THE NEXT LES READY! MEETING, WILL BE HELD AUGUST 27, 11am – 12pm
LES Ready! has a limited number of PPE (masks and gowns). Please let us know if you would like masks or gowns for your organization, clinic or event by contacting lesreadyinfo@gmail.com
MEETINGS & RESOURCES
NYC TEST AND TRACE CORPS, AUGUST 14, 2020, 11am – 12pm
Join NYC VOAD Unmet Needs Meeting. Ask questions and hear from Dr. Ted Long, MD, MHS, who heads the NYC COVID-19 Test & Trace Corps. Dr. Long is also Sr. Vice President of Ambulatory Care at New York City Health + Hospitals
COASTAL STORM PREPAREDNESS WEBINAR, AUGUST 19, 2020, 1pm
This coastal storm season is happening during the COVID-19 pandemic. As New York City recovers from the effects of Tropical Storm Isaias, we know coastal storms, like hurricanes and tropical storms, continue to be a significant hazard to the City. Join this webinar, hosted by NYC Emergency Management Community Preparedness with guest speakers from the NYCEM Response Bureau, and the Mayor’s Office of Resiliency, to learn best practices and resources to prepare your community for a coastal storm. Registration & Event Information: https://nycem.webex.com/nycem/onstage/g.php?MTID=e3b6f4f21c1129c1ced49e978cd79646a
“WE THE YOUTH, YOU THE PEOPLE, AUGUST 19, 2020, 3pm – 5pm
DYCD will host a series of virtual town halls kicking off discussing Structural Racism. One goal is to create a safe space for young people to harness their voice, agenda and power around the uncertainties of the health pandemic, civil unrest, funding priorities, programming and policies that affect their lives. We invite everyone to hear and learn from their voices!
New York, the state court system has extended a moratorium through October 1 for residential tenants, allowing thousands of renters at risk of eviction momentary relief. The new directive, mandates that no existing or new residential eviction warrants can be executed until October at the earliest and continues its suspension on proceedings.
GET FOOD NYC – FREE FOOD FOR NEW YORKERS
Use the below link to find out about Pandemic EBT, SNAP, WIC, Cooking at home tips, food delivery service, fresh produce and more
Use the below link/map to find locations that offer free food pantries and Grab & Go meals at NYC schools, as well as grocery stores and farmer’s markets
NYC DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION SCHOOLS REOPENING PLAN
New York City Department of Education’s District School Reopening Planwas submitted to the New York State Education Department. The plan is 109 pages and provides a detailed description of the current plans for re-opening. Governor Cuomo announced that schools across New York can reopen for in-person instruction this fall. Under the governor’s announcement, schools can be reopened if they are in a region where the average rate of positive tests for COVID 19 is below 5 percent. Mayor de Blasio and Chancellor Carranza have set a higher standard and announced that schools can only open if the rate of positive tests in the city is 3 percent or lower. Currently, New York City’s positivity rate is below 1 percent.
The National Weather Service has issued a tropical storm warning, a flash flood watch and wind advisory for NYC, with sustained winds 40 to 50 mph, and gusts up to 60 mph. The heaviest rain is expected from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday. New York City Emergency Management has issued a travel advisory from Tuesday morning through Tuesday night as there the potential for heavy rainfall and strong winds that may reduce visibility and create hazardous travel throughout Tuesday.
Heavy rains and gusty winds could limit visibility and create difficult travel conditions through Tuesday night. Tropical Storm Warning in effect citywide; with heavy rains and strong winds from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., with the strongest rains and tropical strength winds from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday
New Yorkers should plan for difficult travel conditions and are advised to exercise caution and consider taking public transportation if they must travel. Those who are able to stay home during the storm are advised to stay indoors. Heavy rains may lead to potential flooding in low-lying areas throughout the city, including lower Manhattan. If you are traveling, avoid flooded areas, turn on headlights, drive slowly, and exercise caution. Consider avoiding or delaying travel until flooding and heavy rain stop.
Safety Tips
If you live in a flood-prone area, keep materials such as sandbags, plywood, plastic sheeting, and lumber on hand to help protect your home.
If you have a disability or access or functional need, make sure your plan addresses how your needs may affect your ability to evacuate, shelter in place, or communicate with emergency workers. Arrange help from family, friends, or service providers if you will need assistance.
