After celebrating alongside New Yorkers during the city’s annual St. Patrick's Day parade, Mayor Eric Adams on Monday talked about the city's job report, mental health initiatives, his personal relationship with a leading Brooklyn Democrat and other issues during his weekly press conference.
Adams said revised data from the Department of Labor indicated that there were now over 4.8 million jobs across the city, a record high, which also coincided with a decrease in the unemployment rate in Black and Hispanic communities.
"I mean, young people, families, job seekers, all want to be here in New York," Adams said, adding that 4.2 million jobs were in the private sector. "We're one of the top destinations for college grads with our tech industry that we're growing here, and we're going to continue to do that."
With the Democratic primary approaching on June 24, the mayor lost another supporter. On Sunday, The Brooklyn Democratic Party chair endorsed former governor Andrew Cuomo during a meet-and-greet at Junior’s Restaurant on Flatbush Avenue.
Rodneyse Bichotte-Hermelyn, who made the endorsement, has been known as one of Adams’s closest allies and endorsed the current mayor back in 2021.
“She is a very dear friend, and you don't take any of this personal. Politics is not personal,” said Adams. "She's one of my dearest friends, and she was extremely supportive of me for these last 15 months."
When asked whether the Democratic Party has abandoned him, the mayor said the party "left me, like many other working class people."
The mayor would not answer questions about whether he would run as an Independent should he lose the Democratic primary. “Hypotheticals is not what I'm answering.”
As for fundraising efforts for the mayoral election, the mayor said he was not worried that rivals, including Cuomo, who took in more than $1 million in under two weeks, are raising funds at a rapid clip as his campaign lags behind.
The Campaign Finance Board is currently holding off on allowing matching funds for the mayor due to his on-going federal indictment case. The mayor stated that his campaign started fundraising early. “Everyone is catching up to me… Not only are they catching up to me on fundraising, they're catching up to me on policies,” said Adams.
“I'm not running against candidates. I'm running against myself,” said Adams.
As part of the city's mental health awareness week, the mayor released a Behavioral Health Blueprint in Action: 2024 Progress & Impact report, which outlines data and treatment services.
The report highlights, among other things, the building of additional mental health clinics and programs for all ages, including Teenspace, a platform for young New Yorkers to receive mental health help.
"I'm really pleased about the numbers of how many young people, particularly teens of color, you know, are logging on," he said of Teenspace, which now has about 16,000 users. "There's a lot of stigma that is in communities of color when it comes down to getting mental health assistance. And so we have been extremely successful in that area."
In addition, the city added hundreds of additional psychiatric beds, the mayor said.
"After COVID-19, we lost so many beds and many people were not getting the care that they deserve," Adams noted. "This has been a big issue. I saw this day one when I came into office, you know, going back, closing the psychiatric institutions without giving people a landing place has caused severe problems on our streets and people are now living on the streets because of that."
