Same for her $65,000 associate director of advance.. On November 23, 2015, McCray launched ThriveNYC, a $1.2 billion dollar initiative, with the aim of improving the citys mental health and substance abuse services. The programs at issue ostensibly are meant to assist particularly challenged people the helpless, often homeless, mentally ill and small children whose futures are forfeited because they landed in shamefully nonfunctional schools, an experience from which they will never recover. Thanks for contacting us. The fund has also moved into a larger space, in a building across from City Hall, which, for the first time, now includes a separate office for the chairwoman. Early in her youth, Chirlane McCray identified herself as a lesbian and continued to do so till 1991 when she met her future husband, Bill de Blasio, at that time working as an aide to David Dinkins. STOLEN? NYC Mayor Bill DeBlasio's Wife "Can't Account For" $850 MILLION The administration has said their approach to mental health has never been done before at this level anywhere in the country. We value your opinions, and would love to see you add to the discussion! Laura Ingraham has even called it a "scheme". Both of them periodically suffered from depression. They also mocked her, often contorting their mouths to make their lips look big. By this fall, every public school will have at least one full-time social worker on hand or school-based mental health clinic, and when 911 calls are made for a mental health disturbance, EMTs are now accompanied by social workers police are often called in to assist. That is, nobody appears to have kept receipts; the subways and street corners are still overrun with crazy people, and nobody in charge knows whats to happen next. How can she sleep at night hiring these hacks knowing so many other city workers are facing layoffs this fall? https://www.wsj.com/articles/thrivenyc-a-mental-health-initiative-comes-under-scrutiny-11551314028. Some of these were later published in 'Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology' (1983). And we were fortunate to have an infrastructure of services that people could turn to, says McCray. Born into a middleclass African-American family and raised primarily in an all-white locality, she suffered racial abuse both in and outside school. The council redeemed itself only slightly Tuesday, asking McCray too politely for the circumstances to explain herself, and then settling for a non-answer answer for the ages: ThriveNYC was my idea, she said. Our Spectrum News app is the most convenient way to get the stories that matter to you. That Stringer could sleep through it all is the real scandal; why does the city even have a comptroller, if thats the standard of performance? She says the Cities Thrive initiative was started in response to a lack of guidance coming from the Trump Administration, but she is hopeful there will soon be more mental health support for cities under the Biden Administration. They're homeless for other reasons.. Her father, Robert Hooper McCray, a World War II veteran, was an inventory clerk at a military base while her mother, Katharine Clarissa Eileen ne Edwards, was an assembly worker at an electronics factory. As WCBs 880's Rich Lamb reports, first lady Chirlane McCray's "Thrive" metal health initiative meant to help the mentally ill has spent $850 million over the past four years. McCray is the proprietress of ThriveNYC, a mental-health-related something-or-other created four-plus years ago to give a little heft to the conceit that Bill and Chirlane were elected as co-mayors which is nonsense on stilts. The mayor's most recent budget deal includes another $115 million in mental-health spending, an effort McCray says to respond to the mounting mental health care needs of city residents after. Seven mayors attended a 2017 national mental health conference in New York City. In school, where for a time she was the only Black student, she had to face intense racism and endure bullying by her white classmates. Bill de Blasio's pathetic excuses for his wife's $2 million-a-year staff In that essay, McCray "frankly discussed her sexuality and expressed gratitude that she came to terms with her preference for women before marrying a man". It's a way of demonizing people who are suffering and saying they are not deserving of this.. The funds federal tax returns say that she spends only an hour a week on fund business. Copyright 2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Thereafter, she worked briefly for the public relation department of the City Group, but could not fit in. A spokesman for Mr. Fetner, Sam Spokony, said there was no link between the donations and the development project. 2023 FOX News Network, LLC. ", Sometimes you look at a headline like this and think: "that can't possibly be true.". Besides the calls that Ms. McCray makes to donors, she has met with potential donors and hosted an annual Christmas fund-raiser at Gracie Mansion. This is despite the city facing layoffs of 22,000 municipal workers over the coronavirus-induced budget crisis. But it was quickly turned into rejection when a classmate found her in an intimate embrace with another woman. She defended her tenure and said that she frequently took part in activities outside the fund offices, like visiting programs that it had financed. Most people who are homeless don't have a mental illness. [6][32] Asked about her sexuality, McCray has stated that she hates "labels". [13] She also worked as a speechwriter for the New York State Comptroller Carl McCall and for New York City Comptroller Bill Thompson. But in the end, McCray insisted Tuesday, all the spending is to the benefit of every New Yorker. Bill de Blasio, Chirlane McCray, Chiara de Blasio and Dante de Blasio Chirlane is the loving mom of Chiara de Blasio and Dante de Blasio. Chirlane McCray is an American activist, writer and poet. [6][9] Essence later described the essay as "groundbreaking", asserting that it was "perhaps the first time a Black gay woman had spoken so openly and honestly about her sexuality in a Black magazine". I know what goes on, Ms. McCray said, adding that she was justified in skipping board meetings. Anyone can read what you share.