News and Resources

 The New York Times School Book mentions United Neighborhood Houses in its discussion of cuts in the Mayor's preliminary budget to funding for thousands of daycare and after-school programs. 

"According to the public advocate, Bill de Blasio, roughly 16,000 daycare seats would be lost if the mayor does not increase financing to the Administration for Children’s Services. And though exact numbers have varied, groups like the Center for Children’s Initiatives and the United Neighborhood Houses have estimated 25,000 positions lost in the city’s Out-of-School Time program, an after-school program that opened under Mayor Bloomberg. "

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New York City plans to cut financing for an after-school program that opened under Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, a move that advocates say could cut the number of seats for children nearly in half next year.

Nancy Wackstein, executive director of United Neighborhood Houses — an association of New York settlement houses and community centers — estimated that because of budget cuts, 23,000 children of elementary and middle school age would lose access to the program next year.

“When the school dismissal bell rings and parents are still at work, many of their elementary and middle school children will have nowhere to go,” Ms. Wackstein said in a statement.

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A Nov. 28 Addendum proposed by the Bloomberg administration drops funding to just under $70 million for the 2013 year, a cut of $20 million from this fiscal year and $47 million cut from the start of the Out-of-School Time (OST) program two years ago, according to a news brief from The Center for New York City Affairs.

Approximately 46,000 slots for youth in after-school programs, or “Out of School Time” (OST), were lost over the past four years due to $8.5 million in budget cuts, according to Kevin Douglas, policy analyst for United Neighborhood Houses.

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The Bloomberg administration is poised to make sharp cuts to the primary source of government funding for hundreds of free after-school programs that currently serve about 53,000 children across the city.

Just two years ago, the city's "Out-of-School Time" or OST program received more than $117 million in city funds and served more than 87,000 kids. This fiscal year, the program was reduced to $90 million in city dollars. And now, a recent contract proposal from the administration indicates that, in 2013, the program will be cut to just under $70 million. Advocates say the reduction will nearly halve the number of program slots available to city kids.

Norah Yahya, a policy analyst for United Neighborhood Houses of New York, maintained that the current situation is different from the usual back-and-forth that organizations engage in with the mayor at budget time. "It's dire," she said. "Cuts of this magnitude to services are not usual."

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UNH Executive Director Nancy Wackstein offered her comments on 2011 as it comes to a close for New York Nonprofit Press:

"The year 2011 will go down in the history of our sector as the year in which most of us woke up to the permanent nature of the new reality:  government shifts away from support for people in need and the human services designed to help them.  Many of us, including me, wanted to believe that once the recession ended and once the economy began to right itself we would see a return to the time when nonprofit services and help for the have-nots were again among our top priorities.   Sadly, this is not what we saw.  Despite some victories in the last budget season on the City and State levels – like City child care restorations that saved thousands of slots for low-income families and State withdrawal of a Title XX proposal that would have shuttered 100 senior centers in the City – the overall approach of both levels of government seems to have been to look at cuts to human services to solve deficit problems rather than looking to revenue solutions.  I fear that this remains the approach as we enter 2012 and governments at all levels continue to grapple with rising deficits.  This nation’s historical commitment to preserving a social safety net – particularly potent and effective in New York City and State over decades – seems to be dramatically shifting before our eyes."

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Watch UNH's Executive Director Nancy Wackstein speak to Ronnie Eldridge from Eldridge & Co. about settlement houses and the current state of nonprofit work and poverty today.

NY1 VIDEO: Errol Louis of “Inside City Hall” discusses the drop in summer jobs for city teenagers with Jonathan Bowles, the executive director of the Center for an Urban Future, Suzanne Lynn, the deputy commissioner for community development at the city's Department of Youth and Community Development, Anthony Ng, the director of policy and advocacy for United Neighborhood Houses of New York, and 16-year-old Avion Cummings from Manhattan, who was unsuccessful in her attempts to get into the summer jobs program the past two years but found her own summer internship this year.

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The stooped woman hustling through the Sunnyside senior center’s main hall at lunchtime is Gertrude McDonald, age 95. She’s spent most of her adult life in politics, as an aide to former state Sen. George Onorato, and as the first woman from Queens to run for the state Assembly in a Democratic primary, back in 1968.

“That was a time when women were still just licking the backs of stamps,” she said.


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