“We need to reverse the tide now—not in some imagined future—by building new affordable homes, reclaiming neglected properties, and defending our public assets from federal threats.”

Mayoral candidate and former city comptroller Scott Stringer, rolling out his housing plan on April 23. (Courtesy Stringer’s campaign)

Editor’s Note: City Limits will offer similar op-ed space to the other candidates running for NYC mayor this year to share their housing plans. If you’re a candidate interested in submitting a piece, email editor@citylimits.org.

New York City is at a crossroads. Families—the lifeblood of our neighborhoods, the foundation of our economy, the future of our city—are being pushed out every day. Our housing market is plagued by sky-high rents, tiny apartments, and too few affordable and family-friendly options. If we don’t act now, New York will become a city that only works for the wealthy few, not the families who make this city great.

As a lifelong New Yorker raising two boys with my wife in a two-bedroom apartment, I know exactly what’s at stake. I know firsthand the financial stress that families experience—and the hard decisions they make, while still recognizing that, if we make the right choices, the five boroughs can be a place where middle-class families can thrive. 

That’s why I believe we need to chart a different course. We can rebuild a city where working families can not only survive, but thrive. The challenges we face require more than pie-in-the-sky promises that do very little to address the housing crisis in the near or even medium term. We need to reverse the tide now—not in some imagined future—by building new affordable homes, reclaiming neglected properties, and defending our public assets from federal threats. My housing plan offers exactly that: practical solutions backed by the effective, experienced leadership necessary to turn good ideas into reality.

The foundation of my housing agenda is Mitchell-Lama 2.0, a proposal to create a new generation of permanently affordable, family-sized housing by unlocking our city-owned vacant land. Right now, New York owns more than 1,100 vacant lots—lots that have sat empty, sometimes for decades, while the housing crisis gets worse and worse. Under Mitchell-Lama 2.0, we would use these lots to build new affordable homes where families can live in the long term, not just survive.

We would be more targeted to our city’s needs than just building any kind of housing; we would establish a New York City Land Bank to develop affordable housing on vacant, city-owned sites and give these tax-delinquent properties back to New Yorkers and those who wish to live here. We would prioritize long-term land leases over sales, keeping the land public and ensuring that affordability lasts for generations. And with Robin Hood Housing, we will, when necessary, use eminent domain to take back distressed properties from absentee landlords who leave buildings to rot—reclaiming run-down housing and turning it into opportunity.

To build on that foundation of Mitchell-Lama, 2.0, last week I released ROOF, which stands for Residential Options for our Families. ROOF prioritizes families and larger households in how we build and preserve affordable housing, committing the city to developing and preserving 42,000 family-sized homes. ROOF requires that at least half of all new affordable housing units built on city-owned land have two or more bedrooms, with a minimum of 15 percent being three-bedrooms—spacious apartments that can be real homes for families and larger households.

Under my mayoralty, ROOF will also work hand-in-hand with the Robin Hood Housing Plan, seizing mismanaged and tax-delinquent properties and converting them into affordable, family-sized apartments. The priority for placement in the apartments would be given to families with children attending nearby public schools, helping to strengthen neighborhoods and schools alike. ROOF would also ensure that when new housing developments are located on city-owned, vacant lots near transit, parks, and childcare centers, families get first priority for the apartments and the buildings are designed with the day-to-day needs of families in mind.

Building and preserving affordable homes is only part of the solution, especially as we face threats from the White House. Now more than ever, we also must protect the public spaces and services that service New Yorkers. That’s why my housing and zoning agenda also includes SHIELD: Safeguarding Historic Infrastructure through Effective Land-use Defenses.

When President Donald Trump floated a dangerous plan to sell off federal buildings in cities like ours, it became clear we needed more than righteous outrage; we needed real weapons to defend ourselves. SHIELD would create a new zoning classification, locking in public use for these critical facilities and requiring full public review before any attempt to privatize or convert them. If Trump or anyone else tries to auction off the buildings that working New Yorkers rely on, SHIELD will give us the power to stop them.

Mitchell-Lama 2.0, ROOF, and SHIELD aren’t just standalone ideas. They are part of a comprehensive strategy—one that meets the multiple crises we face as it relates to housing and land use by building new affordable, family-sized homes, reclaiming neglected properties, and defending our public assets.

