Photo by Spectrum News NY1. Right up there with co-Mayor Bill, who started the week on his own sour note announcing that his signature Renewal school program was closing up shop after pounding $773 million down a rathole. In interviews with more than a dozen donors and others who had contact with the fund, none said that they had substantive conversations with Ms. McCray. Yet many staffers plainly arent doing crisis work. This story has been shared 132,852 times. [30][31], McCray published an essay in Essence in 1979 entitled "I Am a Lesbian". In 2013, Chiara suffered from depression and drug use, which has since been addressed. In several cases, donations to the fund coincided with city action on a particular project, though donors dispute any effort to curry favor with the administration. In 1979, she wrote a 5000-word article in Essence, a monthly lifestyle magazine with African-American women as its target. [7] The purpose of the essay was to "dispel the myth that there are no gay black people". In that essay, McCray "frankly discussed her sexuality and expressed gratitude that she came to terms with her preference for women before marrying a man". U.S. Government Docket No. First lady Chirlane McCray is assisted by 14 city workers, costing taxpayers $2 million a year. It is not, in the end, just about money. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact We understand were working at a sensitive intersection of civic investors and public projects, so we try to be sensitive to it, Mr. Bloch said. The organization spent $753,000 on management and fund-raising in the fiscal year that ended in June 2017, 50 percent more than two years earlier. Darren Walker, the president of the Ford Foundation, a donor to the fund virtually since its inception, recalled receiving a brief phone call from Ms. McCray in 2015 when the foundation was considering a large donation to support a mental health initiative. [19] Since then, the Fund has focused on mental health, immigration, and youth workforce projects. Mayor Bill de Blasio likes to say that there's plenty of money in New York City, but that it's in the wrong hands. It's all sizzle and no steak. This story has been shared 375,122 times. [37], "Chirlane McCray in sling after birthday injuries", "De Blasio gripes about rules barring spouses from paid gigs in government", "Chirlane McCray, de Blasio's Wife, Is Questioned Over His 'Revolutionary' $1 Billion Mental Health Plan", "NYC'S New First Lady Makes Barbadians Proud - Caribbean and Latin America Daily News", "Chirlane McCray: From Gay Trailblazer to Politician's Wife", "Once Alienated, and Now a Force in Her Husband's Bid for Mayor: Chirlane McCray Plays Key Role in de Blasio Campaign", "Ancient History: The Lesbian Past of Bill de Blasio's Wife", "Bill de Blasio's wife, Chirlane McCray, on the "fluidity of love" and the political spotlight", "Pioneering Black Feminist Makes History Again", "The Family Bible Is a Guest for the Oath, but Not a Participant", "Bill de Blasio's wife, Chirlane McCray, opens up on her role as the mayoral race's most visible spouse", "At City Hall, Backstage Player Is Cast in Main Stage Uproar", "Rachel Noerdlinger, former Chirlane McCray aide, kept ex-con boyfriend updated through controversy", "De Blasio Appoints Chirlane McCray, His Wife, to Lead Nonprofit Group", "Once-Thriving City Nonprofit Sputters Under Mayor's Wife, Chirlane McCray", "NYC First Lady Chirlane McCray Weighs in on Federal Mental Health Reform", "ThriveNYC: A Mental Health Roadmap for All", "Chirlane McCray and the Limits of First-Ladyship", "With opaque budget and elusive metrics, $850M ThriveNYC program attempts a reset", "There's too much money in Chirlane McCray's hands", "First Lady Chirlane McCray considering run for office in 2021", "Chirlane McCray's latest hires hint at run for public office", "Family in the Spotlight: De Blasio's Wife, Children Provide Multiracial Backdrop to Likely Mayoral Bid", "Bill de Blasio's wife recalls him first learning that she was a lesbian", "When Bill de Blasio's Wife Was a Lesbian", "De Blasio Finally Settles Down at Gracie Mansion", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Chirlane_McCray&oldid=1144515944, This page was last edited on 14 March 2023, at 04:47. Download it here. Chirlane McCray's ThriveNYC has come under scrutiny following its creation in 2015. Sign up for our free email newsletter, and we'll make sure to keep you in the loop. [10] Some of her poetry is included in Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology. News Corp is a global, diversified media and information services company focused on creating and distributing authoritative and engaging content and other products and services. Abbott tells Chicago mayor to take complaints on border crisis to the White House, Biden admin's coordination with environmental groups to ban gas stoves under investigation by Cruz, Comer, Virginia Gov. Thereafter, she served Bill