Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani: Good morning, New York City. It is a pleasure to be here in the Bronx to announce the expansion of a program that helps students learn. New Yorkers find jobs, and people of all ages stream Zootopia 2, a film I simply cannot recommend highly enough. I am talking about New York City's Neighborhood Internet program. And I want to thank Congressman Ritchie Torres, who led the fight in Washington to secure additional funding for this program. I also want to thank our deputy mayor, Leila Bozorg. I want to thank our New York City Housing Preservation and Development commissioner, Dina Levy; the president of the New York Public Library, Anthony Marx; the New York City Chief Technology Officer, Lisa Gelobter; Council Member Althea Stevens; Dr. Damyn Kelly; and the team at Lutheran Social Services for hosting us and for all that they do to serve New Yorkers.
Today, we are here together to announce $2 million in additional federal funding for a program [that will] provide internet to New Yorkers for free. Because every New Yorker should be able to access the tools that they need to participate, whether in the classroom, whether in the workplace, [or] whether just to keep in touch with their loved ones. This funding builds on the work of the Pilot Neighborhood Internet program, which is funded by the federal Section 8 and will provide 2,200 apartments across 39 buildings of affordable housing with free internet for the next three years. And it will go a long way towards expanding digital equity in the Bronx and Upper Manhattan.
Right now, we know that one in five residents of the Bronx lack internet connectivity. We know that in the age that we live in, the internet is a basic necessity to be able to participate in this economy. And this $2 million will provide internet to an additional 2,000 apartments across 50 buildings. Thanks to efforts of New York Housing Preservation and Development and New York Public Library, we will do retrofitting and install rooftop network equipment to bring affordable housing across the Bronx and Upper Manhattan online. The New York Public Library will also provide neighborhood tech help service on-site to support tenants as they get connected.
Now, after this initial installation, this tech help will continue to be available nearby at older adult centers, community centers and library branches. Now, the work that we are here together today to speak about is that which builds upon a citywide effort to make sure that every New Yorker has access to the internet that they need. New York City Housing Preservation and Development is already providing $3.25 million in Section 8 funding for the initial pilot. Now, our Office of Technology and Innovation launched the Get Online NYC campaign in April to make it easier for New Yorkers to find free digital resources at more than 450 public computer centers across the city.
Now, I've spoken often about [the] government's role in ensuring that each and every New Yorker can live a life of dignity. Today, we speak about the fact that in addition to delivering that by making it easier to afford life in New York City, we also are doing so by now providing internet to thousands more New Yorkers with the tools that they now have to succeed in the modern world. With that being said, I want to pass it over to Congressman Ritchie Torres.
Representative Ritchie Torres: Good morning. I am honored to join the mayor in announcing a $2 million congressional appropriation for Neighborhood Internet, a New York City-led initiative that will bring high-speed internet connectivity to thousands of families and make real progress toward closing the digital divide. This investment would not have been possible without the partnership of Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Commissioner Dina Levy and the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, and President Tony Marx and the New York Public Library, as well as the deputy mayor and the chief technology officer. Public service is a team sport, and as a member of Congress, I'm only as strong as my state and local partners, like Mayor Mamdani and Council Member Althea Stevens.
Back in 2020, during the depths of COVID, we saw the digital divide deprive our most vulnerable children of access to an education and our most vulnerable seniors of access to health care. That is why our $2 million appropriation is not an expense; it is an investment in the health, education and future of the Bronx. For far too long, the Bronx has been ground zero for digital poverty. More than 20 percent of Bronx families lack broadband access at home. And in the South Bronx, in neighborhoods like Mott Haven and Melrose, Belmont and Tremont, the number of Bronx families without broadband access at home rises to more than 40 percent.
In the wealthiest city on earth, there is simply no excuse for accepting the persistence of a digital underclass. We cannot and will not accept the unacceptable. Neighborhood internet is inspired by the same moral ambition that electrified America in the 20th century. Just as President Franklin Roosevelt declared that no American home should be left in the dark, we must declare in our own time that no American home should be disconnected, that no one should be left stranded at a digital dead end.
The purpose of government is simple, to ensure that every New Yorker has a fighting chance at a decent life. And in the 21st century, there is no opportunity without connectivity. There is no American dream without access and without affordability. Today, New York City is a tale of two cities when it comes to broadband. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the lowest-income families in the Bronx pay five times more as a share of income for internet access than the highest-income families in Manhattan. The unequal cost of broadband is a hidden poverty tax that imposes the heaviest burden on the Bronx.
Providing free broadband, therefore, is not an act of charity. It is a long overdue corrective to inequality, an inequality that stems from decades of digital redlining. The average broadband subscription in the Bronx costs around $70 a month. Neighborhood internet will save a single family more than $800 a year and more than $25,000 over the course of 30 years. Multiply those savings across 2,000 families and the result is nearly $1.7 million a year and more than $50 million returned to the Bronx over a generation. The math of free broadband is as compelling as the moral imperative that inspires it.
