Gothamist
“This bill is way overdue, it should have passed years ago,” said Mohamed Attia, the director of the Street Vendor’s Project at the Urban Justice Center, an advocacy group for the sellers. “What’s really exciting for us is that [the board] will have four seats for street vendors in it. We have never been invited to these conversations.”Eater NY
The new study was commissioned by the nonprofit Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO) — women make up a larger percentage of street vendors, yet continue to earn less than their male counterparts, according to the report — with assistance from the Urban Justice Center’s Street Vendor Project, one of the leading advocacy groups for street vendors in NYC, and is part of a global effort to study the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the informal economy in 12 cities.Patch
"The Street Vendor Project had advocated for the cap on the number of permits to be eliminated. Still, the organization's director, Mohamed Attia, called the bill an improvement over the current "broken and outdated" system."Grub Street
"The food was part of a program that’s been organized by the Street Vendor Project, a nonprofit union and workers center that advocates for vendors rights in New York City. The meals were provided to people in need and cooked by others in need."Long Island City Post
"Mohamed Attia, director of the Street Vendor Project of the Urban Justice Center, said in a statement that previous aid packages had left out street vendors. “Street vendors are part of the culture and fabric of NYC but unfortunately they have suffered mightily during this current pandemic and have been all but abandoned by COVID-19 recovery efforts,” he said."Quartz
"Many of the operators in New York are immigrant Hispanic residents who commute from outer boroughs with incomes that have to support multiple people, according to a 2019 survey by the Street Vendor Project."Queens Daily Eagle
"The Street Vendor Project, a nonprofit that advocates for the rights of the largely immigrant workforce, tweeted their support for the new policy. “What does today's shift to a civilian agency regulating vending mean?” the organization wrote. “Vendors can serve NYC without fear of arrest by officers [with] guns.'"The City
Marika Dias, director of the Safety Net Project at the Urban Justice Center, said: “It’s obviously going to be helpful to a lot of tenants. But it’s not a real eviction moratorium, which would be a blanket protection… . It requires tenants to take a step to access the protection, which always makes it likely folks will slip through the cracks.”Law 360
But Marika Dias, managing director of the Safety Net Project at the Urban Justice Center, called it "entirely unjust and shameful" that the courts have begun issuing default judgments in these cases. Tenants have run into trouble when they try to answer their petitions by phone, as the courts have instructed them to do, she said.Lo Hud
Both depend on tenants paying thousands of dollars in back rent that they will likely not have and actively taking steps to assert that protection, Marika Dias, managing director of the Safety Net Project at the Urban Justice Center, said.
