HuffPost
In this time of need, one group stepped in with a solution, at least for food vendors: Over the last year, the Urban Justice Center’s Street Vendor Project ― through major funding from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation’s $100 million COVID-19 relief effort ― paid more than 90 vendors to get back in their trucks and cook free meals for food-insecure New Yorkers.Reuters
In New York City, street vendor policy had been stuck since the 1980s, when officials capped permits at about 3,000 despite demand from at least 12,000 vendors, said Mohamed Attia, head of the nonprofit Urban Justice Center’s Street Vendor Project.Yahoo! News
"Street vendors are the smallest businesses you can find in New York City. They are a real picture of what the American dream should look like for all immigrants who come to this country to try to start their own small businesses," said Mohamed Attia, who represents food cart workers in New York City through the Urban Justice Center's Street Vendor Project.Bk Reader
Urban Justice Center’s Street Vendor Project set up a Go Fund Me page for Perez on March 24, and in just two weeks it has already surpassed its goal of $10,000 – with $10,772 donated so far. The page says Perez is a true community leader, “always helping other vendors and fighting for street vendor rights.”The GoFundMe, set up by the Urban Justice Center's Street Vendor Project, had pulled in $10,772 in donations as of Wednesday for Sonia Perez, who has sold tamales on Knickerbocker Avenue in Bushwick for 20 years.
La Calle TV
Varias organizaciones se han unido para bridarle un apoyo financiero a los miles de vendedores ambulantes de la ciudad de Nueva York. La firma de inversión y de servicios financieros, Morgan Stanley y la fundación Robin Hood establecieron una alianza con la Street Vendor Project de Urban Justice Center para donar miles de dólares a los vendedores ambulantes, según reseña Telemundo47.Bloomberg CityLab
There’s still more work to be done for vendors, according to Matthew Shapiro, legal director for the Street Vendor Project, part of the nonprofit Urban Justice Center.Grub Street
The current cap (2,900 citywide vendors and 5,100 total permits) is also far less than the number of vendors working today, and the Street Vendor Project, a union and workers’ center that is part of the Urban Justice Center, estimates there are between 10,000 and 20,000 unlicensed vendors.Gothamist
“This bill is way overdue, it should have passed years ago,” said Mohamed Attia, the director of the Street Vendor’s Project at the Urban Justice Center, an advocacy group for the sellers. “What’s really exciting for us is that [the board] will have four seats for street vendors in it. We have never been invited to these conversations.”Eater NY
The new study was commissioned by the nonprofit Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO) — women make up a larger percentage of street vendors, yet continue to earn less than their male counterparts, according to the report — with assistance from the Urban Justice Center’s Street Vendor Project, one of the leading advocacy groups for street vendors in NYC, and is part of a global effort to study the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the informal economy in 12 cities.© 2023 Urban Justice Center | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
