“The next mayor will undoubtedly hear plenty from the business community about their priorities. But New York’s homeless population deserves a voice in City Hall that’s just as loud and just as urgent.”

The city’s homeless outreach teams in 2019. (Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

New York’s most powerful and influential business leaders are eager to get their priorities heard by the new mayor, whoever he may be. Real estate executives and Wall Street partners have met with Zohran Mamdani and stumped for Andrew Cuomo. Our next mayor will have no illusions about the issues facing the city’s elite and that elite’s proposed solutions.

What is more urgent, though, is what the next mayor will do for the thousands of homeless New Yorkers who share the city with those business leaders.

The numbers tell a stark story. New York’s homeless population is increasing at an alarming rate. In calendar year 2024, the number of New Yorkers in shelters—excluding new arrivals—increased by roughly 12 percent to more than 73,000. The fundamental issue driving that increase is a lack of housing. The vacancy rate for apartments sits at a historically low 1.4 percent. This past June, rent prices surged 7 percent year-over-year, marking the seventh consecutive month of rising housing costs.

As someone whose organization works across both ends of this problem—directly with New York City’s homeless population and helping develop new supportive and affordable housing to increase supply—I’ve seen firsthand what city government is capable of accomplishing when it moves with purpose and urgency. But to do that, the next mayor will need to address three bureaucratic bottlenecks to help move people from the streets to stable housing. 

First, we must dramatically accelerate the creation of new housing. The incoming mayor should launch an executive-led initiative to fast-track affordable housing approvals within the first 100 days. This means directing city agencies to expedite environmental reviews and waive certain fees for 100 percent affordable and supportive housing projects. Removing red tape and adopting “by-right” zoning for affordable housing can significantly accelerate New York’s housing pipeline.

The mayor should also empower a deputy mayor for housing and homelessness within City Hall—a leader authorized to take a big-picture view of what’s driving our homelessness crisis and implement a city-wide plan to build new housing, particularly affordable and workforce housing. 

Additionally, we need an immediate initiative to rapidly convert underutilized office buildings into residential units citywide. This goes beyond existing state-level tax incentives to dramatically increase housing stock where it’s needed most.

Getting people off the streets and into shelter is the crucial second pipeline. This means expanding our existing street and subway outreach teams while building on current relationship-based approaches, like the successful Safe Options Support (SOS) program. We must take down barriers to shelter intake processes that currently leave people cycling between the streets and dead ends. Better coordination between outreach teams and the shelter system will enable faster and more effective intakes, ensuring that when someone is ready to come inside, we’re ready for them.

And finally, we need to move folks from shelter to permanent housing faster. It takes far too long for shelter residents to secure permanent housing, and the new administration must attack this bottleneck head-on. 

The mayor can mandate a top-to-bottom review of the approval process for supportive housing and CityFHEPS housing vouchers, with clear instructions to eliminate unnecessary steps. In practice, this means reducing paperwork burdens, streamlining eligibility interviews, and pre-qualifying shelter clients for housing subsidies much faster. The city has already made recent improvements, allowing more flexible documentation and expanded voucher access—we need to build on that momentum aggressively.

Long-term, the city should invest in substantially more housing vouchers and incentivize landlords through signing bonuses or tax breaks to accept homeless tenants. Many shelter residents awaiting supportive housing require state approval or matching to a provider. The mayor can establish a joint task force with the state to eliminate these backlogs. By cutting through bureaucracy, residents ready for housing could move out of shelters months earlier.

Success would mean shelter populations declining not because we’ve pushed people back to the streets, but because we’ve moved them into permanent housing. It would mean construction cranes building affordable units as quickly as luxury towers. It would mean outreach workers who can promise a clear path forward, not just a temporary bed.

The next mayor will undoubtedly hear plenty from the business community about their priorities. But New York’s homeless population deserves a voice in City Hall that’s just as loud and just as urgent. Their lives depend on it, and our city’s future does too. 

Perry Perlmutter is the CEO of Services for the UnderServed (S:US)

The post  Opinion: The Next Mayor’s Real Test? Ending New York’s Homelessness Crisis appeared first on City Limits.

By ALI SWENSON, MICHELLE L. PRICE and LAURA UNGAR

WASHINGTON (AP) — Drugmaker EMD Serono will reduce the cost of a common fertility medication through a deal struck with the Trump administration, President Donald Trump said Thursday while also unveiling new federal guidance he said will encourage employers to offer fertility coverage.

Related Articles

Ex-Trump national security adviser Bolton charged in probe of mishandling of classified information

States are redistricting to help one party but sometimes the move can backfire

Energy Department offers $1.6 billion loan guarantee to upgrade transmission lines across Midwest

Trump warns Hamas ‘we will have no choice but to go in and kill them’ if bloodshed persists in Gaza

Judge blocks Trump cuts, restores $34 million in anti-terror funds for New York City transit system

The new guidance will allow companies to offer fertility benefits separate from major medical insurance plans, like they do with dental and vision plans, Trump said.

“We want to make it easier for all couples to have babies, raise children and start the families they have always dreamed about,” Trump said.

Dr. Mehmet Oz, who heads the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said that as a result: “There are going to be a lot of Trump babies. I think that’s probably a good thing,”

The Oval Office announcement offers a first glimpse at how Trump plans to follow up on his executive order earlier this year aiming to reduce the cost of in vitro fertilization, a medical procedure that helps people facing infertility build their families. But it falls far short of his promise as a candidate to make IVF treatment free. It marks the third deal the administration has made with pharmaceutical companies to cut drug prices in recent weeks.

