“We never turn people away, yet the demand consistently exceeds resources. Despite these challenges, our programs are proven to reduce recidivism, emergency room visits, and homelessness—at a fraction of the cost of incarceration.”

A dormitory at Fortune Society’s transitional housing program Manhattan. (Photo by Adi Talwar)

Every day, our organizations witness people working hard to take responsibility for their actions and transform their lives. At the Center for Alternative Sentencing and Employment Services (CASES) and The Fortune Society, we are dedicated to helping people access the support they need to avoid incarceration and rebuild their futures. Yet Alternative to Incarceration (ATI) and Reentry programs remain critically underfunded, threatening the progress of thousands of New Yorkers.

ATIs are community-based programs that address the root causes that lead people to court involvement—untreated mental illness, unstable housing, and unemployment. Reentry programs help people returning from jail or prison rebuild their lives, reconnect with their families, and contribute to their communities.

We applaud the proposed $17 million restoration for ATI and reentry programs in Mayor Eric Adams’ Executive Budget. Without this funding, thousands of New Yorkers—disproportionately Black and Latine—will lose access to essential services. While this restoration is vital, it is not enough. The need far exceeds the current investment.

At CASES, our ATI programs serve more than 1,000 people each year. Case managers are stretched thin, managing large caseloads while trying to provide individualized care. At The Fortune Society, we face similar challenges: existing programs are operating beyond capacity. We never turn people away, yet the demand consistently exceeds resources. Despite these challenges, our programs are proven to reduce recidivism, emergency room visits, and homelessness—at a fraction of the cost of incarceration.

The humanitarian crisis at Rikers Island is growing worse. Over the past few years, the number of people detained in city jails has increased by nearly 50 percent. Of the more than 7,500 people currently incarcerated at Rikers, the vast majority are Black and Latine, and over half have a diagnosed mental illness.

Tragically, Rikers is often called the state’s largest mental health facility, but it offers little real care. Instead, people cycle in and out without the support they need to recover. ATIs, on the other hand, offer robust mental health care in the community: CASES’ Assertive Community Treatment program delivers mobile mental health care in our neighborhoods, leading to a 70 percent decrease in re-arrest rates over two years. Instead of being released with no support, participants receive ongoing help with mental health, education, employment, and housing.

The Fortune Society, meanwhile, provides transitional housing for 523 men and women returning from incarceration. These spaces are more than beds—they are launching pads for transformation. Residents access a wide range of services, including case management, mental health support, substance use counseling, employment readiness, and education. Last year alone, 167 individuals moved from these temporary residences into permanent housing, reuniting with their families and building new lives.

This is a pivotal moment. The city must invest boldly in the infrastructure that truly supports public safety: holistic, community-based ATI and re-entry programs. CASES, the Fortune Society, and the rest of our partners in the ATI and Reentry Coalition are critical pieces of New York’s public safety apparatus. 

This year, we are calling for a $2.4 million increase to our programs. That is just 10 percent of what the New York City Department of Correction spends on overtime each month. Investments in our programs realize true savings: The Osborne Association’s court mitigation services alone saved the city an estimated $162 million in avoided incarceration costs in Fiscal Year 2024.

No one should have to rebuild their life without support. ATI and reentry programs offer proven, cost-effective solutions that improve public safety and help people return to their communities with dignity. Yet these programs remain underfunded. New York must invest in real alternatives to incarceration and support people as they rebuild their lives.

If we are serious about building a safer, more just and more prosperous New York City, we must do everything we can to prevent unnecessary jail time. It’s time to stop asking whether we can afford to fund ATI and reentry services and start asking whether we can afford not to. 

Rob DeLeon is Deputy CEO at The Fortune Society. Jonathan McLean is CEO at CASES.

The post Opinion: Why NYC Must Fund Alternative to Incarceration & Reentry Programs appeared first on City Limits.

By KEN SWEET, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Senate Republicans have moved to cut the funding of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau by roughly half, as part of President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” which is likely to lead to hundreds of job cuts at the nation’s financial watchdog agency.

It would be a major blow to the CFPB, which was created after the 2008 financial crisis to police potential bad actors in the financial services industry, and it would be a win for the GOP, who have largely wanted to make the CFPB go away since its creation.

The CFPB is funded through the Federal Reserve, not the Congressional appropriations process. But in the latest version of the bill to come out of the Senate Banking Committee, the CFPB’s funding would be cut from 12% of the Federal Reserve’s profits to 6.5% of the central bank’s profits.

