“I don’t think in the history of the MTA it’s seen anything close to the magnitude of what—from a financial perspective—the MTA is facing,” said Schwartz, in response to the Chief Financial Officer Robert Foran’s detailing of the agency’s fiscal crisis. 

Its operating budget, estimated at $17 billion for 2020, is projected to lose 45% of its funding, primarily due to the loss of ridership in the first half of the year. The $4 billion of emergency funding received from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES) only covers a fraction of this deficit.

“If the federal government doesn’t come through with additional federal aid, the magnitude of this problem is just that much worse,” said Schwartz.

The MTA had already braced for a loss of funding for other projects, namely its groundbreaking 2020-2024 Capital Program, a $51 billion undertaking that aims to revamp much of the outdated transit systems in the city and the state. But as the meeting wore on, it became clear that more needed to be done.

“Right now our focus is on the $3.9 billion to get us through 2020,” said Patrick Foye, Chairman and CEO of the MTA. “The immediate deficit and the immediate financial crisis.”

The MTA’s future is as clear as this subway tunnel. Photo by Daniel Girma

The MTA capital programs, multi-year initiatives that cover a wide array of projects, have a complicated funding process. It is a delicate balance between allocating its own revenue, borrowing, and securing funding from the federal, state, and municipal governments. The 2015-19 Capital Program, which cost $29 billion, was covered mostly by MTA revenue and an $8.3 billion commitment from Governor Andrew Cuomo. 

But the 2020-24 program, over $20 billion more than the previous one, was expecting to get a large boost from NYC’s congestion pricing tax, as new internet tax and estate tax for mansions. This, along with the other conventional funding sources, have been completely upended by the shutdown. 

The crisis doesn’t stop there. Even projects that were initiated under the previous capital program and slated to continue under the current program have been affected by the loss in revenue.

“The 20-24 program as well as a great deal of the remaining 15-19 work is essentially on hold,” said Janno Lieber, Chief Development Officer of the agency. “Flagship programs in the capital program are being delayed.” 

Among these are the vital accessibility upgrades that would provide access to 70 stations across the city for its disabled residents.

“That initiative, which was well along in procurement before the covid crisis hit, is on hold,” said Lieber.

There have been some bright spots. The drop in ridership and new late-night closing of the subway has allowed for the acceleration of station and tunnel repairments across the system.

“We were able to identify opportunities to get more access to work areas and extended outages,” said Lieber. “But those are frankly exceptions.”

With endemic funding all but dried up, board members admitted that the agency would have to start prioritizing projects in order to stay afloat.

“One of the suggestions I’m going to make is that the MTA start breaking things down in various categories on what is essential and what is deemed non-essential,” said Schwartz. “It’s going to end up being a combination of things, and all of those things are going to be tough and hard to implement and approve.” 

Schwartz stressed that fares could not be increased, and that the agency should not apply for loans to cover the deficit. 

“I don’t think we can borrow our way out  of this problem,” he said.

Board members continuously emphasized the necessity for more federal support. The Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions Act (HEROES), a follow up relief bill that passed the House in May, promises nearly $15.75 billion in aid for public transportation, with $11.75 billion dedicated for cities of over 3 million people. State legislators from both sides of the aisle have voiced their support for the bill.Representatives 

“Eighteen  of the most prominent New York State republican elected officials signed a letter to senate leader Mitch Mcconnell arguing that the HEROES Act or any COVID relief bill must include adequate money for the MTA,” said Lieber. “This is truly a bipartisan issue.”

With the HEROES Act stalled in the senate, some in the agency fear catastrophic consequences if funding is not secured.

“If we don’t get HEROES funding or something similar pretty soon, we are moving closer and closer to a fiscal cliff,” said Lieber. “Broadly speaking, we are in dire straits.”