Other candidates have offered housing plans. But here’s the difference: I don’t just talk a big game. I know how to use every tool in the city’s toolbox to deliver results. As city comptroller, I protected billions of taxpayer dollars and rooted out waste and corruption. As Manhattan borough president, I reformed broken land use processes and gave neighborhoods a real say in their future. 

To get there, New York doesn’t need another politician pursuing an agenda that inflates his ego rather than meets the city’s needs or others offering empty, unrealistic promises. Instead, we need practical plans, effective tools to fix what’s broken, and true leadership. The crises are severe. The solutions are ready. What’s missing is effective, experienced, and ethical leadership—and that’s what I offer.

Scott Stringer is a lifelong New Yorker and father of two children who attend New York City public schools and live in a two-bedroom apartment. He has served as city comptroller, Manhattan borough president, and state assemblymember, and is currently running in the Democratic primary for mayor of New York City.

The post Opinion: The Housing & Zoning Tools NYC Needs to Fix What’s Broken appeared first on City Limits.

By LINDSEY BAHR

Superman already has a lot on his broad shoulders. It seems unfair to add the fate of Hollywood to his worries.

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But that’s the kind of pressure that comes with being one of the biggest stars in the comic book universe, who is getting a grand reintroduction at a tumultuous time. Thankfully he’s not doing it alone — Marvel Studios is also returning to theaters in a big way with two movies this summer, “Thunderbolts” and “The Fantastic Four: First Steps.”

Five years after the COVID-19 pandemic brought movie business to a halt, and two years after the strikes, the industry has yet to fully recover. Critics may have complained of superhero fatigue, but after several summers of depleted offerings, it’s clear that they’re a vital part of the mix — especially when they’re good.

The $4 billion summer of “Barbenheimer” may be most remembered for those two movies, but it didn’t get to that number without the “Guardians of the Galaxy” and “Spider-Man ” movies, the second- and third-highest grossing of the season.

The filmmakers behind s ome of the summer’s biggest movies spoke to The Associated Press about what to expect in 2025.

Summer Movie Math

Summer begins early in Hollywood, on the first weekend in May. Kids might still be in school, and pools might still be closed, but that kickoff can make or break that pivotal 123-day corridor that has historically accounted for around 40% of the annual box office. Last year was the first in many that didn’t launch with a Marvel movie and it showed — the business limped along for weeks until Disney came to the rescue with “Inside Out 2” and “Deadpool & Wolverine.”

This year, the powerful studio is back in that familiar spot with “Thunderbolts,” which brings together misfits and antiheroes like Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), Red Guardian (David Harbour) and Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan).

“It’s a fun twist on what a movie like this could be,” said director Jake Schreier. “There are some places we’re gonna go that are different from what you would normally expect.”

He added: “It’s trying to be a movie about something and the moment we’re in — not in a political sense, but just where everybody’s at and what everyone’s been going through.”

The Memorial Day weekend could also be a behemoth a few weeks later with the live action “Lilo & Stitch” and “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning” storming theaters. With a new “Jurassic World,” a live-action “How to Train Your Dragon” and a Formula One movie also on the schedule through June and July, the summer 2025 season has the potential to be the biggest in the post-COVID era.

Before the pandemic, all but one summer since 2007 broke the $4 billion mark. Since 2020, only one has: 2023, led by “Barbie.”

Saving Superman (and the DC Universe)

After three “Guardians” movies, James Gunn knows enough to know that he doesn’t have much control over whether people buy tickets for his movies. His job is to make something good, entertaining and “worthy” of the audience.

But that’s also possibly underplaying the pressure of taking on Superman and overseeing a unified DC universe that kicks off with “Superman” on July 11. He considers it the first true superhero movie he’s ever made.

“It’s a personal journey for Superman that’s entirely new,” Gunn said. “It is, first and foremost, about what does Superman learn about himself. But it’s also about the robots and the flying dogs and all that stuff. It’s taking a very real person and putting them in the middle of this outrageous situation and outrageous world and playing with that. I think it’s a lot of fun because of that.”

