The ThriveNYC initiative, now three years old, is the signature effort of Chirlane McCray, the wife of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. We are measuring.. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, He also attended a meeting of philanthropic organizations at Gracie Mansion to discuss the initiative, at which Ms. McCray spoke. Market data provided by Factset. Learn More. ThriveNYC, a Mental Health Initiative, Comes Under Scrutiny As WCBs 880's Rich Lamb reports, first lady Chirlane McCray's "Thrive" metal health initiative meant to help the mentally ill has spent $850 million over the past four years. McCrays office provided The CIty with names of eight full-time employees whose salaries added up to about $1.1 million. #thriveNYC. Fellow contender for the Brooklyn borough presidency,City Councilman Antonio Reynoso (D-Brooklyn), slammed the spending, according to The New York Post. Baking day! JUST RELEASED: Phone Call To Chinese Manufacturer Requesting a Bulk Classic Video of Donald Trump on Larry King In 1987 Barack Obamas Brother EXPOSES The Michael/Michelle Rumors! She is considering a run for Brooklyn borough president during the mayors last year in office. "[34], McCray and de Blasio have a daughter, Chiara, and a son, Dante. The Times further reported that according to McCray's public schedule, she had spent 19.5 hours in 2017 on work for the Mayor's Fund; however, her spokeswoman estimated that McCray spent 10% of her work schedule on Mayor's Fund business. 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. They got married in 1994. The reason I say that all of Thrives budget is tailored to [all city residents] is because its very difficult to say [what] is the percentage of our population that is seriously mentally ill, concluded Mrs. Mayor without laughing. The 1984 ruling, known as the Chevron deference, directs courts to defer to a federal agencys legal approach when Congress has left the statutory language ambiguous, which some conservatives have come to oppose. But under Mayor Bill de Blasio, the fund has not kept pace. [28], ThriveNYC drew harsh criticism over allegations of mismanagement and accusations that it had failed to produce records of tangible results. In December, the Simonses made another donation, of $250,000. The new forecast gives Republicans and Democrats a matter of weeks to reach an agreement on raising the nation's roughly $31.4 trillion borrowing limit. In 1972, she entered Wellesley College, where she found social acceptance for the first time. Still, City Hall spokeswoman Chanel Caraway on Tuesday defended the McCray team even as the mayor has said theres no money to pick up overflowing waste bins or maintain the citys parks. 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. The inquiries were closed in 2016 without charges being filed. Think Stockholm syndrome, rolled into a big ball with the United Federation of Teachers. But also mayoral spouse Chirlane McCray, who has just been revealed as a world-class boondoggler in her own right. 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. Uncovering The Satanic Panic: South Dakota. The amount of time it takes to manage a $50,000 program or project is not infrequently the same amount of time that it might take to manage a $5 million program or project, said Darren Bloch, the executive director of the Mayors Fund, defending the staffing increase. [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). 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. That is, once upon a time, first spouses were content to pretend to be in charge of prettifying highways and things. "This work is about the needs of the people of this city. She added, This is 2018; work can get done in all kinds of ways.. Please share your thoughts about this article below. Even as the city has poured money into mental health . We have statistics from the very beginning. 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. Bill de Blasio attempts to defend his wife's $1.1M salary for staff 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. of Social Services and $65,000 associate director of advance to the first lady. Ms. McCray with Richard Buery, a former deputy mayor, discussing ThriveNYC, a mental health initiative, before a City Councils committee in 2016. 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. 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. 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. 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. Her public schedules indicate she spends even less: a total of 19.5 hours spent on fund activities in all of last year; 35 hours in 2016. She now had her own staff and a larger role to play. In 1991, I met the love of my life, married him. 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. Bill de Blasio, Chirlane McCray, Chiara de Blasio and Dante de Blasio Chirlane is the loving mom of Chiara de Blasio and Dante de Blasio. The First Lady has also been working with local leaders from municipalities across the country, part of the Cities Thrive Coalition. [4] She is of Barbadian and St. Lucian descent, but traces her grandmother's last name (Quashie) to Ghana. 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. 