Strict Illegal Home Conversions May Add to the City’s Homeless Problem
Thousands of city tenants can be forced out of their homes with no long-term housing alternatives as the city cracks down on landlords who violate New York City’s Department of Buildings (DOB) construction guidelines. Landlords who illegally convert buildings to create additional housing without obtaining permits from DOB now face huge fines. The health and fire risks associated with such […]
Where Seasonal Work Can Be More Than Just a Holiday Gig
Every holiday season, the number of workers at Brooklyn-based online retailer UncommonGoods grows by the hundreds, swelling the company from its payroll of 200 employees to 1,000 or more. Jamel Venn-Simmons, 37, of East New York, is happy to be one of them. “They’re a really good company,” says Venn-Simmons, who tracks down merchandise for outbound packages. “On the weekends they give us […]
News Literacy in Action
A consumer’s responsibility to seek the truth should mirror a journalist’s obligation to tell the truth. This marriage represents the ideal highway of communication between two factions important to “organized community journalism” in a free and self-governing nation (Kovach & Rosenstiel 32). While news literacy is contingent on two parts working together, journalists are responsible for the verification process in […]