Susie Kamara is a home health worker and barely gets by, but makes too much to qualify for the city\u2019s half-price transit program known as Fair Fares.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be honest, it\u2019s affected me a lot because I was just close to be qualified City Hall. I need it to visit my clients,\u201d she said. \u201cSo I had to save up every week to make sure I\u2019d be able to afford the transit.\u201d<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
A new report from the Citizens Budget Commission, also known as CBC, makes the case for raising the income threshold. It says increasing it to 250% of the federal poverty level would allow over 700,000 more people to enroll \u2014 2 million people total at an annual cost of $146 million a year
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While the City Council supports expanding eligibility, and in fact, making all transit free for those currently enrolled in fair fares, on Wednesday they examined a bill that would increase enrollment
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Meanwhile, Mayor Zohran Mamdani weighed in exclusively to NY1, supporting both expansion and increasing enrollment<\/p>\n
Kamara joined transit advocates at City Hall ahead of a hearing on the program to push for expanded enrollment.<\/p>\n
A new report from the Citizens Budget Commission, also known as CBC, makes the case for raising the income threshold. It says increasing it to 250% of the federal poverty level would allow over 700,000 more people to enroll \u2014 2 million people total at an annual cost of $146 million a year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019d be expanding the program to cover one in four working New Yorkers, to cover people earning 20% more than the minimum wage, and putting $750 back in the pocket of a full-time commuter,\u201d Andrew Rein, the president of Citizens Budget Commission, said.<\/p>\n
The current threshold is 150% of the federal poverty level, which means to qualify, someone must make just under $24,000 or a family of four about $49,000 or less per year.<\/p>\n
While the City Council supports expanding eligibility, and in fact, making all transit free for those currently enrolled in fair fares, on Wednesday they examined a bill that would increase enrollment.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou try to do the application process. It takes hours. There are so many bureaucratic hurdles,\u201d City Council Speaker Julie Menin said. \u201cThis system is broken. So we are here today to call, to demand for an expansion of Fair Fares.\u201d<\/p>\n
The current enrollment is just under 400,000 out of 1.2 million who are eligible. The bill would require automatic enrollment for anyone who receives other social services.<\/p>\n
The city’s Human Resources Administration pushed back, citing privacy issues.<\/p>\n
\u201cBenefits applications require access to personal information and clients authorizing review of their confidential information. Such information is a requirement to proceed with most, if not all, benefits applications,\u201d Rebecca Chew, the chief program officer of the Human Resources Administration, said. \u201cSuch sensitive information is subject to numerous privacy regulations and laws.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Mayor Zohran Mamdani weighed in exclusively to NY1, supporting both expansion and increasing enrollment.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know that whether it\u2019s at the same threshold, it\u2019s that right now, we need greater levels of utilization. And also there\u2019s the conversation about increased levels of eligibility. And I think all of this is a critical part of how do we make the nation\u2019s most expensive city one where working-class people can afford to get around,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Susie Kamara is a home health worker and barely gets by, but makes too much to qualify for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":222537,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[25,1084,9,24,12,63,298,134,136,135,27,296,142,200],"class_list":["post-222536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-app-top-stories","tag-app-traffic-transit","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-news","tag-nyc","tag-samantha-liebman","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news","tag-top-stories","tag-traffic-and-transit","tag-transit","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222536\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}