Thompson, New York City Comptroller, possibly from 2002 to 2004. Legal Statement. Though, data on what the program has accomplished is hard to find. We've received your submission. The First Lady manages a robust portfolio and her team works tirelessly to carry out goals and priorities on issues like mental health and domestic violence that will improve the lives of New Yorkers, she said. Officials for the citys ThriveNYC program, a mental health initiative, struggled to tell members of the New York City Council during testimony Wednesday how its annual budget of $250 million is spent and exactly how New Yorkers have benefited from the citys services. In early 1990s, she found a job with the New York City governments press office, eventually being appointed a speechwriter for Mayor David Dinkins, serving in this capacity possibly till December 1993. He said that she does not typically make direct requests for money, which is a task that he or another staffer will do in follow-up calls. But it was quickly turned into rejection when a classmate found her in an intimate embrace with another woman. In school, where for a time she was the only Black student, she had to face intense racism and endure bullying by her white classmates. "I'm not sure anybody does.". What is the relationship of Chirlane McCray? But under Mayor Bill de Blasio, the fund has not kept pace. It's so important that people don't have to search for what they need, especially when they're in crisis.. First lady Chirlane McCray has raised between $13 million and $28 million in donations for a City Hall-aligned nonprofit from people and entities with business before her hubby Mayor de Blasio, The .hustle-ui.hustle_module_id_1[data-id="1"] .hustle-layout .hustle-button-cta {width:100%!important;font-size:18px!important;}.hustle-ui.module_id_1 .hustle-popup-content {max-width: 400px!important;}.hustle-group-content p {font-size:18px!important;margin: 24px 0 0!important;}.hustle-ui.module_id_4 .hustle-layout .hustle-content {padding-bottom: 0px;}, We may receive compensation from affiliate partners for some links on this site. Mr. Bloomberg, a billionaire whose charitable efforts are well known, conceived the fund as a way for philanthropists, corporations and others to help subsidize city initiatives. That is, nobody appears to have kept receipts; the subways and street corners are still overrun with crazy people, and nobody in charge knows whats to happen next. The office has Ms. McCrays name on a metal plaque on the door. Then theres the $130,000 executive program specialist from the Dept. The mayor's most recent budget deal includes another $115 million in mental-health spending, an effort McCray says to respond to the mounting mental health care needs of city residents after. In 1975, after earning her BA degree, Chirlane McCray attended the Radcliffe Publishing Course. But the co-mayor made performance promises when he initiated the Renewal program, few of which even remotely were met, and presently gravity prevailed: The program caved in on itself. I know what goes on, Ms. McCray said, adding that she was justified in skipping board meetings. The first spouse went before the City Council Tuesday tripping spectacularly over her own tongue while removing any doubt that her billion-dollar husbandly indulgence, ThriveNYC, amounts to an epic public policy swindle gussied up as a mental health program. [28], ThriveNYC drew harsh criticism over allegations of mismanagement and accusations that it had failed to produce records of tangible results. How about the Hurricane Sandy recovery effort six years, uncountable delays and billions of dollars later? Despite its ranks and generous salaries, the team hasnt posted an update to McCrays public schedule since last year. Once a white construction worker spit on her while she was riding a bike. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, In January, Ms. McCray announced that the program would become its own office, which now has 21 employees with a $2 million office budget, according to Susan Herman, appointed to lead the office. That is, reversing Bloomberg administration plans to shut down 100 miserably malfunctioning schools, thus saving the jobs of barely competent teachers and administrators and shutting up small bands of noisy parents who loved the schools despite their failings. of Social Services and $65,000 associate director of advance to the first lady. First Lady Chirlane McCray says the citys mental health hotline, NYC Well, logged 33,000 texts, chats and calls this January. In the first 10 months of the current fiscal year, the fund raised $14 million, according to a spokeswoman, Cynthia Olson, putting the fund on pace for its lowest annual revenues in more than a decade. That the co-mayors could fly under the radar to burn through $1.6 billion to no obvious good effect is an embarrassment but understandable in the abstract.
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