When outside, avoid walking and driving through flooded areas. As few as six inches of moving water can knock a person over. Six inches of water will reach the bottom of most passenger cars, causing loss of control and possible stalling. One or two feet of water can carry away a vehicle.
Stay out of any building if it is surrounded by floodwaters.
If you see downed electrical wires, do not go near them. Never attempt to move or touch them with any object. Be mindful that tree limbs, leaves, or water can cover downed wires from view. Always stay away from downed power lines because they could be live.
Report downed wires immediately. If a power line falls on your car while you are in it, stay inside the vehicle and wait for emergency personnel.
Power Outages
To prepare for a possible power outage, charge cell phone batteries, gather supplies, and turn your refrigerator and freezer to a colder setting. If you lose power, items that need refrigeration will stay cooler for longer.
Make sure your flashlights and any battery-operated radios or televisions are working. Keep extra batteries.
If you lose power and have a disability, access and functional needs or use Life Sustaining Equipment (LSE) and need immediate assistance, dial 911.
Do not use generators indoors.
Check on friends, relatives, and neighbors, especially older adults and people with disabilities, access and functional needs, or health conditions. Help them to prepare if needed.
Prepare for Strong Winds
Strong winds can bring down trees and power lines and can turn unsecured objects into dangerous projectiles. To protect against the hazard of strong winds, New Yorkers should:
Check the area immediately surrounding your home for unsecured objects or potentially dangerous conditions. Tree limbs, garbage cans, yard debris, or other materials that can be moved by the wind are potential projectiles aimed at your home or parked vehicle.
Bring inside loose, lightweight objects such as lawn furniture, potted plants, garbage cans, garden tools and toys.
Anchor objects that would be unsafe outside, such as gas grills or propane tanks.
Close up and secure patio furniture.
Secure retractable awnings.
Remove aerial antennas and satellite television dishes.
Stay Informed about Tropical Storm Isaias
Monitor Notify NYC and local media, the City’s free emergency notification system, though which New Yorkers can receive phone calls, text messages, and/or emails alerts about traffic and transit disruptions and other emergencies. To sign up for Notify NYC, call 311, visit NYC.gov/NotifyNYC, or follow @NotifyNYC on Twitter.
NYC Emergency Management has developed some localized coastal storm preparedness materials for the 2020 hurricane season, including the location of hurricane evacuation zones and evacuation centers by borough. Please be advised that information is subject to change. Check this website or call 311 (212-639-9675 for Video Relay Service, or TTY: 212-504-4115) for updates.
NYC EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AND THE HEALTH DEPARTMENT ADVISE NEW YORKERS TO PREPARE FOR EXTREME HEAT
Heat related deaths and illnesses are preventable. Despite this, around 618 people in the United States are killed by extreme heat every year. This website provides helpful tips, information, and resources to help you stay safe in the extreme heat this summer.
What is Extreme Heat?
Extreme heat is defined as summertime temperatures that are much hotter and/or humid than average. Because some places are hotter than others, this depends on what’s considered average for a particular location at that time of year. Humid and muggy conditions can make it seem hotter than it really is.
What Causes Heat-Related Illness?
Heat-related illnesses, like heat exhaustion or heat stroke, happen when the body is not able to properly cool itself. While the body normally cools itself by sweating, during extreme heat, this might not be enough. In these cases, a person’s body temperature rises faster than it can cool itself down. This can cause damage to the brain and other vital organs.
Some factors that might increase your risk of developing a heat-related illness include:
High levels of humidity
Obesity
Fever
Dehydration
Prescription drug use
Heart disease
Mental illness
Poor circulation
Sunburn
Alcohol use
Who is Most at Risk?
Older adults, the very young, and people with mental illness and chronic diseases are at highest risk. However, even young and healthy people can be affected if they participate in strenuous physical activities during hot weather.
Summertime activity, whether on the playing field or the construction site, must be balanced with actions that help the body cool itself to prevent heat-related illness. Use this website to learn more on how to stay safe in the heat this summer, including how to prevent, recognize, and cope with heat-related illness.
The COVID Rent Relief Program will provide eligible households with a one-time rental subsidy that will be sent directly to the household’s landlord. Applicants will not need to repay this assistance. The Covid Rent Relief Program is not first come, first served. Applications will be accepted throughout the two-week application period. HCR will prioritize eligible households with “greatest economic and social need” accounting for income, rent burden, percent of income lost and risk of homelessness.