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While the SEBIN officers were waiting for the family to arrive, they ravaged their apartment in Caracas, going through all their belongings. After that call, the Sosa family had to leave everything behind and plan their escape. They were able to cross the border to Colombia by car, and from there they flew to Florida to apply for political asylum. After a series of odd jobs, Sosa finally found a job related to her engineering degree in New York. Her first day at the job was Monday, March 9. On Friday, March 13, the office closed and the city went on lockdown.  

“The first day in the job I cried because I couldn’t believe where I was,” Sosa said referring to the Major League Baseball office building at the Rockefeller center. “But I literally started on a Monday, and Friday of that same week the office closed because of the coronavirus. [In the office] it felt as if it had been 9/11, all the games were being cancelled, it was horrible.” 

 Venezuelans who have migrated to New York in the past two or three years have had to confront two crises in a short time frame. They left their country to flee rampant crime, hyperinflation, food scarcity, and social and political instability only to find the U.S. is plagued by its own set of issues, such as social inequality, racial disparity and police brutality, all of which are more evident in New York and the COVID-19 outbreak has exacerbated. 

Niurka Melendez, founder of Venezuelans and Immigrants Aid (VIA), a non-profit organization for Venezuelans in New York, did not receive the $1,200 stimulus check as a Venezuelan asylum seeker.

“Venezuelans are seeing themselves left without nothing again, and I say again because starting from ground zero is not something new for them,” Melendez said. “After achieving some degree of financial stability they are stripped from it once more.” 

Sosa and her family applied for political asylum because her mom was accused of participating in a drone attack against President Nicolas Maduro during a 2018 military ceremony in Caracas. Sosa said her mom had been helping student protesters who were struggling because of the country’s political turmoil. She collected food and clothing for them, and helped them find shelter. When the drone attack took place, Maduro’s government conducted arbitrary arrests, which included some of the students Sosa’s mother had been helping.

The SEBIN took their cellphones and saw WhatsApp messages from Sosa’s mother offering the students assistance. She was immediately implicated in the drone attacks, and currently there is an extradition request from Venezuela’s Supreme Court of Sosa’s mother. 

“The neighbor told us the SEBIN was at our apartment and there was no way we could go back,” Sosa said. “We never returned, all we know from our neighbor is that they waited for us for hours while drinking our whiskey, wine and all the food in our fridge. They stole our TVs, our clothing, jewelry, our legal documents and left the apartment completely empty.” 

 Despite direct prosecution of the Sosa family from the Maduro government, Sosa is currently waiting for her political asylum application to be approved by the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services, (USCIS) a process that usually takes years and could be further delayed due to COVID-19. According to the USCIS website, the New York asylum office will be closed indefinitely.

 The broken diplomatic ties between the U.S. and Venezuela have restricted Venezuelans’ access to consular services. Also, many of the Venezuelans who have recently migrated find themselves in a legal limbo when arriving in the U.S. Hence, they do not have support from the country they left behind and they do not have support from the country they migrated to. This issue has become more evident during the pandemic. 

Ana Garcia, 19, arrived in New York in September of last year because she was awarded a scholarship to study performing arts in the New York Film Academy. Typically, international students arrive in the U.S. with a student visa already approved in their home countries. But since the U.S. embassy in Caracas is closed, Garcia had to enter the U.S. with a tourist visa and had to apply for a student visa once she was in New York. 

While she awaited a response from USCIS, she did a Google search for “Venezuelan restaurants near me,” and walked into several of them to ask if they were hiring. One of them was, and she worked as a server there until the restaurant closed due to the city-wide lockdown. After the outbreak started, USCIS canceled the interview they had scheduled with her to approve her student visa without a new date. She requested her name to be changed as she fears this information could affect her student visa approval.

 Garcia had to move out of New York to stay with a friend in North Carolina to cut costs. Without a job and without being eligible for economic assistance from the U.S. government, a New York rent was impossible to pay. 