The CFPB requests its annual budget from the Fed every year, effectively as a line of credit from the central bank. It has never needed the entire 12% of the Fed’s profits, but it has come close in previous years to using much of what the Fed would allocate to it. For example, last year the CFPB requested $762.9 million from the Fed, which was close to the transfer cap of $785.4 million.

But cutting the transfer cap by roughly half would mean the CFPB would have to cut its budget significantly or seek to supplement its budget from Congress through the traditional appropriations process, a goal that Republicans have been seeking for years.

“The committee’s language decreases the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) funding cap without affecting the statutory functions of the Bureau,” said Sen. Tim Scott, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee.

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Under President Biden, the bureau was a potent regulator that often gave banks and other financial services companies headaches on a regular basis. The previous director, Rohit Chopra, used the bureau to look into a broader array of financial services beyond the banks, investigating bad practices at credit card companies, payday lenders, buy now, pay later companies and other financial technology firms. The bureau has returned billions of dollars to consumers since its creation through its enforcement actions.

But since President Trump came into office, the bureau has been effectively inoperable. Russell Vought, the President’s budget director, is currently the acting director of the Bureau and has stopped all enforcement and supervision work, the bureau is not writing new rules or regulations and employees are being told not to communicate with banks or outside parties. Employees are logging in once or twice a day to check emails, but there is little supervisory or enforcement work happening at the bureau. Even emails to the CFPB’s press office go unanswered.

House Republicans held a hearing on Wednesday attacking Chopra’s work, calling the former director and his appointees out-of-control bureaucrats who targeted small businesses vindictively. The CEO of a company labeled by the GOP as a small business — but was basically a chain of check cashing and payday lending shops — testified that she spent years having to go back and forth with the CFPB over its operations.

The Senate Republicans’ move comes after their original proposal to cut the CFPB’s budget to zero was ruled in violation of Senate rules by the Senate Parliamentarian. Congressional Republicans are using a process known as “reconciliation” to pass this bill, which only requires a 51-vote majority in the Senate to pass.

This new proposal did pass Parliamentarian muster, but Senate Democrats are expected to fight to remove the provision on the floor.

Donald Trump and Republicans tried to shut down the CFPB by gutting its entire operating budget to (zero),” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, and also the original proposer of the CFPB nearly 20 years ago. “Now, Senate Republicans will bring to the floor a proposal that slashes the agency’s available budget so they can hand out more tax breaks for billionaires and billionaire corporations.”

The Trump administration continued to reshape U.S. health policy in recent days with several moves that could change what vaccines people can get to protect themselves from common illnesses.

Some of the changes are immediate, others are still being discussed, and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. must still sign off on some.

Doctors’ groups have expressed alarm at the moves made by Kennedy, a longtime anti-vaccine activist, and his appointees, who at times have ignored well-established science. Nearly 80 medical groups, including the American Medical Association, issued a statement backing vaccines against common respiratory ailments as “among the best tools to protect the public.”

“We come together as physicians from every corner of medicine to reaffirm our commitment to these lifesaving vaccines,” the groups wrote.

Here’s what to know about some of the recent vaccine policy changes:

Flu shots and thimerosal

On Thursday, a vaccine advisory group handpicked by Kennedy recommended that just about every American get a flu shot this fall.

But the group also said people should avoid shots containing thimerosal, a preservative used only in large multi-dose vials that has been proven to be safe. The ingredient isn’t used in single-dose flu shots, the type of syringe used for about 95% of U.S. flu shots last season.

Status: Kennedy must sign off on the recommendations. Read more AP coverage here.

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How to get a COVID-19 shot

Universal access to updated COVID-19 shots for the fall remains unclear, even after Kennedy’s vaccine advisers were shown data showing how well the vaccines are working.

Kennedy changed CDC guidance last month, saying the shots are no longer recommended for healthy children and pregnant women — even though doctors groups disagree. And the Food and Drug Administration has moved to limit COVID-19 vaccinations among healthy people under age 65.

Status: Upcoming advisory meetings, regulatory decisions and policies from insurers and employers are likely to influence access. Read more AP coverage here.

Expanded warnings on COVID-19 vaccine labels

At the request of the FDA, makers of the two leading COVID-19 vaccines on Wednesday expanded existing warnings about a rare heart side effect mainly seen in young men.

Prescribing information from both Pfizer and Moderna had already advised doctors about rare cases of myocarditis, a type of heart inflammation that is usually mild. The FDA had asked the drugmakers to add more detail about the problem and to cover a larger group of patients.

