Andrew Cuomo's Billion-Dollar Brooklyn Promise Is TBD

Last Thursday, Governor Andrew Cuomo unveiled another big spending promise to the people of New York City. Central Brooklyn, he announced, would be receiving $1.4 billion in state money to tackle entrenched poverty and poor health outcomes in the neighborhoods of Bed-Stuy, Crown Heights, East New York, and Brownsville. Dubbed “Vital Brooklyn,” Cuomo modeled the initiative on his “Buffalo Billions” project, which aimed to restart the economic engine of the long-declining city in western New York.

In the Brooklyn version, the targeted neighborhoods would see thousands of units of new affordable housing, dozens of new medical facilities, and an expansion of green space.

“We are going to employ a new holistic plan that will bring health and wellness to one of the most disadvantaged parts of the state,” Cuomo said at the press conference at Medgar Evers College in Crown Heights.

The plan is certainly big on numbers: 3,000 new affordable housing units on state-owned land, 36 ambulatory care centers, $140 million on recreation. But will the money ever show up?

Read more: http://www.villagevoice.com/news/andrew-cuomos-billion-dollar-brooklyn-promise-is-tbd-9773228