“It’s like going from one hell to another,” she said. “Just when I feel like I have achieved a better life, the [pandemic] happens. It hit New York so hard and it was really difficult for me, especially as an immigrant. I don’t have the same rights an American has. I’ve had to figure out everything on my own. I’m only 19, I’m not a grown woman with her life figured out, so it’s really hard.”  

Melendez said there are still many paradigms with the Venezuelan migration.

“Countries still haven’t recognized Venezuelans as refugees. When Cubans arrive in Miami they obtain legal status, but not Venezuelans,” she said.  “Even though it is a forced migration due to the humanitarian crisis, the U.S. doesn’t recognize it as such. What [VIA] has seen during these 12 weeks of quarantine in New York is that, due to their irregular legal status, Venezuelans can only count on the support from churches, or an organization like [ours], or the International Rescue Committee.”

She added that she does not expect any support from the Venezuelan government for COVID-19 because of the longstanding lack of consular services. 

 Garcia has to return to New York eventually because she started all her migration paperwork in the USCIS office there. She is deciding whether to delay her start at the New York Film Academy a year, or until she knows for certain she will be able to attend classes in person. She cannot return to her home in Caracas because of her pending visa appointment. Garcia is counting only on the support of Venezuelan friends she has made since her arrival in the city. One of the most difficult things for her is not being able to be with her family. 

“In Venezuela you have your home, you have your family.  Even though it is horrible there, you have your own roof,” she said.

Since Sosa’s arrival in the U.S., all the jobs she has landed have been through her own search or through word of mouth, and she does not know of any organizations that help Venezuelans integrate to their new communities. She was able to maintain her engineering position and is currently working remotely from New York, but her weekly hours were reduced. For her, the social and political unrest brought by COVID-19 and the police murder of George Floyd are reminiscent of the ongoing protests in Caracas demanding reform and justice from the government. She is used to the social and political unrest that has followed her all the way to the U.S., but she is not used to being far away from her family, who is currently in Miami.

“Even though sometimes we wouldn’t have electricity or running water, I had a stable life [in Caracas] so I feel like I’ve been ripped from my nucleus,” she said. “This pandemic is killing me because of the anxiety of being alone.” 

If Maduro were to rescind, the Sosa family would return to Venezuela in a heartbeat. But as long as his administration is in power, they do not have that option.

“We couldn’t even leave the country by plane,” Sosa said. “We are literally exiled, we can’t return to Venezuela. If that wasn’t the case, I would be there.”

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As Puerto Rico continues to feel the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, New Yorkers with ties to the island are experiencing a mounting sense of desperation, not knowing how to help, and in many cases, unable to contact their loved ones at all.

“It’s so desperate. We are all anxious,” said Puerto-Rican born New York resident Juan Recondo at a demonstration to rally support for the island yesterday. “My wife is crying all the time and I completely understand — she hasn’t spoken to her brother for more than a week.”

Recondo, like many of his fellow demonstrators, feels paralyzed in the wake of the storm’s destruction. At least 16 people have died, and millions are without power, clean water and gas, according to a CNN report.

“There’s no way we can help,” Recondo said. “Our hands are tied. This is the only way, trying to get involved in this type of movement.”

Juan Recondo attends a rally in support of the people of Puerto Rico in Lower Manhattan yesterday. Photo by Amy Zahn

Recondo, along with over a hundred other protesters, gathered in Lower Manhattan to call for more aid to be sent to Puerto Rico and to condemn what they see as a slow response to the disaster by the U.S. government.

“I haven’t heard from my family at all, my whole family,” said protester Anthony Zayas, wrapped in a Puerto Rican flag. Aside from his mother, who lives in New Jersey, Zayas’ entire family is in Puerto Rico.

The state of New York is home to over a million people who identify as Puerto Rican, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the largest number in any state. There are over 5 million Puerto Ricans on the mainland U.S. in total, making them one of the largest Latino groups in the country, second only to Mexicans.

