Its wrong, and it needs to stop, Reynoso said. Dow Jones Reprints at 1-800-843-0008 or visit www.djreprints.com. But it was quickly turned into rejection when a classmate found her in an intimate embrace with another woman. Fellow contender for the Brooklyn borough presidency,City Councilman Antonio Reynoso (D-Brooklyn), slammed the spending, according to The New York Post. First Lady Chirlane McCray sat down with our National Health Reporter, Erin Billups, to defend the program and discuss some of its achievements. Chirlane always wanted kids, but it was a bit tough for her to adjust to the added responsibility and limited freedom. Other families in the neighborhood circulated petitions demanding they leave. Yet many staffers plainly arent doing crisis work. Ms. McCray with Richard Buery, a former deputy mayor, discussing ThriveNYC, a mental health initiative, before a City Councils committee in 2016. Make some of my familys favorite cookies with me: Ginger snaps! McCray is the proprietress of ThriveNYC, a mental-health-related something-or-other created four-plus years ago to give a little. At its inception in 2015, ThriveNYC was a seemingly unwieldy 54 initiative program. Anyone can read what you share. The City Council discovered this shocking amount of potential waste during a meeting Wednesday. But she has at least six other city employees deputized to her office from other public agencies, as was first reported by The City. First Lady of New York City. And its only (your) money even if it is quite a lot of it. Birthday: November 29, 1954 (Sagittarius), Born In: Springfield, Massachusetts, United States, children: Chiara de Blasio, Dante de Blasio, Ancestry: Barbadian American, Saint Lucian American, U.S. State: Massachusetts, African-American From Massachusetts, See the events in life of Chirlane McCray in Chronological Order, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MA438IuonLg. In interviews with more than a dozen donors and others who had contact with the fund, none said that they had substantive conversations with Ms. McCray. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. The first spouse went before the City Council . We launched Thrive long before the pandemic. Shell be happy; the mayor will be delighted and the unions and nonprofits will be delirious. But the co-mayor made performance promises when he initiated the Renewal program, few of which even remotely were met, and presently gravity prevailed: The program caved in on itself. Seven mayors attended a 2017 national mental health conference in New York City. A spokesman for Mr. Fetner, Sam Spokony, said there was no link between the donations and the development project. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Thats because there never was any doubt what the program was about. She added, This is 2018; work can get done in all kinds of ways.. Download it here. Immediately, she began to work mainly on three issues, the chief among them being mental health. "[2] She chaired the Mayor's Fund to Advance New York City and was appointed by her husband to lead a billion-dollar initiative called ThriveNYC. The three largest programs, according to the most recent tax filing for 2016, were federal grants for antipoverty initiatives, civic service programs and a Bloomberg-era effort known as the Young Mens Initiative aimed at supporting black and Hispanic men. They're homeless for other reasons.. We've received your submission. [35] The family lived in Park Slope, Brooklyn,[6][12] until their 2014 move into Gracie Mansion,[36] the official residence of the Mayor of New York City. We've received your submission. The IBO budget shows $816 million. He also made maximum contributions to Mr. de Blasios inaugural fund in 2013 and to his 2017 re-election campaign. There are people who need supportive care. [19] Since then, the Fund has focused on mental health, immigration, and youth workforce projects. When asked whether she plans to continue working with the national coalition once she leaves Gracie Mansion, McCray says she is too focused on the present needs of the Office of Community Mental Health to say what will happen once her husband leaves his post. Certain communities and communities of color suffer more than other communities. This work is about the needs of the people of this city especially in this crisis, de Blasio said this week, pointing to her running of his racial equity task force as well as (hes so shameless) the universally criticized ThriveNYC mental health debacle. It was honorable work, it didnt cost very much and it filled up the spouses free time. One is a $70,000-a-year videographer (paid via the Health Department!) The U.S. economy no longer looks so exceptional. That is bad news for the dollar. That the co-mayors could fly under the radar to burn through $1.6 billion to no obvious good effect is an embarrassment but understandable in the abstract. We understand were working at a sensitive intersection of civic investors and public projects, so we try to be sensitive to it, Mr. Bloch said. [22][23] ThriveNYC promotes a shift from a traditionally more reactive model, which can strain police, prisons, hospitals, and schools,[24] to an integrated public health approach focusing on awareness and early identification. We value your opinions, and would love to see you add to the discussion! But there are other mysteries out there, too. Living in a hospital, that model of institutionalizing people is kind of outmoded.. Mr. Bloomberg, a billionaire whose charitable efforts are well known, conceived the fund as a way for philanthropists, corporations and others to help subsidize city initiatives. Thereafter, she moved to New York City, where she got a job as a low-level editor, writer and market researcher at a women's magazine called Redbook. By 2017, the movement she started expanded to 200 cities. In the first 10 months of the current fiscal year, the fund raised $14 million, according to a spokeswoman, Cynthia Olson, putting the fund on pace for its lowest annual revenues in more than a decade. Once a white construction worker spit on her while she was riding a bike. Even as the city has poured money into mental health . TRUE All Along? That two such scandals should bubble to the surface unannounced is bad enough. With the aid of the citys First Lady, Mayor de Blasio launched a massive overhaul of the citys mental-health system in 2015. Fast-forward to Wednesday, when the City Council was startled to discover that McCray and Team Thrive are closing in on having spent an eye-popping $900 million since the programs inception and nobody seems to have a clue on what. After The Times reviewed its findings with staff at the Mayors Fund, officials on May 18 announced the addition of 19 members, including Ms. Simons, to its advisory board, a largely ceremonial position chiefly aimed at fund-raising. Some critics have said that Thrive focused too little on those with serious mental illnesses. Fourteen city workers assisting McCray cost taxpayers $2 million a year most of it buried in the payrolls of various city agencies until former Post reporter Yoav Gonen pulled together the details for online paper The City. