For a Just Post-Covid Recovery, Make Five ‘Fair Fares’ Reforms

Transit costs often overwhelm the budgets of low-income New Yorkers. Many don’t even know that they’re eligible for half-price fares.

Inequality and Poverty, Covid-19Seth MoncreaseMay 18, 2022jan2022-onwards

A Foot on the Ground, And Steps to Fairer Taxes

There’s a way to make “billionaires’ row” absentee condo owners pay a fairer tax share – and provide relief to lower-income homeowners, too.

Nail Salon Workers Assert Their Rights

A campaign for fair pay and safe working conditions reveals how being classified “independent contractors” denies workers fundamental protections.

Immigrant Voices, Inequality and PovertySeth MoncreaseMay 4, 2022jan2022-onwards

Let’s Really Transform NYC’s Private Waste System

The City should dramatically decrease pollution and increase safety and environmental justice in overhauling its massive commercial waste system.

Justice, Racial EquitySeth MoncreaseApril 27, 2022jan2022-onwards

Rikers Island Today: Part Two. Will ‘3-3-3’ Be A Formula for Peace?

A new policy breaks up cellblock “gang houses” and injects credible messengers to deescalate violence.

JusticeSeth MoncreaseApril 20, 2022jan2022-onwards

Rikers Island Today: Part One. A Culture of Callousness Seems ‘Unbreakable’

I’ve worked at Rikers Island. I’ve been detained there, too – twice. And a “let them loose on each other” attitude prevailed.

JusticeSeth MoncreaseApril 13, 2022jan2022-onwards

Pandemic Retirements: Older Workers Didn’t Jump. They Were Pushed.

There has been a flood of what look like involuntary retirements of workers age 55 and up since March 2020.

Seth MoncreaseApril 6, 2022jan2022-onwards

Home Care in Crisis: Part Two. In a Privatized System, Who Fails and Who Flourishes?

As non-profits stumble and for-profits soar, what does that mean for patients and home health aides?

Seth MoncreaseMarch 30, 2022jan2022-onwards

Home Care in Crisis: Part One Will State Inaction Doom ‘Fair Pay?’

In a privatized system, public officials have regularly ducked tough choices. Will that now include fair pay for home care workers?

Seth MoncreaseMarch 23, 2022jan2022-onwards

For Youth in Crisis, Why ‘Raise the Age’ Still Matters

Locking up more kids on longer sentences didn’t make us safer in the past, and it won’t now. It just intensifies our problems.

Seth MoncreaseMarch 16, 2022jan2022-onwards

Freeze Food Waste Collection Again? We’ve Got to Do Better Than That.

The City’s stop-and-start pattern of curbside organic waste is self-defeating. Instead, it’s time to rethink the way we collect our waste.

Racial EquitySeth MoncreaseMarch 9, 2022jan2022-onwards

New York Has New Leaders. Can They Solve the City’s Housing Problems?

What housing policies can New Yorkers expect from Mayor Eric Adams and Governor Kathy Hochul?

Housing & HomelessnessSeth MoncreaseMarch 2, 2022jan2022-onwards

An Overlooked Bronx Tale Gets a Fresh Telling

It’s the biggest housing development in the nation – and it played a surprising role in New York City’s near-death fiscal crisis in the 1970s.

Housing & HomelessnessSeth MoncreaseFebruary 23, 2022jan2022-onwards

For Non-Profits in Racial Transition, It Can Be ‘Welcome to the Glass Cliff’

What special burdens do people of color take on when they assume leadership of nonprofit organizations?

Seth MoncreaseFebruary 16, 2022jan2022-onwards

Could Penn Station Plans Go Off the Rails?

Is this the bold new project New York needs now? Or could it leave us with a nasty financial hangover?

Seth MoncreaseFebruary 9, 2022jan2022-onwards

New York Has a Jobs Problem. Let’s Help the People Who Can Fix It.

Investing in workforce training and placement is the next, crucial phase of recovery from Covid-19’s job disruptions.

Covid-19Seth MoncreaseFebruary 2, 2022jan2022-onwards

Heightened Suffering, Dwindling Supplies: Meeting the Crisis at Rikers

With supplies for detainees running low, community donors stepped in.

Covid-19, JusticeSeth MoncreaseJanuary 26, 2022jan2022-onwards

Flush With Cash, Faced With Covid: Albany Ponders Budget Choices

In the best, and worst, of times, State officials face some decisions.

Covid-19Seth MoncreaseJanuary 19, 2022jan2022-onwards

Four Steps to an NYC ‘Healing Revolution’

New York City should beef up mental health resources instead of building up systems of enforcement and punishment

Covid-19, Racial EquitySeth MoncreaseJanuary 12, 2022jan2022-onwards

Great 2021 Nonfiction From New School Writers

Environmental justice. High-tech cities. The meaning of baldness. All just some of what The New School community’s non-fiction writers had on their minds this year.

Seth MoncreaseDecember 15, 2021march232021-onward