The rental assistance payment will cover the difference between the household’s rent burden on March 1, 2020 and the increase in rent burden for the months the households is applying for assistance. Households can apply for up to four months in rental assistance.
Eligible households must meet the following criteria:
Before March 1, 2020 and at the time of application, household income must have been below 80% of the area median income, adjusted for household size. You can find your county’s area median income, based on your household size: www.hcr.ny.gov/eligible-income-limits-80-ami-county
Before March 1, 2020 and at the time of application, the household must have been paying more than 30% of gross monthly income towards rent. Gross income includes wages as well as any cash grants, child support, social security, unemployment benefits, etc.)
Applicants must have lost income during the period of April 1, 2020 to July 31, 2020.
See our FAQs below for more information.
To apply see the application section of this page below.
HCR has created a dedicated call center to provide residents with help Monday through Saturday, 8 a.m. until 7 p.m. Call the COVID Rent Relief Program Call Center at 1-833-499-0318 or email at covidrentrelief@hcr.ny.gov
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) released the HEROES Act. The $3 trillion bill proposes almost $200 billion in additional funding for housing and homelessness programs to help communities respond to the coronavirus crisis.
The 2020 Census is here — and it will shape New York City’s future for years to come. Once every ten years, the United States Census takes a count of every person in the United States. The taking of the census is mandated by the United States Constitution and has occurred every 10 years since 1790. But the census is so much more than just a count. Census information is used to determine New York City’s fair share of billions of dollars in federal funds for public education, affordable housing, infrastructure, and more — as well as the number of seats we have in Congress. Because so much is at stake, it’s critical that New Yorkers stand up and be counted in the 2020 Census.In the 2010 Census, the city’s self-response rate was less than 62%, compared to the national average of 76%. We need every New Yorker to get involved to ensure that their community is counted next year.
RESOURCES
LES READY!
Please let us know if your organization is in need of gloves, masks, gowns or have other needs. Contact us at lesready.covid19@gmail.com
In January, LES Ready! was pleased to welcome a group of grassroots organizations from across New York City who discussed the critical work they are doing in local communities to prepare for manmade and natural disasters. January 2020. The presenters were:
Wali Abdun-Noor South Bronx Emergency Network
Alberto Pimentel Huntspoint/Longwood Community Coalition
LES Ready! was on-site at Jacob Riis Houses during last evening’s crane collapse. No injuries have been reported and residents of 749 and 765 FDR Drive have been allowed back into their apartments. If you have questions, concerns, or need assistance, contact us at lesreadyinfo@gmail.com.
LESReady! hosts visiting disaster management and resiliency professionals
LESReady! Co-Chair and GOLES Executive Director Damaris Reyes discusses the neighborhood’s experience during Superstorm Sandy.
What can someone living in an informal settlement in Mumbai learn from an Occupy Sandy volunteer? How does the state of Kerala monitor and assist its handicapped and disabled residents during a disaster – and what can New York City learn from that system?
These were just some of the topics of conversation between LESReady! members and the Crisis Management and Resilience in Coastal India project, a group of five resiliency professionals visiting the U.S. at the invitation of the State Department.
From April 1 until April 19, the group is visiting Washington, D.C., New York City, North Carolina, New Orleans, and Seattle, learning about efforts to adapt to rising sea levels and other coastal risks. During their time in NYC, they reached out to LESReady! to learn about the role that community-based and non-governmental groups play before, during, and after disasters.
LESReady! was thrilled to host the group and participate in this discussion. As coastal cities around the world adapt to climate change and rising seas, knowledge-sharing and dialogue like this is increasingly important. We hope the lessons learned in the LES are taken back and applied in Chennai, Mumbai, and Kerala!
Thanks to the U.S. Department of State’s International Visitor Leadership Program for suggesting the meeting and the New York Community Trust for making LESReady’s work possible.
The hoard of recent hurricanes have set record breaking and unprecedented flooding throughout the Caribbean and United States, leaving many small islands utterly devastated. As a community filled with boriquas of the diaspora, LESReady! deeply feels for our family in Puerto Rico. Hurricane Maria brought chaos and devastation to Puerto Rico, which was at one of its weakest states having endured Hurricane Irma just days earlier. Coupled with Puerto Rico’s long recession, and its debt crisis– we must rise to support Puerto Rico.
