Uncovering Abuse Cases in New York’s Shelters
The reporter whose investigation led to criminal inquiries of a group that operates housing for the homeless talks about how a tip and persistence helped break the story.
Marta Del Valle reported that she had been sexually harassed while living in a homeless shelter.Credit.Kholood Eid for The New York Times
Feb. 23, 2021
In 2019, Amy Julia Harris, an investigative reporter for The New York Times’s Metro desk, received a tip about Victor Rivera, the head of the Bronx Parent Housing Network, one of the largest operators of homeless shelters in New York City. Earlier this month, she published her report, which revealed that Mr. Rivera had been accused of sexual assault and harassment and financial improprieties but had operated largely with impunity for years. Within hours, Mayor Bill de Blasio said he would hire an independent auditor to look into the city’s shelter system. The Bronx district attorney opened a criminal investigati
Bronx: I am 78 years old and very involved with my community and our military. When my nephew was killed in Iraq on Nov. 29, 2004, our local paper printed that Theodore Korony American Legion Post 253 was dedicating their packages to the troops in his honor.
NYC’s reluctance to end contracts with notorious nonprofits
tetiana.photographer/Shutterstock
As the homelessness crisis has worsened considerably over the years NYC has become overly reliant on a limited number of nonprofits.
NYC’s reluctance to end contracts with notorious nonprofits
The New York Times’ bombshell report about one of the city’s biggest homeless shelter providers points to its inability to hold shelter operators accountable for their troubling behavior.
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On Sunday, The New York Times published a damning investigation into Bronx Parent Housing Network’s chief executive Victor Rivera, who has been accused of sexual and financial abuse while running one of New York City’s biggest nonprofit homeless shelter systems. The report draws attention to a troubling pattern among nonprofits contracted by the city to provide shelter services: despite persistent complaints, the city is often reluctant to cancel contracts due to a need for shelter space.
Patient readers, I will add more material under Politics in shortish order. –lambert UPDATE All done!
Bird Song of the Day
A city bird as you can tell from the honking car in the beginning!
And a country bird:
An owl obviously spotted something to eat even in the snow. They are wonderful creatures, but they don’t take prisoners! pic.twitter.com/VkYuZTJCgs
#COVID19
At reader request, I’ve added these daily charts from 91-DIVOC. The data is the Johns Hopkins CSSE data. Here is the site. I feel I’m engaging in a macabre form of tape-watching…. (A reader asked the source of the data: Johns Hopkins CSSE. DIVOC-91 does allow other data sets to be used, like Our World in Data and The Atlantic, and where they provide visualizations similar to those below, a cursory comparison shows that the shape of the curves is the same.)
Housing Boss Is Fired and Faces Criminal Inquiry After Reports of Abuse
Victor Rivera, the chief executive of the Bronx Parent Housing Network, one of the largest operators of homeless shelters in New York City, was accused of sexual abuse and financial impropriety.
Victor Rivera was a founder and the longtime president and chief executive of the Bronx Parent Housing Network. Credit.Jason Cohen/Bronx Times
Feb. 8, 2021
The head of one of the largest operators of homeless shelters in New York City was fired on Monday as Bronx prosecutors opened a criminal investigation into allegations of a long pattern of sexual abuse and financial misconduct that had gone largely unchecked by his organization and the city.