This image released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows Nicholas Hoult, left, David Corenswet, center, and director James Gunn on the set of “Superman.” (Jessica Miglio/Warner Bros. Pictures via AP)

The film introduces a new actor to the role of Superman/Clark Kent in David Corenswet, who stars alongside Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane and Nicholas Hoult as Lex Luthor. Gunn said to expect different things from both.

“It was a lot of fun making a Lex that is actually going to kill Superman,” he said. “He’s pretty scary.”

The film is also “seeding the rest of the DCU,” Gunn said. “If it works as a movie in a basic way, that’s what we need to happen, that’s what I care about.”

Superman as a brand has always trailed Batman at the box office. None of the Zack Snyder films crossed $1 billion, not accounting for inflation, while both Christopher Nolan “Dark Knight” sequels did. But Gunn isn’t thinking a lot about that.

“I just want to make a decent movie that makes a little money,” Gunn said.

Marvel’s First Family

Superman’s not the only legacy brand getting a splashy reintroduction this summer. A new Fantastic Four crew, assembled for the first time under umbrella of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Kevin Feige, is heading to theaters July 25.

“Fantastic Four is a comic I’ve loved since I was a kid,” said director Matt Shakman. “They are the legendary heroes of the ’60s that the Marvel silver age was built on.”

Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, The Fantastic Four is among Marvel’s longest-running comics series. But it has not had the most distinguished history on film, including two with Chris Evans and one with Michael B. Jordan.

This image release by 20th Century Studios/Marvel Studios shows, from left, Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm/The Thing, Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm/Invisible Woman, Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic and Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm/Human Torch, in a scene from “The Fantastic Four: First Steps.” ( 20th Century Studios/Marvel Studios via AP)

“The Fantastic Four: First Steps” is set in a retro-futuristic 1960s New York, where Pedro Pascal’s Reed Richards is “basically Steve Jobs meets Einstein who’s creating technology that’s changing the world” and Vanessa Kirby’s Sue Storm is “essentially the secretary-general of the U.N.,” Shakman said.

A television veteran with directing credits on shows like “WandaVision” and “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” Shakman said he wants to do right by the characters, and audience.

“It’s working on an incredibly large scale in terms of world building, but it’s also no different from all of the great comedies and dramas that I’ve done,” Shakman said. “In the end, it comes down to character, it comes down to relationships, it comes down to heart and humor.”

Plus, he feels a responsibility to the idea of the big summer movie.

“It was the joy of my childhood. … A lot of it has to do with building worlds and entering into a place of wonder,” he said. “That’s what I felt when I saw ‘Indiana Jones’ when I was a kid and it’s what I hope people feel when they see ‘Fantastic Four’ this summer.”

Why summer 2025 might be a big year for movies

Studios know that superheroes alone don’t make a robust theatrical marketplace and there are plenty of other options on the menu including franchises, event movies and independents: There are family pics (“Smurfs,” “Elio,” “The Bad Guys 2”); action and adventures (“Ballerina,” “The Karate Kid: Legends”); horrors, thrillers and slashers (“28 Years Later,” “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” “M3GAN 2.0”); romances (“Materialists,” “Jane Austen Wrecked My Life”); dramas (“Sorry, Baby,” “The Life of Chuck”); a new Wes Anderson movie (“The Phoenician Scheme”); and comedies (“Freakier Friday,” “Bride Hard,” “The Naked Gun”) — though one of the most anticipated, “Happy Gilmore 2,” will be on Netflix.

“The frequency of movies, the cadence, the sheer number of them and the perceived quality and excitement surrounding this lineup is like almost like never before,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for Comscore. “Draw me a blueprint of a perfect summer lineup: 2025 is it.”

One of the biggest movies of the season may be “Jurassic World Rebirth,” the seventh movie in a $6 billion franchise. Even its poorly received predecessor made $1 billion. This time they enlisted a new filmmaker, self-proclaimed “Jurassic Park” superfan Gareth Edwards, and the original’s screenwriter for a new adventure with Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali and Jonathan Bailey.

