AM NY

According to Mohamed Attia from the Urban Justice Center, while vendor permits are capped at 4,000, there could be as many as 20,000 people selling food and other goods in the streets of the five boroughs. “The city has failed in regulating street vending, the city has failed in supporting street vendors, the most marginalized small businesses in our city didn’t get any support before COVID, during COVID or after COVID,” Attia said. “Intro. 1116 will be the first step in the right direction… It is only one step in a very long road.”

Patch

In a news release, the Urban Justice Center said some vendors are known to pay up to $25,000 for permits sold in an underground market while others continue selling food without permits. The group also alleges the city's 'Open Restaurants' and 'Open Storefront' initiatives are hypocritical and unjust, allowing 10,000 restaurants to serve food on the streets while vendors struggle.

Gotham Gazette

Mohamed Attia, director of the Street Vendor Project at the Urban Justice Center, similarly said he was excited to be included on the council to represent the interests of street vendors. But his excitement later turned to disappointment as well.

City Limits

"Despite their fundamental contributions to keeping New York City running, street vendors have been excluded from any assistance efforts made available to small businesses, and many of them are struggling to survive,” stated the Street Vendor Project of the Urban Justice Center.

Gothamist

Over the last few weeks, the Urban Justice Center’s Street Vendor Project, with funding from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, paid about 30 vendors to get back in their trucks to cook free meals for New Yorkers who are food insecure. About 6,500 meals from food trucks were distributed at sites in Brooklyn and the Bronx during the duration of the seven-week program, which ends Friday.

AM NY

The rally, organized by the Street Vendor Project and the Urban Justice Center, is the second such rally, the other held in August in Times Square sought to convince Council Speaker Corey Johnson to move the legislation to a vote.

The National Herald

The Street Vendor Project from the Urban Justice Center is employing local street vendors to distribute 1,100 meals a week in their communities through the end of September. Distributions began this week in Brooklyn and the Bronx.

E-Broadsheet

A non-profit based in Lower Manhattan has successfully lobbied for street vendors to be removed from the jurisdiction of the NYPD, as a means of furthering social justice. The Street Vendor Project (part of the Urban Justice Center, based at 40 Rector Street) has pushed for years to take enforcement of regulations governing street vendors away from the police.

Mother Jones

According to the New York City-based Street Vendor Project, which is part of the nonprofit advocacy organization the Urban Justice Center, most of the city’s 20,000 vendors are immigrants and people of color—the very groups most vulnerable to racist policing. City cops have issued an average of 18,000 tickets to vendors annually over the past three years.

New York Times

The Street Vendor Project of the Urban Justice Center, an advocacy group, estimates that there are 10,000 to 20,000 vendors across the five boroughs. But only 853 people receive nonfood permits, and only about 5,000 can legally vend food, according to Matthew Shapiro, the center’s legal director.