TAKING CARE OF FAMILIES AGENDA

As a working mom, a proud woman of color, a social worker and candidate for New York City Council, Tricia Shimamura is committed to being a voice for working families. Below is a brief outline of her legislative priorities to reinvest in all New York City families, dismantle racism and bias from our healthcare system, and commit to addressing the needs of homeless children and families. The economic recovery of our city and overall path forward towards a more just and equitable society depends on how our City responds to the needs of our families.

Now more than ever, working families in New York City are struggling to manage the financial and emotional balance of work and family care. Prior to the pandemic, the resources offered to families with children under the age of three were all but non-existent. Now, nearly a year into this pandemic, New York City has failed to come up with affordable, consistent and high quality childcare options for working families. The impact of this failure is exceedingly clear: studies consistently show that women are being forced to leave the workforce in droves, stunting our city’s ability to economically recover, and halting women’s ability to achieve parity in the workforce.This cannot continue. Women and families deserve more. Childcare should be a right and not a privilege. New York City should commit to enacting a Universal Childcare plan that will:

• Create a sliding scale of percentage caps for childcare costs based on income.  A space in a child care center for an infant in New York City costs over $21,000 per year—more than three times as much as in-state tuition at The City University of New York and exceeding median rent in every borough. On the Upper East Side, childcare costs can range from $30,000 to $50,000 a year or more. With a median household income of $123,710, Upper East Side families must allocate between 25 - 40% of their income to childcare. A Universal Childcare model would create a sliding-scale based on income and percentage caps for total childcare costs.
• Increase the number of childcare slots and locations with a goal of ensuring families are within 10 city blocks (.5 mile) from a childcare center. Child care centers and family day care providers currently have capacity for only 22 percent of children under two in the city. On the Upper East Side, family day cares and childcare centers can accommodate only 10 % percent of children under two in the neighborhood. Building on the work of Council Member Ben Kallos, the capacity of child care centers could be increased through the use of vacant storefronts. The City should establish a matching funds low-interest loan program in which a qualifying childcare provider can invest private funds into expanding in new storefront space, and the City would make matching contributions in the form of a low-interest loan to cover capital costs. The City should also establish additional grant opportunities for Minority and Women-Owned Business Enterprises who are looking to expand their childcare facilities.
• Create incentives to expand childcare opportunities . The City should create a tax incentive for buildings who offer below-market rate for childcare and early child education centers. Additionally, the City should continue to work with New York State legislators to enact a vacancy tax for properties that remain vacant for over 90 days.
• Increase the quality of childcare centers and early child education. National research shows that service providers caring for infants and toddlers earn significantly less than their counterparts who only teach preschool-age children. The City should invest in free or low-cost professional development programming through partnering with existing entities offering continuing education for childcare providers.

Maternal mortality, or the death of a mother from pregnancy-related complications while she is carrying or within 42 days of childbirth, is a growing crisis in the U.S. Nationwide, the CDC found that the maternal death rate for Black women was more than double that of white women (37.1 deaths per 100,00 live births versus 14.7). In 2016, New York was ranked 30th in the nation for its maternal mortality rate. Maternal deaths increased from 15.4 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2001-2003 to 19.6 deaths in 2014-2016. In New York State, Black women are almost four times more likely to die in childbirth than white women. Things are even more dire in New York City where, from 2006 to 2010, Black women were 12 times more likely than white women to die from pregnancy-related causes.  

It doesn’t have to be this way — maternal death is not an inevitability, especially in a country as wealthy as the U.S. The CDC Foundation estimates that over 60 percent of these deaths are preventable. Addressing this crisis begins with valuing women’s health, increasing access to healthcare and family planning services, and investing in low-income and minority communities. Tricia has outlined the following policy agenda to address the city’s maternal mortality epidemic and has gathered a coalition of over 50 City Council candidates who are committed to joining her in this fight:   

Prenatal Care: 

• Promote and fund reproductive community health centers so that expectant parents can access healthy foods, secure stable housing, identify a doctor, and receive counseling services. 
• Enact stricter workplace protections for expectant parents so they can attend all prenatal visits without fear of losing their job or income. 
• Advocate for the expansion of paid leave and paid family leave. 
• Expand and support the New York State Doula Pilot Program, with a goal of enacting universal access to Doulas in New York City and State.  Doulas guide, assist, and advocate for pregnant women, and the American Pregnancy Association reports that doulas can help decrease the overall C-section rate by half, the length of labor by 25%, and requests for an epidural by 60%. Ensure that doulas and midwives are fully reimbursed as primary care providers. 
• Ensure that doulas or other patient advocates can be present at in-person prenatal visits and delivery rooms. 