This image released by Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment shows, from left, Bechir Sylvain, Jonathan Bailey, and Scarlett Johansson in a scene from ” Jurassic World Rebirth.” (Jasin Boland/Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment via AP)

“People say, like, do you feel pressure and the most pressure I feel is from myself as a fan and to Steven Spielberg, to not disappoint him,” Edwards said. “Weirdly what’s great about doing a ‘Jurassic’ movie is that everybody knows deep down that like half the reason they’re in this business is because of that film and Steven’s work.”

It’s fitting, in a way, that 2025 marks the 50th anniversary of what’s considered the first summer blockbuster: “Jaws.”

Edwards said he was born into that world of big summer blockbusters that shaped his early love of movies. Directing one, he said, “is kind of the dream. You get the chance to swing for the fences.”

And the unstable economy might work in the industry’s favor, at least when it comes to moviegoing. Even with increased ticket prices, theatrical movies remain the most affordable entertainment outside of the home and attendance tends to increase during recession years. The annual domestic box office crossed $10 billion for the first time in 2009.

More recently, the week the tariffs were announced, “A Minecraft Movie” doubled its opening weekend projections, and all of those ticket buyers saw trailers and posters for everything to come. It was, Dergarabedian noted, one of the only positive financial stories that week.

“Top Gun: Maverick” filmmaker Joseph Kosinski knows a few things about launching a pricey big screen spectacle into a turbulent marketplace. But he’s feeling good about the summer and “F1’s” place within it. Warner Bros. will release “F1” on June 27.

“This is the summer where all this product that we’ve all been working on for the last few years is finally coming into the marketplace, so I’m very optimistic,” Kosinski said. “By the end of this summer, hopefully people aren’t talking about being in a funk anymore and it feels like we got our mojo back and we’re off to the races.”

By Louis Jacobson, PolitiFact, KFF Health News

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. attracted notice — and in some quarters, outrage — for remarks about autism, a topic he’s clashed with scientists about for years.

Kennedy held an April 16 press conference pegged to a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that found the prevalence of autism rising to 1 in 31 among 8-year-olds, the latest in a series of increases in recent decades.

Kennedy said “autism destroys families” and is an “individual tragedy as well.”

Kennedy said many autistic children were “fully functional” and had “regressed” into autism “when they were 2 years old. And these are kids who will never pay taxes, they’ll never hold a job, they’ll never play baseball, they’ll never write a poem, they’ll never go out on a date. Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted.”

He also said: “Most cases now are severe. Twenty-five percent of the kids who are diagnosed with autism are nonverbal, non-toilet-trained, and have other stereotypical features.”

Medical experts, along with people on the autism spectrum, told PolitiFact that Kennedy’s portrayal was skewed. A 2023 study written by CDC officials and university researchers found that one-quarter of people on the autism spectrum have severe limitations. But this is on the high end of studies, and many people in that one-quarter of the autism population do not have the limitations Kennedy mentioned.

The vast majority of people on the spectrum do not have those severe challenges.

“I wish he would spend some time with parents of other autistic children, and well-regarded scientists who have studied this condition for decades,” said David Mandell, a University of Pennsylvania psychiatry professor and director of the Penn Center for Mental Health. “He has a fixed, myopic view.”

The Department of Health and Human Services did not provide data on what share of people with autism diagnoses are unable to do the things Kennedy described.

“Secretary Kennedy remains committed to working toward a society where people with autism have access to meaningful opportunities, appropriate supports, and the full respect and recognition they deserve,” department press secretary Vianca N. Rodriguez Feliciano told PolitiFact. “His statements emphasized the need for increased research into environmental factors contributing to the rise in autism diagnoses, not to stigmatize individuals with autism or their families.”

The Washington Post reported that an HHS spokesperson said Kennedy “was referring to those that are severely affected by this chronic condition” and that “this was in no way a general characterization.”

We took a closer look at the available data and research.

What Is Autism Spectrum Disorder?

At root, “autism is a difference in how your child’s brain works that shapes how they interact with the world around them,” according to the Cleveland Clinic. People with autism diagnoses, the clinic says, “may excel more in certain areas and need more support in other areas compared to their neurotypical peers.”

Over the years, autism’s definition and diagnosis has changed.