In a digital world, broadband access is not a luxury. It is an essential utility, one that must be available and affordable to every New Yorker. And so, I want to thank Mayor Mamdani for bringing his bold vision of affordability to where it is needed most, right here in the "Boogie Down Bronx." I have the honor of introducing someone I've known since I was a young Council member, even before then. If there is one person on earth in the housing space who is at the intersection of strategy and policy and organizing, it is our HPD Commissioner Dina Levy.
Dina Levy, Commissioner, New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development: Thank you, Congressman Torres. Good morning, everybody. I'd like to start by thanking Lutheran Social Services for hosting us today and for partnering with HPD on the Neighborhood Internet program, which is bringing high-speed internet to HPD-financed projects across the Bronx. I think these days we take for granted the speed with which we now have access to unlimited information. The world is literally now at our fingertips. But that is not true for all communities equally. And for that reason, the Neighborhood Internet program is committing to making sure that all communities have equal access to information, because we know that information is knowledge, and knowledge is power.
Thanks to this new funding, we will be able to empower thousands of additional households, including young adults who need high-speed internet in order to thrive in a rapidly changing world. The new investment will allow us to serve more than 4,000 households, nearly doubling the number of people who will benefit from this program. I want to thank Mayor Mamdani for his commitment to this initiative and his dedication to leveling the playing field across neighborhoods throughout the city, to the team at HPD and our partners at the New York Public Library for making this program a reality and to Congressman Torres for expanding knowledge and power right here in the heart of the Bronx. Now it is my pleasure to introduce Council Member Althea Stevens.
Council Member Althea Stevens: Good morning, everyone. How's everyone feeling? This is a great day, and I'm really excited. I want to first [start] off by thanking our Mayor Mamdani and our Congressmember Ritchie Torres for really making sure that everyone has access to broadband. And I just want to start out by saying one of the things that I see in my office and my Council office on a regular basis [is] so many people coming to my office just to print up documents, just to be able to use our internet service because they don't have it at home. This is one of the things that people don't talk about in real time, and this investment actually is one that I know is going to change lives.
And so I'm excited to be here to say we are investing in the Bronx, and when you have partners who are in government and who have the same vision [as] you, this is what it looks like: coming together and making sure people have access to necessities because broadband at this moment is a necessity, and we have to make sure that everyone has access to it. And so this is going to, like I said, really have huge impacts in my district, where I've seen where even where we've talked about not being able to have remote days in my office because my community is not able to have access if we're not there physically because we see hundreds of people coming in on a regular basis saying they don't have this support. And so, thank you guys for having the vision and making sure that affordability is for everyone and not just for some. So, thank you.
Anthony Marx, President, New York Public Library: Morning. I'm Tony Marx. I'm the president of the New York Public Library, and it is so wonderful to gather with you all today. I'm here to thank Congressman Torres and Mayor Mamdani, together with HPD and also the efforts of Senator Gillibrand, to bring us the funding to create the possibilities that I confess the New York Public Library has been working towards for over a decade. And a huge shout out to Garfield Swaby, our IT director, with his colleagues who've been working at this. We've tried lots of approaches. We found the one that works. Now, we have the funding to make it work for the people of New York.
Look, it's very simple. The New York Public Library is in the business of providing access to books, to ideas, to educational programs. So much of that is now available in our branches, which we love, but it is now available online. And we want everyone to take advantage of all of that. But if you do not have broadband, if you do not have digital access at home, you are literally in the dark. That was true in the pandemic, where it was particularly shocking, and it remains true. The numbers that the mayor highlighted - that one in four or five Bronx residents do not have internet access at home - is truly, truly a shocking number in the 21st century, in the city that is the center of the information world. It's a number that almost makes the mind go numb.
It comes down to the kid who lives in this building, who cannot do the math online homework that they've been assigned to move ahead in school, who come to the branches of the library, even after hours, to get bleed from under our door. This is not how it should be. Now there are people who say that the market or the market with regulations is, or can, solve this problem. That is simply not the case. That kid is a testament to the failures of our efforts up to now. Internet is an essential, not just for those who can afford it, but for everyone.
And that creates a challenge for us in a time of remarkable inequality. This very building we're standing in has now been brought online and we will complete that work in the month ahead. We're on pace, as the mayor referred to, to deliver free Wi-Fi for more than a thousand 1,000 households by 2027. And now with this $2 million additional federal grant - thank you, Ritchie - we'll be able to scale up the Neighborhood Internet program even further. We can provide high-speed, reliable broadband that people already expect in our branches and now we can bring it into people's homes. Representative Torres, Mayor Mamdani, thank you for understanding. Thank you for your commitment. Thank you for your efforts. Thank you for coming together in the public good to make sure that the public has what it needs.
Let me be very clear: this is a great moment, but it is just the start. This is a pilot, is a proof of concept. Thousands of people will benefit, but we need much more. We need a utility that can provide free internet to all as a public good. And what could be a better partner in ensuring that result than the ultimate public good, the city's public libraries?