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Darren Walker, the president of the Ford Foundation, a donor to the fund virtually since its inception, recalled receiving a brief phone call from Ms. McCray in 2015 when the foundation was considering a large donation to support a mental health initiative. The reason I say that all of Thrives budget is tailored to [all city residents] is because its very difficult to say [what] is the percentage of our population that is seriously mentally ill, concluded Mrs. Mayor without laughing. A spokeswoman said that they had pledged an additional $250,000, which will be paid this year. While writing articles, she also continued to write poetry, trying to bring about a social change through them. There is no limit to the size of donations to the fund, as there is for campaign contributions, and as a nonprofit controlled by the mayors office, the fund has routinely and legally raised money from donors who gave to Mr. de Blasios campaigns and his political causes. U.S. Government Docket No. Chirlane McCray's ThriveNYC has come under scrutiny following its creation in 2015. In December, the Simonses made another donation, of $250,000. In 1972, she entered Wellesley College, where she found social acceptance for the first time. For non-personal use or to order multiple copies, please contact [13] She also worked as a speechwriter for the New York State Comptroller Carl McCall and for New York City Comptroller Bill Thompson. We have statistics from the very beginning. Mr. de Blasio's wife, Chirlane McCray, has done the same, presenting the effort as a national model to audiences from Atlanta to Seattle. This story has been shared 132,852 times. In early 1990s, she found a job with the New York City governments press office, eventually being appointed a speechwriter for Mayor David Dinkins, serving in this capacity possibly till December 1993. Legal Statement. In 2004, she left Thompsons service to join Maimonides Medical Center, where she served possibly till 2009, trying to promote a culturally sensitive environment and make it attractive to a wider clientele. [37], "Chirlane McCray in sling after birthday injuries", "De Blasio gripes about rules barring spouses from paid gigs in government", "Chirlane McCray, de Blasio's Wife, Is Questioned Over His 'Revolutionary' $1 Billion Mental Health Plan", "NYC'S New First Lady Makes Barbadians Proud - Caribbean and Latin America Daily News", "Chirlane McCray: From Gay Trailblazer to Politician's Wife", "Once Alienated, and Now a Force in Her Husband's Bid for Mayor: Chirlane McCray Plays Key Role in de Blasio Campaign", "Ancient History: The Lesbian Past of Bill de Blasio's Wife", "Bill de Blasio's wife, Chirlane McCray, on the "fluidity of love" and the political spotlight", "Pioneering Black Feminist Makes History Again", "The Family Bible Is a Guest for the Oath, but Not a Participant", "Bill de Blasio's wife, Chirlane McCray, opens up on her role as the mayoral race's most visible spouse", "At City Hall, Backstage Player Is Cast in Main Stage Uproar", "Rachel Noerdlinger, former Chirlane McCray aide, kept ex-con boyfriend updated through controversy", "De Blasio Appoints Chirlane McCray, His Wife, to Lead Nonprofit Group", "Once-Thriving City Nonprofit Sputters Under Mayor's Wife, Chirlane McCray", "NYC First Lady Chirlane McCray Weighs in on Federal Mental Health Reform", "ThriveNYC: A Mental Health Roadmap for All", "Chirlane McCray and the Limits of First-Ladyship", "With opaque budget and elusive metrics, $850M ThriveNYC program attempts a reset", "There's too much money in Chirlane McCray's hands", "First Lady Chirlane McCray considering run for office in 2021", "Chirlane McCray's latest hires hint at run for public office", "Family in the Spotlight: De Blasio's Wife, Children Provide Multiracial Backdrop to Likely Mayoral Bid", "Bill de Blasio's wife recalls him first learning that she was a lesbian", "When Bill de Blasio's Wife Was a Lesbian", "De Blasio Finally Settles Down at Gracie Mansion", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Chirlane_McCray&oldid=1144515944, This page was last edited on 14 March 2023, at 04:47. Several people on the list, when asked about the call, either did not remember the interaction or did not recall discussing donations. First lady Chirlane McCray is assisted by 14 city workers, costing taxpayers $2 million a year. Bill de Blasio, Chirlane McCray, Chiara de Blasio and Dante de Blasio Chirlane is the loving mom of Chiara de Blasio and Dante de Blasio. The funds federal tax returns say that she spends only an hour a week on fund business. It's a way of demonizing people who are suffering and saying they are not deserving of this.. [33] In 2012, when asked about her 1979 essay, she commented: "In the 1970s, I identified as a lesbian and wrote about it. This is a disgrace! Ulrich fumed. Folks, let me tell you something, if there truly is a "scheme" here and the money was intentionally "misused" or funnelled somewhere, that is criminal. [8], When de Blasio became mayor, he hired publicist Rachel Noerdlinger to be McCray's chief of staff. The administration has said their approach to mental health has never been done before at this level anywhere in the country. Don't we want people to have a good quality of life? Thank you! Almost every single one of our programs continued throughout the pandemic.. In 1974, she became a member of The Combahee River Collective, a Black feminist organization that looked into the issues relating specifically to the Black lesbians. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); document.getElementById( "ak_js_2" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Thanks for contacting us. But this is 2019, and the general feeling at least in the deBlasio administration is that if theres not a lot of dough attached to the spousal sinecure, it doesnt really matter enough.