#qtyoc

FIERCE applauds New York City Council and City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-VIverito for taking an important step in ending the criminalization of low level Quality of Life offenses in New York City.  However, we believe that we have a long journey ahead of us to end New York City’s practice of punishing and criminalizing the most marginalized communities for not having access to basic human needs. The shift from criminal court summons to civil summons will continue to punish the homeless, people of color, poor to low income people, and LGBTQ youth of color for their lack of access. This shift in policy will continue to create a system where the law is used to force communities away from spaces where they have found safety, resources, and chosen family. This practice leads us to ask: Whose Quality of Life are we protecting?  

Quality of Life laws have made a clear statement to the people of New York City: that those with the least amount of access to resources are expendable and should be punished for their audacity to survive with very little. As an organization that has worked with LGBTQ youth of color between the ages of 13 to 24 since the year 2000, we have seen the impacts of these laws on our community, as one of their first uses to push LGBTQ people of color out of Times Square, making way for big developers to transform a place that was once a site of safety and survival into yet another place for economic expansion. These laws were also used to push LGBTQ youth of color out of the West Village and off of the Christopher Street Pier, and to pave the way for gentrification that has systematically displaced those who are most directly impacted by familial violence and homelessness.

The shift that Mark-Viverito falls short in that it will continue to punish the homeless, people of color, poor to low income people, and LGBTQ youth of color by enforcing fines for low level Quality of Life violations. It is unclear if this proposed shift will take individual socioeconomic status into account. However, what is clear is that the burden of monetary fines for low level Quality of Life violations can and will have a tremendous impact on the aforementioned groups of New York City residents. FIERCE vehemently refuses to accept the state of the Quality of Life laws as they stand now, and urges City Council to not only decriminalize this currently proposed short-list of laws now, but to go beyond that to further reimagine ways to maintain a livable quality of life for all New York City residents including, not in spite of, our most marginalized communities.

FIERCE has offered a series of recommendations, both to the Presidential 21st Century Policing task force and to the Our Fair City Report, that we believe are essential components  to any conversation to end the detrimental practice of Quality of Life policing.  

Those recommendations include, but are not limited to:

1. End Discriminatory Policing Practices

a.  Decriminalize all Quality of Life offenses housed in the Administrative Code

b.  Ensure that all quality of life violations take into account individual socioeconomic status as well as the impact and disproportionate application of them.

c.   End the use of Broken Windows Theory as a basis from which to create and implement police policy.    

2. Ensure local police data and statistics are open to the public and disaggregated by age, race, gender, geographic location.

If you work within a non-profit organization, you know the struggle and the complexities that come with working within the non-profit industrial complex.

What is the NPIC? How does it impact our work? How can we still work within this system to create effective change?

These are some of the questions we’ll be discussing at this month’s Let’s Politik! So, come join the convo!

Food and metros will be provided.

For more info, contact Lee at [email protected].

Oh wait! What's that?! Another paid internship opportunity for LGBTQ youth of color?! That's right y'all. Not only are we looking for fabulous young folks to go through our Base-Building Intensive, we're also looking for a fabulous young person to help coordinate our base-building intensive!

Please share far and wide! :) Deadline to apply: NO LATER than February 13th at 8pm Email your application to [email protected] or drop it off in person at our office (147 W24th Street 6th Floor NY, NY)!

PAID INTERNSHIP OPPORTUNITY FOR LGBTQ YOUTH OF COLOR IN NYC! PLEASE SHARE! <3

We're excited to announce that we will have our 2nd Base-Building Intensive happening from March to June! This internship is all about outreach, recruitment, and keeping our people involved with our work. :)