“People are praising Trump, but you know what? He did it too late. It should have been done immediately,” Zayas said, referring to Donald Trump’s temporary waiver of the Jones Act last week, eight days after the storm hit. “We’re American citizens, too.”

The Jones Act, passed in 1920, requires all ships transporting goods between U.S. ports to be built by Americans, and primarily manned by them. Trump lifted it for 10 days to facilitate shipments to the storm-ravaged island.

But despite the difficulties of assisting 3.4 million people — the population of Puerto Rico — there are ways to tailor relief efforts to be as helpful as possible, or at least avoid making things worse unintentionally.

According to Tony Morain, communications director for Direct Relief, a nonprofit that provides medications to hospitals and other health centers in disaster areas, it’s important for people to be mindful about the kinds of supplies they send.

In natural disasters, he said, it’s common for a shortage of truck drivers to combine with an influx of supplies trying to reach an area, creating a bottleneck in aid transport. After the Haiti earthquake in 2010, Morain explained that well-meaning people sent nonessential items like stuffed animals and toys, which can clog up ports and slow the distribution of life-saving supplies.

Morain also advised against sending winter clothes, since Puerto Rico has been experiencing high temperatures. Water, food, gas and medicine are the essentials, he said.

As far as longer term help goes, Morain thinks awareness is Puerto Rico’s best bet at recovery.

“Keep this in the news,” he said. “It’s always the case that first people talk about the wind speed of the storm, and then they show palm trees swaying, and then things go dark for a bit because there’s no communication, and then we start hearing stories about how devastating the first response search and rescue is … and then it becomes communities that have been forgotten.”

Robert Perez waits for a pro-Puerto Rico rally to start in Lower Manhattan yesterday. Photo by Amy Zahn

Puerto Rican Americans like protester Robert Perez, whose aunt and sister are stuck on the island, are unlikely to forget anytime soon, and he hopes the government won’t either.

“After the pressure’s put on the government, maybe Mr. Trump will do something,” he said.

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Petros Stathatos, (right) and members of the Greek American community in Astoria pose with the turkey that they will be feeding the poor with in a local soup kitchen on Thanksgiving Day. They said they wished they could do they same for the people of Greece. Photo by Mary Zarikos

On Thanksgiving eve volunteers and community members of the Greek American Home Owners Association (GAHOA) in Astoria, Queens, threw on their aprons to boil potatoes, carve turkeys, and organize rations for their annual Thanksgiving soup kitchen.

For days they had worked to prepare the meal that would feed over 2,000 people. Though joyful about the bountiful food they could give to the needy, some volunteers had mixed feelings as they thought about their families and friends struggling in Greece.

“If only I could do the same for Greece,” said Theoklitos Matsoukatidis, 67, of Astoria, one of the volunteers. “I’d do anything to help the Greek people right now. They are really suffering.”

For the last three years, the Greek nation has suffered an ongoing period of economic and political turmoil, intensified by harsh austerity measures imposed to save the debt-ridden country from defaulting from the euro currency zone. And the austerity measures just keeps coming.

With 9.4 billion euros in cuts scheduled for Greece budget for 2013, this means more cuts to pay, pensions and social benefits, raising the retirement age from 65 to 67 and higher taxes. With a national unemployment rate of 25 percent, more than one-fifth of the population now faces poverty.

“It’s ironic that I am here doing this,” Matsoukatidis said, referring to his volunteer work at the soup kitchen. “It makes me sick to see on television Greeks lining up for food and searching through dumpsters.”

There are approximately 10 million Greeks living outside Greece with about 4 million living in the US. Like Matsoukatidis, many Greek Americans are worried and frustrated with the never ending crisis in Greece. There is little they can do, but work with their local church to help and try to contribute what they can.

“They passed the tray around at church twice,” Matsoukatidis said, referring to the fundraising efforts of the Greek Orthodox Church in Astoria. “And I gave money both times. It’s not much but I give whenever I can.”