Labor and Delivery: 

• Support alternative birthing options, including the use of midwives. 
• Mandate comprehensive and mandatory implicit bias training for all staff, including doctors and nurses, as well as implicit bias training in the curricula for all medical professionals.
• Support and encourage the education of Black doctors. Research shows that Black patients experience better communication and overall care when they have Black doctors. Create scholarships and advocate for loan forgiveness programs to increase diversity in maternal healthcare. 
• Push for more accurate, timely data and more transparency in reporting on maternal mortality and complications.  Hospitals should report all maternal deaths as well as major birth complications with breakdowns by race. 
• Following the model of the California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative, establish a robust data infrastructure to provide data to hospitals so they have real-time access to perinatal quality measures. 
• Require the NYC Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee to meet regularly, expand the scope of reviews, and publicly report on progress quarterly. 

Postpartum Care: 

• Mandate city hospitals to provide follow-up care in the four months following delivery, including information about counseling services, how to handle depression, taking care of yourself after labor, and best practices for breastfeeding or formula. 
• Advocate for the extension of pregnancy Medicaid coverage from 60 days after birth to one full year, following the lead of states like Illinois. 

Advocates estimate that New York City has over 100,000 homeless students.  Despite the City’s commitment to increase services for this extremely vulnerable population, the number of homeless children has steadily increased by more than 70% over the last decade. Research also shows that homelessness and educational outcomes are closely tied; fewer than a third of New York City students who are homeless are reading proficiently, rates that are 20 percentage points lower than their permanently housed peers.  

There is no clearer example of our failures to serve our families than this. The City must take immediate actions to appropriately care for these children through: 

• Build permanents supportive housing and affordable housing throughout New York City. The widening affordability gap and the lack of sufficient shelter availability are the two main drivers of homelessness. Over the past 10 years, New York City has continued to lose hundreds of thousands of units of affordable rental housing. To address the affordability gap, the City, State, and Federal government must take bold steps to increase our affordable housing stock, with a significant portion targeted to homeless families and individuals. Additionally, the City must increase the number of permanent supportive housing units, as well as the quantity and quality of the munitical shelter system to provide more comprehensive, culturally sensitive and compassionate services to our families. 
• Designate of a Homeless Families director who can lead an interagency efforts to ensure that all homeless children can participate in learning. Meeting the needs of homeless children and families absolutely requires an interagency coordination and increased accountability for immediate improvements. The City Council must call for the designations of a central director to lead coordination efforts and develop an overall strategy to meet the needs of our homeless families. 
• Install free universal wireless internet throughout New York City, prioritizing the City’s municipal shelter system. Reports have shown that despite the City distributing ipads to students, the technology is useless unless homes are equipped with wireless internet. Access to broadband not only serves our children in remote education, but allows their families to engage in remote work, apply for SNAP, Cash Assistance and Medicaid renewal, and access telemedicine services. There is no greater moment to bridge the digital divide and no greater area of need than that of our homeless children. 
• Reform City shelter policies to better serve families and increase remote learning resources throughout throughout the shelter system. Currently under city policies, students under 18 years old cannot remain in shelter units without a parent, and the Learning Bridges program does not provide enough seats or support for families with children younger than 3 or older than the 8th grade. The City must reform our shelter policies to better meet the needs of our families, expand the Learning Bridges program and widen the range of students eligible to include high school students. 
• Adopt more streamlined, humane approach to PATH. Families should not have to wait over a day to receive word on whether they qualify for shelter. The City must adopt a more humane and compassionate approach to serving our homeless families. We must reconsider the documentation requirements for shelter applications and possible ways to streamline the application process so that more families are accepted the first time they apply. The Prevention Assistance and Temporary Housing (PATH) intake center should be equipped with expanded childcare and remote education services so that children and students can continue to learn while outside of the classroom. 