Status: Labels are being updated now. Read more AP coverage here.

Changes considered for the childhood vaccine schedule

On Wednesday, Kennedy’s vaccine advisers said they would be evaluating the “cumulative effect” of the children’s vaccine schedule — the list of immunizations given at different times throughout childhood.

The announcement reflected vaccine skeptics’ messaging: that too many shots may overwhelm kids’ immune systems. Scientists say those claims have been repeatedly investigated with no signs of concern.

The American Academy of Pediatrics said it would continue publishing its own vaccine schedule for children but now will do so independently of the government advisory panel, calling it “no longer a credible process.”

Status: The examination is in its early stages. Read more AP coverage here.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

By OLGA R. RODRIGUEZ, Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom sued Fox News on Friday over alleged defamation, saying the network knowingly aired false information about a phone call he had with President Donald Trump around the time the National Guard was sent Los Angeles.

The lawsuit alleges Fox News anchor Jesse Watters edited out key information from a clip of Trump talking about calling Newsom, then used the edited video to assert that Newsom had lied about the two talking.

Newsom is asking for $787 million in punitive damages in his lawsuit filed in Delaware court where Fox is incorporated. That’s the same amount Fox agreed to pay in 2023 to settle a defamation lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems. The company said Fox had repeatedly aired false allegations that its equipment had switched votes from Donald Trump to Joe Biden during the 2020 election, and the discovery process of the lawsuit revealed Fox’s efforts not to alienate conservatives in the network’s audience in the wake of Biden’s victory.

“If Fox News wants to lie to the American people on Donald Trump’s behalf, it should face consequences — just like it did in the Dominion case,” Newsom said in a statement. “I believe the American people should be able to trust the information they receive from a major news outlet.”

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He asked a judge to order Fox News to stop broadcasting “the false, deceptive, and fraudulent video and accompanying statements” that Newsom said falsely say he lied about when he had spoken to Trump regarding the situation in Los Angeles, where protests erupted on June 6 over Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Fox News called the lawsuit “frivolous.”

“Gov. Newsom’s transparent publicity stunt is frivolous and designed to chill free speech critical of him. We will defend this case vigorously and look forward to it being dismissed,” the company said in a statement.

The law makes it difficult to prove defamation, but some cases result in settlements and, no matter the disposition, can tie up news outlets in expensive legal fights.

Particularly since taking office a second time, Trump has been aggressive in going after news organizations he feels has wronged him. He’s involved in settlement talks over his lawsuit against CBS News about a “60 Minutes” interview last fall with Democratic opponent Kamala Harris. This week, Trump’s lawyers threatened a lawsuit against CNN and The New York Times over their reporting of an initial assessment of damage to Iran’s nuclear program from a U.S. bombing.

Newsom’s lawsuit centers on the details of a phone call with the president.

Both Newsom and the White House have said the two spoke late at night on June 6 in California, which was already June 7 on the East Coast. Though the content of the call is not part of the lawsuit, Newsom has said the two never discussed Trump’s plan to deploy the National Guard, which he announced the next day. Trump said the deployment was necessary to protect federal buildings from people protesting increased immigration arrests.

Trump later announced he would also deploy Marines to the area.

On June 10, when 700 Marines arrived in the Los Angeles area, Trump told reporters he had spoken to Newsom “a day ago” about his decision to send troops. That day, Newsom posted on X that there had been no call.

“There was no call. Not even a voicemail,” Newsom wrote.

On the evening of June 10, the Watters Primetime show played a clip of Trump’s statement about his call with Newsom but removed Trump’s comment that the call was “a day ago,” the lawsuit said. Watters also referred to call logs another Fox News reporter had posted online showing the phone call the two had on June 6.

“Why would Newsom lie and claim Trump never called him? Why would he do that?” Watters asked on air, according to the lawsuit. The segment included text across the bottom of the screen that said “Gavin Lied About Trump’s Call.”

Newsom’s suit argues that by editing the material, Fox “maliciously lied as a means to sabotage informed national discussion.”

Precise details about when the call happened are important because the days when Trump deployed the Guard to Los Angeles despite Newsom’s opposition “represented an unprecedented moment,” Newsom’s lawyers wrote in a letter to Fox demanding a retraction and on-air apology.

“History was occurring in real time. It is precisely why reporters asked President Trump the very question that prompted this matter: when did he last speak with Governor Newsom,” the letter said.

Associated Press journalist David Bauder contributed to this report.

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