Why is New York a great City?
Because we are a diverse combination of nationalities, ethnicities, income groups, and occupations. Former Mayor Dinkins called us a mosaic, others call us a stewpot or a curry pot. We depend on each other, we take care of each other, sometimes we really irritate each other.
While the rest of the country knows us as the financial, restaurant, media and nightlife capital of the world, we are also cab drivers, home health attendants, restaurant and hotel workers, and security guards. People who also work hard, but in less glitzy settings, essentially making it possible for other New Yorkers to live as well as they do.
With his Executive Budget, announced today, Mayor Bloomberg is turning his back on these less visible “other New Yorkers”, thousands of working families and their children. By slashing after-school funding, over half of the current City-subsidized programs for school-age children will close. These programs will not just reduce the number of kids they serve… THEY WILL CLOSE. Low and moderate income parents will completely lose the supportive programs that allow them to work. When these cuts are implemented, we as a City will lose more than thousands of afterschool slots and nonprofit jobs. In fact, it will be a far greater loss. We will lose the interdependence and the spirit of common enterprise and mutuality that are New York City.
Read UNH's official statement here.