EMD Serono’s Gonal-f is among several drugs frequently used by patients going through IVF treatments — which involve using hormones to trigger ovulation, producing multiple eggs that are retrieved from the ovaries to be fertilized or frozen. The drugs can be expensive, often costing patients thousands of dollars for a single IVF cycle. Many patients trying to get pregnant through IVF go through more than one cycle.

The White House and EMD Serono said the drug, along with all its other IVF medications, will be available at a discount on TrumpRx, a government website where patients will be able to buy drugs directly from manufacturers. The Trump administration contends that the new website, which is expected to be running in 2026, will cut pharmaceutical costs by allowing people to buy them without a middleman.

Trump said the Food and Drug Administration will also be working with EMD Serono to expedite approval of another one of its fertility drugs available in Europe, called Pergoveris.

Thursday’s announcement comes after Trump issued a February executive order pledging to make IVF more affordable. During his campaign last year, Trump pledged that if he was elected, he would make IVF treatment free.

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz listens as President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House, Thursday, Oct. 16, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

“Under the Trump administration, your government will pay for — or your insurance company will be mandated to pay for — all costs associated with IVF treatment,” he said at an event in Michigan. “Because we want more babies, to put it nicely.”

That pledge came in the wake of growing pressure after his Supreme Court nominees helped overturn the right to abortion in Roe v. Wade that kicked off an effort in GOP-led states to impose new restrictions, including some that have threatened access to IVF by trying to define life as beginning at conception.

Roger Shedlin, CEO of the fertility and family building benefits company WIN, on Wednesday expressed excitement about what he called “steps in the right direction.”

“Any initiative that addresses the cost of drugs will have a material positive impact on the overall cost of the fertility cycle,” he said.

Corinn O’Brien, 39, of Birmingham, Alabama, said anything to lower the costs of IVF would be “huge for families.”

O’Brien said she underwent three rounds of IVF and gave birth to a daughter in June. Each time, the drugs would cost anywhere from around $1,000 to $5,000.

She said covering the whole IVF cycle “ultimately would be a game changer for families,” but helping with the cost of drugs “is progress and is much appreciated.”

O’Brien added it would be great if more employers would cover fertility services because, for many, “this is their only chance to expand their family.”

Swenson reported from New York. Ungar reported from Louisville, Kentucky.

By CHRISTOPHER WEBER

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday that California will begin selling affordable insulin under its own label on Jan. 1, nearly three years after he first announced a partnership to sell state-branded generic drugs at lower prices.

Related Articles

Walking is good for you. Walking backward can add to the benefits

Obesity remains high in the US, but more states are showing progress, a new report finds

What is the chikungunya virus now transmitted in the US for the first time in years?

Medicare costs are rising in 2026. Here’s how to save during open enrollment

CVS polishes off deal to buy former Rite Aid stores, prescription files

But California won’t be the only state making lower-cost insulin available. The nonprofit Civica said it will also distribute its economical diabetes medication to pharmacies nationwide. California began partnering with Civica in 2023 for its “CalRx” brand of insulin and put $50 million toward its development, the company said.

Starting in the new year, insulin pens will be available at a recommended price of $11 per pen, or a maximum of $55 for a five-pack, Civica said.

“You don’t need a new prescription,” Newsom said at a news conference in Los Angeles. “It’s access on the basis of affordability.”

It is one piece of California’s effort to lower prescription drug costs by offering generics as a cheaper alternative. Newsom announced in April that the state will sell the overdose medication Naloxone. The drug, available as a nasal spray and in an injectable form, is considered a key tool in the battle against a nationwide overdose crisis.

For the insulin development, the state entered a 10-year deal with Civica and Biocon Biologics in early 2023. Officials said then that they hoped California’s emergence as an insulin-maker would prompt prices to collapse.

The new pens will be interchangeable with glargine, the generic alternative for more expensive once-a-day injections that regulates blood sugar. As a comparison, the equivalent of a five-pack of Eli Lilly’s Rezvoglar sells to pharmacies for more than $88, according to data compiled by the governor’s office, but consumers may pay a different price based on their insurance.

About 38 million Americans — and roughly 3.5 million Californians — have diabetes, according to the American Diabetes Association.

Chris Noble, organizing director of Health Access California, a statewide consumer health care advocacy group, welcomed Newsom’s announcement, saying efforts by California and others to develop a competing generic will bring relief to patients who have seen drug prices spike in recent years.

“California consumers need relief now, so health advocates are relieved to see CalRx moving quickly to lower insulin costs for the people of California while continuing to pursue other needed prescription drug cost solutions,” Noble said in a statement Thursday.

There could be risks. State analysts have warned that California’s entry into the market could prompt other manufacturers to reduce the availability of their drugs, a potential unintended consequence.

State lawmakers approved $100 million for the project in 2022, with $50 million dedicated to developing three types of insulin and the rest set aside to invest in a manufacturing facility.

According to state documents from 2023, the proposed program could save many patients between $2,000 and $4,000 a year. In addition, lower costs could result in substantial savings because the state buys the product every year for the millions of people on its publicly funded health plans.

Two candidates are running for mayor of White Bear Lake in November’s election.

In the primary last August Mary Nicklawske received 71% of the vote, while Stephen Laliberte had 18% and Matthew Schoenthaler had 11%. Nicklawske and Laliberte advanced to the November ballot. The two are vying to replace White Bear Lake Mayor Dan Louismet, who won office in 2021 and did not run for reelection.

General information about the Nov. 4, 2025, election is online at twincities.com/news/politics/elections including information on candidates for races in Ramsey, Dakota and Washington counties.

To find out what’s on your ballot, where to vote and other election information, visit the Minnesota Secretary of State’s elections page at sos.state.mn.us/elections-voting.

White Bear Lake mayor

Stephen Laliberte

(Candidate did not complete the form)

Mary Nicklawske

(Candidate did not complete the form)