Vice president of the GAHOA, Petros Stathatos, 72, of Whitestone, spends five months out of the year in his summer house on the Greek island of Kefalonia, where he also visits extended family and friends. To those who are retired and struggling, he has been sending money and clothes over the last few months.

“It’s really hard,” Stathatos said. “Here my daughter is a lawyer and my son is an architect. In Greece, my family waits around for the government to send them a monthly pension and it’s barely enough to survive on.”

In May, the Federation of Hellenic Societies of Greater New York, an ‘umbrella’ non-profit organization consisting of hundreds of Greek societies, started a food and clothing drive for Greek American members to contribute. General Secretary of the Federation, Petros Galatoulas, 55, of Astoria, said that everything that they collected was sent to Athens last month.

“We sent hundreds of boxes of clothing and even some canned food to the Church in Greece,” Galatoulas said. “And we also just opened a bank account so that we can start sending money too.”

Bigger outreach efforts have also been initiated by other Greek American organizations like the American Hellenic Progressive Association (AHEPA) and the Hellenic Relief Foundation. Both have been raising funds that have been put towards buying food boxes, medical supplies and keeping schools running in Greece.

President of the Bergen Country chapter of AHEPA, Constantinos Mikelis, 50, of Wyckoff, NJ, has been working with other AHEPA chapters, private sector partners and other Greek American organizations to collect money and medical supplies.

“We are trying to mobilize the Greek American community here,” Mikelis said. “We made it easy so that all they have to do is go online and make a donation if they want. We’ve raised over $100, 000 in the last year.”

Mikelis said that many AHEPANs in the New York region are also involved in the Hellenic Relief Foundation, a non-profit philanthropic organization that was created just last year. With its focus on health and nutrition, members of the foundation have been going to Greece, at their own personal expense, to deliver food boxes to those in need.

“They purchase the food locally to help out the Greek economy,” Mikelis said. “Volunteers do all the packaging and delivering. It’s really inspiring stuff.”

The issue of health care has been another serious problem in Greece, since it is fully funded by the state. Because drugstores have not been receiving money from the government, the purchasing of medicine and medical supplies has stalled, leaving those dependent on their weekly prescriptions in an insufferable position.

Ioannis Grammatikus, 30, of Astoria, has been involved in an organization with ties to medical workers in Greece. For the past few months, he has been sending over-the-counter drugs from New York to Athens.

“I wiped out the shelves at Walgreens and it’s not even going to help those who really need medical attention,” Grammatikus said. “Imagine Greek seniors waiting in line for weeks to receive their prescriptions of insulin. It’s inhuman and humiliating.”

A waiter at Uncle George’s Greek Taverna in Astoria, Grammatikus says that between his day job at the restaurant and the relief work he is doing for Greece, he barely has a second to himself.

“I’m busy and exhausted,” Grammatikus said. “But the only way for anything to improve is if we are active. My dad is getting half his salary, my sister is unemployed. They are having it much worse.”

With the, financial crisis in Greece being scrutinized in the media, the nations has been on the receiving end of some charged generalizations, often coined as a nation of “siestas, tax evasion and people cheating the system”.

Yvonne Dallas, 74, of Fort Lee, NJ, feels the country does not deserve the bad press, which only worsened during the last U.S. presidential campaign.

“Romney claimed Obama was going to turn the U.S. into another Greece,” Dallas said, referring to the government spending beyond its means. “He should have said another Europe. This is a Euro-zone crisis. It is not a problem unique to Greece.”

For the last 43 years, Dallas has been teaching Greek and music at the Greek Orthodox Church in Tenafly, NJ. But she feels the church should be doing much more to raise money for Greece, a country that holds religion at the center of its nationality, by starting a campaign.

“If every single Greek living around the globe gave $10, it would make a difference,” she said. “It would not cover the debt,but it would show the solidarity between Greeks of the diaspora and the homeland. It would boost Greek morale.”

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