Hochul calls for workers to return to NYC offices in the New Year, vows to fix crime, homeless issue

NEW YORK CITY (WABC) — New York Governor Hochul called for workers in the city to get back in their offices for the New Year, with hybrid options.

“Come back to work we miss you!” she told industry leaders at the Association for a Better New York breakfast on Thursday morning.

Governor Hochul said she would be in Times Square on New Year’s Eve to drop the ball “On a whole New Year. I can’t wait to put 2020-2021 behind us.”

But with the New Year and its celebration comes a time to get back to work, in city offices, she said.

“How about this New Year’s resolution, that in the days after New Year’s, that we say everybody back in the office. You can have a flextime, but we need you back, at least the majority of the week. Come back New Yorkers, we miss you! And we will do our part,” Hochul said.

The governor went on to say that the lack of workers in the city has been devastating to mom-and-pop businesses that relied on employees to buy goods and food.

“People need to know that in a place like New York City the infection rate is 1%, people are vaccinated, they’re getting their booster shots, they’re wearing their masks walking down the street even when they’re not required to,” Hochul said. “They’re doing all the right things, it is safe to come back!”

However, it’s not just the coronavirus keeping people from coming back, she acknowledged.

“We also have to make people feel safe,” Hochul said. “They’re feeling it’s not quite the same as it was before the pandemic.”

She said that the uptick in shootings and other crimes, especially on the subway, can be fixed.

“New York City has faced crime before, we’ve overcome it, the fact that this was not a long slump into crime, it’s a short spike downwards which means we can pop up quickly,” Hochul said, promising to work with incoming Mayor-elect Eric Adams and the NYPD.

Also fueling concerns, the number of homeless people on the streets of the city. She called it a humanitarian crisis.

“You cannot ignore this. No human being can walk over a person lying in the street or see them in a park and not feeling this tug of anxiety saying, this is not right, in the greatest city on this planet, in the 21st century, this is not right,” Hochul said.

She vowed to work to connect the homeless to support for housing and mental health services.

READ MORE | VIDEO: Gunman shoots 2 men brawling with group in Bedford-Stuyvesant street

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