No one should be harassed, attacked, threatened, ridiculed, or made to worry about their safety just for trying to enter a medical clinic. The City must prioritize patient safety through strengthening and expanding NYC’s Clinic Access Law. We must expand the safety zone around clinics, as well as increase penalties for those who violate the zone. Tricia will also work with patients, advocates, and health providers to craft additional legislation that further protects everyone from intimidation or menace, and will work to ensure that the volunteers who continue to bravely escort patients to and from clinics are given the protections and safety standards they absolutely deserve.  

While New York has been a national leader in establishing progressive paid family leave policy, the state still has a long way to go in establishing equity for low-income families and families of color. Paid family leave helps all parents and family caregivers, but especially women, stay in the workforce - an estimated 66% of all caregivers are women. Demands for family caregiving work are ever-growing. During this pandemic, family members have increasingly taken on added caregiving work for children, sick family members, and family members with disabilities. Moreover, in the last two decades alone, Manhattan has seen an increase of 30% in its older adult population. Family caregiving is work, and New York must ensure that family caregivers have the resources to both take care of their loved ones and return to our workforce.  

As of January 1, 2018, paid family leave is mandatory in New York State and was extended to 12 weeks starting January 1, 2021. However, the New York City Department of Health has reported that, in past years, almost 20% of mothers did not return to work because they were unable to schedule or find affordable childcare. Approximately one fourth of all the women surveyed struggled with economic difficulty, with 17% saying they had food insecurity. Black mothers are also two times more likely to have economic insecurity in the first year of childbirth than white mothers. Of the mothers who did return to work, 90% reported that they had to return before they were ready - 70% reported that they returned due to financial need. Our road to economic recovery is paved by getting our families back to work, and we must enact a more robust paid family leave policy to strengthen our workforce. State law as it stands only provides families with 67% of their weekly incomes. With a median rent of $3000 a month in Manhattan, low-income families without sufficient safety nets cannot reasonably survive on 67%. Paid family leave should also be extended from 12 weeks to 6 months to ensure all families are empowered to return to work after a full recovery period. Additionally, Tricia is supportive of amending Paid Family Leave to support parents with at-home learning.  Families should not have to make the impossible choice between caring for loved ones and working to live, and it’s time for New York to invest in our workforce through stronger paid family leave. 

All too often, when a family discovers their child has cancer, the experience is not only devastating, but isolating. Families with children battling cancer face unspeakable emotional burdens, as well as tremendous personal financial costs and a never-ending maze of insurance forms, paperwork, and medical bureaucracy that can last years to overcome. With the Upper East Side being home to multiple hospitals and medical service centers, including Sloan Memorial Kettering and the Ronald McDonald House, thousands of families have found our district as a second home while seeking treatments for their children. These families deserve recognition and support and should never have to go through the experience of childhood cancer alone. The City should create a Families of Children with Cancer taskforce to ensure advocacy and support for this vulnerable community. 

Despite having an exceptional number of women candidates running for office in New York City (in large part due to the implementation of ranked choice voting) women are still being left out of the room and away from the table when it comes to leadership in the public and private sector. We can’t just stand behind women running for office -- we need to elect them to positions of power. All too often, our civic and political infrastructure has been designed to deny access to women and moms from decision-making processes. From Community Board meetings held at children’s bedtimes to City Council committees with only one woman in the room, we have created spaces where women are not only excluded but weren’t even considered. New York City is in a moment of transformational change, where we have the opportunity to elevate a City Council that reflects our values and truly looks like members of our community. 

As a Council Member, Tricia will continue to make room at the table for more moms, more women, and more women of color. She will convene a task force to dismantle structural barriers that are prohibiting a pipeline of female leadership, from the grassroots to the board room to our legislative chambers. Tricia will call for a review of every City agency, with a focus on expanding advancement opportunities for women and BIPOC. She will fight to permanently adopt hybrid virtual and in-person community board meetings and will allocate funding for childcare services so that parents are more easily able to participate. She will also fight to increase lactation rooms in our legislative chambers, both in New York City and State. She will hold forums and educational campaigns on local representation and opportunities for civic participation, targeting underrepresented constituents - especially mothers and women of color. She will look to appoint diverse leadership to community boards and other commissions/task forces that reflect the diversity of our city, including our working families. She will also fight to break down barriers for mothers looking to run for office by advocating for increased financial support for childcare.  

Tricia may be the first woman of color to represent her district, and one of the few working mothers to run for office in New York City, but she is determined to not be the last.