In the 1950s and 1960s, “it is very likely that many people with profound autism were misdiagnosed with ‘mental retardation,’ a term in use at the time, or schizophrenia, while other autistic people probably got no diagnosis at all,” said John J. Pitney Jr., a Claremont McKenna College politics professor, author of the book “The Politics of Autism: Navigating the Contested Spectrum,” and a father of an autistic son who’s about to graduate from college.

In more recent decades, the diagnostic criteria for autism have broadened, producing a spectrum ranging from severe impacts to more modest ones. Today’s definition encompasses “individuals with milder symptoms, stronger language skills, and higher IQs,” said Christopher Banks, president and CEO of the Autism Society of America.

How Common are the More Limiting Forms of Autism?

Autism’s expanded definition means a minority of people on the spectrum have the kinds of severe limitations Kennedy cited, though it’s hard to say how many.

The highest total we found comes from a 2023 federal report, written by CDC officials and university researchers. It found that 26.7% of 8-year-olds with autism had “profound” autism, a newly framed (and not universally accepted) definition that included children who were nonverbal, were minimally verbal, or had an IQ below 50. (“Average” IQ is considered 90 to 109.)

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People with profound autism “will require lifetime, round-the-clock care,” said Judith Ursitti, co-founder and president of the Profound Autism Alliance, a nonprofit. Ursitti said her 21-year-old son “is not headed towards employment or a career in poetry or baseball. Acknowledging this fact is important, as this population is often excluded from media portrayals and research.”

Other estimates are lower.

A study published in 2024, by researchers at the University of Utah and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, looked at 1,368 U.S. children with autism. When parents were asked whether they would characterize their child’s autism as “severe,” 10.1% said yes. Among this group of children with “severe” autism, a minority — 38% — were classified as having a “severe” intellectual disability.

“Even among those with an intellectual disability, there’s huge variability,” Mandell said. “People with Down syndrome have an intellectual disability but often are quite capable and can do all the things RFK points to.”

The CDC published data in 2020 showing that 42% of people with autism had an IQ in the average or higher range, and another study has found that this figure could be as high as 60%.

Zoe Gross, the director of advocacy at the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, said limited available data suggests that Kennedy’s characterization is exaggerated.

Gross, who is on the spectrum herself, said a 2017 study found that 61% of people on the spectrum who were studied were employed. As for baseball, the Special Olympics, which was founded by Kennedy’s family and includes competitors who are on the spectrum, includes softball. At least two people who played major league baseball, Tarik El-Abour and Jim Eisenreich, were public about their autism diagnoses.

Gross said there is no official data on autistic poets, but she was aware of the poet DJ Savarese, a nonspeaking but highly literate advocate. Gross was also unable to find data on dating, but she said she’s married, and she pointed to the Netflix reality show “ Love on the Spectrum,” which follows autistic people’s dating lives. It is now in its third season.

As for not using a toilet unassisted, the 2024 study that analyzed 1,368 U.S. children with autism and found that 10.1% were considered “severe” found that 67% of those in the “severe” category had trouble bathing or dressing, which, if generalizable to the entire autistic population, would be less than 7%. Another study found urinary incontinence reported by 12.5% of the autistic people studied and fecal incontinence by 7.9%.

Eric M. Garcia, who is on the spectrum and who has written the book “We’re Not Broken: Changing the Autism Conversation,” was covering Kennedy’s remarks as Washington bureau chief of The Independent. Hearing his words “felt so demoralizing,” Garcia told PolitiFact. “A lot of people will respond by saying, ‘He didn’t mean autistic people like you.’ But that doesn’t make it any better.”

PolitiFact staff writer Madison Czopek contributed to this article.

©2025 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

The federal agency’s environmental justice office played a crucial role in helping New Yorkers reverse environmental burdens in their neighborhoods, according to EPA employees and community groups who spoke with City Limits.

EPA employees and members of the union for federal government workers at an April 22 rally agains the Trump administration’s layoffs at the agency. (Adi Talwar/City Limits)

When Earth Day rolled around on April 22, employees who care for mother nature at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) didn’t have much to celebrate. 

The night before, the Trump administration notified over 450 staff members who work with environmental justice or diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) that their jobs were on the chopping block. Plans to “terminate” these divisions were announced in March and are now officially underway.

The latest notification known as a “reduction in force,” which goes into effect July 31, will start the termination process for 280 employees, according to an EPA spokesperson. Another 175 staffers are getting “reassigned to other offices.”

