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NYC slammed for abruptly canceling mentorship program for young people in public housing
By
Jessy Edwards
Published Oct 2, 2023
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New York City Council livestream
By
Jessy Edwards
Published Oct 2, 2023
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Young people who live in what city officials say are New York City’s most violent public housing developments were shocked to learn their City-led mentorship program was canceled last month, with just seven days' notice.
On Friday, they joined with non-profit leaders and some city council members at the City Council committee meeting on criminal justice to demand the Department of Probation reinstate the Next STEPS program, saying they had been let down by the City.
“Yet again, somebody has gave up on them,” Next STEPS mentee Samiya Spain, 19, told Gothamist, referring to young people in the program. “This was like an outlet for them to get away from certain things.”
For nine years, the department has paid nonprofits to provide one-on-one and group mentoring through a cognitive behavioral therapy-based curriculum to more than 200 people aged 16-24 who live in or around the City's most crime-ridden housing developments.
The purpose of the program was preventative: To help young people who have experienced violence to avoid criminal activity, and instead pursue jobs and education.
Mentors from within the community — often who have had their own experiences with the criminal justice system — held weekly meetings where young people were given a hot meal, job training, assistance with getting licenses and IDs, help with school, therapy and advice.
But one day in late August, Next STEPS providers said they received an 8 p.m. email from the probation department advising that their contracts had been canceled and they had five working days to end the program.
In a letter to Department of Probation commissioner Juanita Holmes, they said they were “astonished.”
“My initial reaction was shock,” said Peleya Patterson, a Next STEPS provider at Good Shepherd Services. “And then it was followed by sadness for our young people.”
The program served about 240 young people at a time across 14 locations, at an annual cost of $2.5 million.
At the committee meeting Friday, Holmes said her team assessed the program and weren’t shown tangible “outcomes” for young people, such as evidence of getting jobs, staying out of gangs or improving grades.
“The only metric I was provided with was attendance,” she said, shrugging. She added that the majority of the young people in the program had been reassigned to other mentorship programs. But providers say the programs the young people were reassigned to aren’t comparable to Next STEPS. They said Next Steps is a prevention program, while the other programs are either for people who are on probation, or they are run by the police – not people who come from the communities they serve.
“Commissioner, the program mentored 240 people to prevent violence,” council member Carlina Rivera said, addressing Holmes in the meeting. “And if this program prevented even one person from being shot and killed, do you not think the program pays for itself?”
The commissioner said Mayor Eric Adams gave her “marching orders” to reduce recidivism when she was appointed six months ago.
Scott Short, CEO of RiseBoro Community Partnership, a non-profit which provides the Next STEPS program to justice-involved young people in Brownsville, said the city should be focusing on preventing violence.
“The Department of Probation seems to be cutting back all types of prevention programming and really only focusing on services for people already on probation, and that’s not the right approach to reducing violent crime,” he said.
He said Next STEPS was small, but it was one of the most “highly impactful” prevention programs he’d seen. So much so that Riseboro is continuing the program at its own cost, for as long as it can.
Gothamist spoke to a number of young people who said the program had changed their lives for the better.
Next STEPs mentee Janeece Holloway said the program helped her learn to control her anger when she started as a 19-year-old. She feared for the younger program participants who now will not be supported by it as she was.
“There's going to be more in the streets now, more acting up, getting arrested.”
Erick McNamee, 27, said the program taught him how to “make a way” when he was placed in it by probation as a 19-year-old. A mentor put him through a digital marketing course and taught him character development.
“Usually high schools are like your backbone. And then once you leave that, you in these streets,” he said. “We're not left with many choices and we're not always given the best direction.”
Next STEPS was launched as part of the Mayor’s Action Plan for Neighborhood Safety, announced by Bill de Blasio in 2014 to turn around an alarming crime rise in 15 of the most dangerous NYCHA developments at the time, where residents are disproportionately victims of violence.
Almost 10 years later, those NYCHA residents are still disproportionately exposed to violent crime.
The news of the program ending comes as Mayor Eric Adams has requested departments make 5% budget cuts across the board by November with a total of 15% cuts by next April.
The Department of Correction earlier this year eliminated $17 million worth of programs that help detainees get jobs, find housing, stay off drugs, and reconnect with loved ones once they’re released from Rikers Island. A spokesperson said the department has taken the programming previously carried out by contracted providers in-house.
Prisoner advocates joined Next STEPS providers at Friday’s meeting in slamming the city for programming cuts, saying they harm formerly-incarcerated people, increase the risk of recidivism and don’t make the city safer.
This story has been updated to include a comment by a Department of Correction spokesman.
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Jessy Edwards
Jessy Edwards covers incarceration and public safety. Before working at Gothamist/WNYC, she covered daily and breaking news at NBC New York and Brooklyn news at BK Reader. Got a tip? Email [email protected].
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