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. More telling was that neither Herman nor McCray could even tell the council how many people are on Thrives payrolls though surely there are many. Some of the Chirlane McCray staffers, who cost city taxpayers nearly $2 million a year combined, work for the first ladys $1.25 billion mental health initiative ThriveNYC, which has come under fire for its lack of metrics. As the city pulls out of the pandemics fog, many of those critics point to what appears to be a growing number of homeless and mentally disturbed people wandering the streets and subways. The discovery shocked many of her dormitory mates. OP1670 Exposes New Fed Power to Seize Control of U.S. Bank Accounts. 2023 NYP Holdings, Inc. 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Well over a billion dollars has been spent on these mental health programs, and one of the main criticisms lobbed at the de Blasio Administration and McCray particularly. . Get hyperlocal forecasts, radar and weather alerts. First Lady Chirlane McCray sat down with our National Health Reporter, Erin Billups, to defend the program and discuss some of its achievements. But she has at least six other city employees deputized to her office from other public agencies, as was first reported by The City. The fact that we've added more services, the fact that we now have an Office of Community Mental Health is in direct response to what people have been asking for, and that is more, more and more more mental health providers, especially mental health providers of color, says McCray. I think theres added benefit. But the fund-raising work has mostly been done by others: Mr. Bloch; Gabrielle Fialkoff, the funds vice chairwoman, who also works as a senior adviser to Mr. de Blasio and was the finance chairwoman of his 2013 mayoral campaign; and Daniele Baierlein, a longtime Democratic Party fund-raiser who previously worked at the Podesta Group, the powerful Washington lobbying firm. 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 Don't we want people to be healthy? In at least two cases, a person made a campaign donation to Mr. de Blasio within days of one of Ms. McCrays calls on behalf of the fund. [19] Since then, the Fund has focused on mental health, immigration, and youth workforce projects. On Wednesday, councilmembers were huffing that de Blasio has been showering his wife with tax dollars with embarrassing results. Spouse Bill de Blasio (m. 1994) Children 2 Education Wellesley College(BA) Chirlane Irene McCray(born November 29, 1954)[1]is an American writer, editor, and activist. It was . Ms. McCray declined a request for a follow-up interview to discuss the funds activities in more detail. 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. 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. 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. She was born eldest of her parents three children; she has two younger sisters named Cynthia and Cheryl. A year later, she announced the formation of the Cities Thrive Coalition with aim of launching a more consolidated nationwide mental health system. Essential to the first familys hopes of continued taxpayer support after term limits forces the mayor out of office, maybe. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Thanks for contacting us. The council redeemed itself only slightly Tuesday, asking McCray too politely for the circumstances to explain herself, and then settling for a non-answer answer for the ages: ThriveNYC was my idea, she said. EXPOSED: Dr. Peter McCullough On How Nattokinase Could Counteract Spike Protein Damage! Make some of my familys favorite cookies with me: Ginger snaps! First Lady Chirlane McCray reflects on legacy of ThriveNYC 2023 NYP Holdings, Inc. All Rights Reserved, former Post reporter Yoav Gonen pulled together. The couple honeymooned in Cuba in violation of a U.S . 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. Office of Community Mental Health actually explains what it is, says McCray. Read our full Disclosure. It is not, in the end, just about money. Four years later, no one seems to know what that money was actually used for, according to the New York Post. Other families in the neighborhood circulated petitions demanding they leave. [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. 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. She defended her tenure and said that she frequently took part in activities outside the fund offices, like visiting programs that it had financed. The Times added: "A spreadsheet of nearly 500 data points tracked by City Hall included almost none related to patient outcomes". document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Thanks for contacting us. to divvy up every year, one easily could get an arm broken when the boodling begins. [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. 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. Mayoral Photography Office Nearly a third of New Yorkers may be out of work thanks to the. Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more Fox News politics content. 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 copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. In 1975, after earning her BA degree, Chirlane McCray attended the Radcliffe Publishing Course. Bill is the mayor of New York City since 2014. McCray has a core team of eight staffers, according to a recent list provided to The Post following a Freedom of Information Law request filed in October 2019. 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. Since then, the program, known as ThriveNYC, has been a lightning rod of criticism for the de Blasio administration from critics who say its accomplished little while costing taxpayers millions of dollars. From her mothers previous marriage, she also has a half brother called Reginald Jackson. Living in a hospital, that model of institutionalizing people is kind of outmoded.. 