New York City has released 1,700 new Priority 5 after-school vouchers, the first time new vouchers have been issued in three years. This comes after Councilman David G. Greenfield led the fight to increase funding for the program, which helps working families who are not otherwise able to pay for after-school services for their children. Thanks to those efforts, $10 million was added for vouchers this year, bringing the total Priority 5 budget to $27.3 million.

”When I first came into office, vouchers were threatened with elimination. Here we are, eight years later, and we have increased them to a point where over 13,000 children are being served,” said Councilman David G. Greenfield, who worked alongside Councilman Stephen Levin on the voucher issue during the summer’s budget negotiations.

The new money represents a monumental accomplishment for the Priority 5 program, which was eliminated from the city budget entirely by then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Greenfield fought for the funding to be restored by Mayor Bill de Blasio. He succeeded, and the program was made a permanent part of the New York City budget for the first time in 2014 with a $17 million budget.

However, the Administration for Children’s Services could not afford to issue vouchers to all the children who qualified, and the waitlist ballooned as funding stayed stagnant.

This year’s 1,700 new vouchers mark the first time the waitlist will have been shortened since 2014.

“This is a huge accomplishment, and everyone in the Mayor’s Office and the City Council who pushed for this should be proud of themselves,” Greenfield said. “The fact is that 1,700 more families will have these vital vouchers for their children this year. That’s a huge difference in the lives of so many New Yorkers who are struggling to make ends meet.”

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)