LESReady! Is a community-centered disaster response group that focuses on the Lower East Side. When Superstorm Sandy hit NYC nearly five years ago, community members, community-based organizations, block and tenant associations banded together to take care of one another. Recognizing the need for more coordination across our community groups in the case of a future disaster, we formed LESReady! the March following Superstorm Sandy.
We remember the support that came far and wide when we were recovering from Sandy.
We remember how low-income communities of color, and those which lie at the margins of our society, were the ones most disparately impacted.
As a long-term community-based recovery group, we know very well that community-based organizations are the first to respond, and perhaps more significantly, will be the last to leave.
For these reasons, it is time that we rise in solidarity of our siblings in the Caribbean. Below, please find suggested places to donate monetarily, a list of local drop-off sites for goods, information on how LESReady! is mobilizing, and our commitment to provide up to date information on how to contact loved ones in Puerto Rico as that information becomes available.
For more information, contact Resiliency Training & Policy Coordinator, Ceci Pineda ceci@goles.org. For links to the recommended donation sites and other websites referred, please visit www.lesready.org
In solidarity,
Ayo Harrington and Victoria Lugo LESReady! Executive Co-Chairs
FINANCIAL DONATIONS
LESReady! would like to highlight two organizations that are currently raising monetary donations to serve those most at the margins:
LES-WIDE COLLECTION DRIVE LESReady! is closely monitoring immediate supply needs and assessing shipping logistics to establish an LES-wide collection drive for Puerto Rico and other hurricane-impacted areas if logistics allow. If you are interested in being listed as a drop-off location, please fill out your information here.
LES DROP-OFF SITES FOR PUERTO RICO: We would like to also highlight on the ground efforts from fellow community members of the Lower East Side that are currently accepting supply donations in the Lower East Side for families in Puerto Rico:
Smith Houses Tenant Association
(Baseball Field – Robert F. Wagner Sr. Place between >>South Street & Pearl Street) Saturday, September 30 (12PM – 8PM) Selling food to raise donation funds Accepting packaged goods / supplies
Good Record
218 E 5th Street Monday – Friday (12P-8P) Saturday – Sunday (12P-7P) For information on contact https://www.sociedad.life/papuertorico
WhyNotCare & Iglesia Evangelica Bautista
Calle 8 Church 393 E 8th Street Monday, Tuesday, Thursday (4:30P – 8:30P) Collecting: Toiletries, Diapers, new or clean blankets, water, batteries, dry food, etc. For more information, contact: 646.783.8123 IEBCALLE8@gmail.com Lilah@whynotcaremore.org Whynotcarenyc@gmail.com
Engine 28 / Ladder 11
222 East 2nd St (Between B & C) Monday – Friday (7AM – 9PM) Collecting: Diapers, baby food, batteries, first aid supplies, feminine hygiene products Organized by NYC Mayor’s Office
Lady Tigers Youth Softball Team
428 E 10th Street Monday – Thursday (6P-9P) Collecting: Water, non-perishables, toiletries, diapers, and clothing
Loisaida via Eco-Kit Duffle
Visit https://www.ecokitduffle.org/ Place an order for items on the ‘NEEDS LIST’page. Ship items to our pick up center at Loisaida Center. Sorted items are immediately given to Eco-Kits volunteer travelers. Eco-kits get picked up at airports in Puerto Rico by contacted community coordinators and delivered to grass-roots organizations. (Full list on webpage)
NYC DROP-OFF SITES FOR BARBUDA: The New York City Consulate of Antigua and Barbuda is currently collecting donations at sites through all boroughs for Barbuda. For more information on the priority items being collected and drop-off sites, visit https://www.abconsulate.nyc/goods
CONTACTING LOVED ONES IN PR: We are connected to La Red De Apoyo Mutuo a Puerto Rico, a network of individuals and groups throughout the United States that are working on compiling on the ground information. We have expressed the need echoed from fellow community members for information on how to contact loved ones. As we attain more information, we will keep people aware of information on how to contact loved ones as that information emerges.
PUERTO RICO EMERGENCY OPERATION CENTERS: For a directory of emergency operation centers in Puerto Rico (in Spanish), please click: http://prfaa.pr.gov/…/uploa…/2017/09/Oficinas-Regionales.pdf
On March 24 the City released its 13th Proposed Amendment to the East Side Coastal Resiliency Project, based on community feedback and new design challenges. LESReady! spoke out about the importance of climate science and the need to defend against displacement, both natural and man-made. Read our comments here: LESReady! Public Comments to ESCR Amendment 13.