The cuts are being carried out thanks to an executive order the president issued in late January to end “radical and wasteful DEI programs” as well as “environmental justice (EJ) offices and positions.”

“Instead of directly helping communities in need, the left has lined the pockets of their allies in the name of Environmental Justice,” Lee Zeldin, head of the EPA said on X about pulling the plug on the division.

But locally, the EPA’s environmental justice office played a crucial role in helping New Yorkers reverse environmental burdens in their neighborhoods, according to employees and community groups who spoke with City Limits.

EPA’s Region 2—which serves New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and eight Tribal Nations—launched its EJ division in 2022 with the purpose of addressing community concerns that the agency’s other programs couldn’t.

The office expanded the network of community groups in New York that received resources and support from the federal government, and brought state and city agencies together to tackle environmental issues.

“[Terminating the EJ division] is going to hurt communities that have been underserved, and overburdened. That’s the big shame of it to me,” an EPA employee who asked to remain anonymous told City Limits. 

It’s also causing widespread panic. As EJ offices dissolve and mass layoffs of federal workers continue across the country in the name of cutting costs, those still employed fear for the future of their jobs.

“We’re all in the office working full time, but it’s like being a dead man walking, because you know at any time that you could be next,” said Ed Guster, union president for Local 3911, the EPA chapter of the federal workers union AFGE.

What does the EJ division actually do?

In 2021, the environmental lawyer Lisa Garcia stepped into her role as head administrator for Region 2 with plans to address a pressing problem.

Former EPA Administration Lisa Garcia at an Earth Day Rally at City Hall. (Adi Talwar/City Limits)

While the EPA has “community involvement coordinators” doing outreach in contaminated areas that have been designated federal Superfund sites where clean-up is required, Garcia says they don’t have the authority to go beyond the scope of their projects. 

“Their work does not cover all of the United States and the rest of the country should have access to the EPA too,” she told City Limits.

In the fall of 2022, the Biden administration set out to reach communities that had previously been left out by merging three existing national programs into the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights. Under Garcia, Region 2 followed suit by launching its own EJ division that same year.

“The goal was to extend our relationships. We were pushing the envelope by going out to places and hearing about environmental problems from communities we hadn’t heard from,” she added.

The Trump administration, however, said in an email that getting rid of the EJ division “is the first step in a broader effort to ensure that EPA meets its core mission of protecting human health and the environment and Powering the Great American Comeback.” The so-called comeback aims to accomplish a series of goals including “restoring American Energy Dominance,” referring to Donald Trump’s push to develop more oil and gas.

Getting rid of environmental justice offices would also “directly benefit the American people,” Travis Voyles, assistant deputy administrator for the EPA, said in a memo circulated to employees last week and reviewed by City Limits.

But for the South Bronx residents who care for the Rainbow Garden of Life and Health on Melrose Avenue, the EPA’s environmental justice team played a crucial role.

When state authorities failed to meet with them about their desire to establish a clear timeline for cleaning up a contaminated lot next door to their community garden, residents say the EPA got them to act.

Since 2021, residents have wanted to meet with the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) about the neighboring lot, which is a designated brownfield, or a chronically vacant or underutilized toxic land that the DEC is tasked with remediating.

It wasn’t until the EPA got involved and toured the site last November that the DEC told residents it would be hosting the first in-person meeting with them in the South Bronx in March, a resident told City Limits.

“I’m pretty certain that the [DEC] agreed they had to do something because of that meeting we had with the EPA,” said Angel Garcia, who helps run the Melrose community garden.

“If there’s nobody in the EPA offices saying more community outreach should be done, I don’t see how any of the state environmental agencies are going to feel pressured to really inform their communities,” Garcia added.

Angel Garcia at the Rainbow Garden of Life and Health in the South Bronx. He and neighbors have been pushing the state to clean up the lot next door to the garden, and had been meeting with the EPA for assistance. (Adi Talwar/City Limits)

The DEC said in an email that it “remains committed to environmental justice” and that it keeps communities informed about cleanups by distributing fact sheets and sending updates via email that people can sign up for on the agency’s website. They also underscored that they partner with local stakeholders and officials to spread the word.