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. This story has been shared 119,457 times. This is despite the city facing layoffs of 22,000 municipal workers over the coronavirus-induced budget crisis. And it's only (your) money even if it is quite a lot of it. But that doesn't mean a hospital. In 1979, she wrote a 5000-word article in Essence, a monthly lifestyle magazine with African-American women as its target. ThriveNYC, a Mental Health Initiative, Comes Under Scrutiny. How about the Hurricane Sandy recovery effort six years, uncountable delays and billions of dollars later? We've received your submission. We value your opinions, and would love to see you add to the discussion! The City Hall budget shows $594 million in spending since ThriveNYC's inception. We've received your submission. Other members of the shadow staff who participated in a Team Lunch in The Bronx in January 2019, according to McCrays public schedule, are a $143,000-a-year public relations director, also from the Department of Health, and a special assistant from the mayors office who makes $115,000. Under Ms. McCrays leadership, the fund has made priorities of mental health, youth employment and immigration services. All these happened in front of their teachers. 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. [6][7][8] She wrote a column for her school newspaper in which she denounced classmates for their racism. The IBO budget shows $816 million. But lets be clear: If your boondogglery sets the New York City Council back on its heels, you truly are soaring with the eagles. 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. 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. (And dont forget the Department of Correction: A huge but ultimately unknowable percentage of New Yorks mentally ill reside on Rikers Island and in other lock-ups.). New York Mayor's Wife 'Loses' $850 Million in Taxpayer Money 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. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. We did not say everything would be perfect, burbled the co-mayor as if anybody outside his immediate orbit expected an outcome even close to competent. However, from her maternal grandmothers surname, Quashie, she believes that part of her family had originally come from Ghana. [6][9] Essence later described the essay as "groundbreaking", asserting that it was "perhaps the first time a Black gay woman had spoken so openly and honestly about her sexuality in a Black magazine". Another sign of corruption: The mayor imposed a hiring freeze early this year but McCray still got to bring on a new $150,000-a-year senior adviser in April, who somehow got classified as an essential worker. This naked abuse of his public trust puts the lie to all de Blasios endless moral sanctimony. And Mayor Bill de Blasios excuse for it is beyond laughable. In 2004, she left Thompsons service to join Maimonides Medical Center, where she served possibly till 2009, trying to promote a culturally sensitive environment and make it attractive to a wider clientele. "I like the fact that money is going toward mental health, but when they say we're seeing a benefit in all areas, I take exception to that, because I don't see it everywhere," Queens Councilman Robert Holden told The Post. Seven mayors attended a 2017 national mental health conference in New York City. 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. 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 . And while the funds bylaws define the chair as the lead fund-raiser, officials struggled to show her direct involvement with those efforts. How about the Hurricane Sandy recovery effort six years, uncountable delays and billions of dollars later? [7] The purpose of the essay was to "dispel the myth that there are no gay black people". [33] In 2012, when asked about her 1979 essay, she commented: "In the 1970s, I identified as a lesbian and wrote about it. Ms. McCray with San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz during a humanitarian mental-health initiative after Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico in March. 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. 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. Of the 78,000 newborn deliveries in the city annually, only 28,560 new mothers have been screened by the Thrive program. She worked as a speechwriter for New York City Mayor David Dinkins. After The Times reviewed its findings with staff at the Mayors Fund, officials on May 18 announced the addition of 19 members, including Ms. Simons, to its advisory board, a largely ceremonial position chiefly aimed at fund-raising. [21], In November 2015, McCray led the launch of ThriveNYC, a plan to overhaul the city's mental health and substance abuse services. We know as little about the program after the hearing as we knew before the hearing, said Councilman Ritchie Torres (D-Bronx). Bob McManus is a contributing editor of City Journal. Chirlane McCray, de Blasio's Wife, Is Questioned Over His We launched Thrive long before the pandemic. 2023 FOX News Network, LLC. Chirlane McCray's ThriveNYC has come under scrutiny following its creation in 2015. Ms. Harris missed only one board meeting in the last four years she served as chairwoman, the period for which records were available. Chirlane McCray's, perhaps? [6][8], After graduating from college, McCray moved to New York City to work for Redbook.

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