But EPA’s EJ offices provided an extra channel for community members to address environmental concerns in the South Bronx and beyond.

In Brooklyn’s Red Hook neighborhood—where air pollution has risen to levels the EPA considers potentially harmful for sensitive groups—the EJ office gave a local organization, the Red Hook Initiative, support and resources to launch an air monitoring program. 

The EJ division also hosted a tour around the area’s ports so community leaders could show local authorities how the transportation of goods impacts their neighborhoods, according to a participating environmental group that asked to remain anonymous.

For fear of losing their federal funding, some environmental groups approached by City Limits refrained from sharing testimonies of how the EPA’s EJ offices helped them. 

And inside the EPA, other departments say that they too are feeling the blow from the EJ division’s fallout.

‘As miserable as possible’

When Suzanne Englot, executive vice president of Local 3911, heard that the EJ division employees received notices on their impending job losses, she took to the streets to protest. After picketing in front of EPA’s Manhattan headquarters with around a dozen other employees, she joined environmental groups on an Earth Day march to City Hall.

Although Englot isn’t an EJ employee and works instead with enforcing the regulation of waste and toxic substances, she says everyone is shaken up by the cuts. “Everything is being affected. It feels like no one’s work is truly safe,” Englot said.

She’s one of the few employees in the Region 2 offices speaking up. Most are afraid to voice their concerns.

“Morale is low,” a staffer who asked to remain anonymous said. Employees say the staffing shake up and recent changes in environmental policies are impacting productivity across departments.

“At this moment, it just feels really hard to do anything, even as someone who’s not directly in the line of fire for losing their job at this moment,” Englot explained. “We’re just all very uncertain about the future of the agency.”

On March 25, Zeldin announced a massive rollback of environmental regulations put forth by the Biden Administration. 

In a video posted on the social network X, Zeldin promised to end Biden-era policies that he refers to as “the Green New Scam.” The decision, he claimed, would cut “trillions in regulatory costs for everyday Americans.”

The policies, which Zeldin says “restrict nearly every sector of our economy,” include initiatives that established limits on greenhouse gasses from fossil fuel power plants and regulated emissions for light, medium, and heavy-duty vehicles.

EPA Commissioner Lee Zeldin taking questions from reporters earlier this month. (Flickr/US EPA)

The EPA also removed an interactive map called the EJ Screen from its website. The tool combined demographic and environmental information to identify areas disproportionately exposed to environmental hazards. Harvard University, which teamed up with the EPA to create the platform, is working on getting a new version of it up and running. 

And wide-spread chaos has ensued as staff gets fired and reinstated across the agency, which has reportedly already lost 1,000 workers.

In February, some EPA environmental justice staffers were put on administrative leave, and several probationary workers were terminated. Then in March, dozens of employees that were placed on leave got reinstated, and hundreds of probationary workers were reportedly rehired.

Employees say supervisors are being notified in real time about the decisions happening up top so that everyone is left scrambling when a change is suddenly made.

“There’s a lot of panic,” said Guster. He works at the EPA as a crisis manager, helping people impacted by an emergency, like the wildfires that engulfed California, access psychological care.

The agency also ended remote work and telework for most of its employees. For Guster, who lives in Philadelphia, that means spending three hours commuting every day. 

“I have to go back to the office full time even though we have had telework in some sort of fashion for the last 20-plus years. The idea is to make the employee’s life as miserable as possible so that they quit,” Guster added.

Legal expert Timothy Whitehouse, executive director at the law group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, agrees.

“They want to create uncertainty. They want to make people not want to be able to come into work and they want people to quit the government,” said Whitehouse, who is helping federal workers legally challenge Trump’s mass layoffs.

For the second time since Trump took office, EPA employees were asked by email this week if they would like to voluntarily retire or choose what is called deferred resignation, which allows them to resign but continue to get paid through the fall.  

Whitehouse says Trump’s insistence on reducing the federal workforce at any cost, and his desire to get rid of the environmental justice department at the EPA, is leading the United States down a dangerous path.

“We’re slipping into a totalitarian form of government where the president can just decide what they like and don’t like and fire people at random, and no one has the power to do anything about it,” he said.

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