COVID-19: NYC Quote of the Day 2020-06-12

Friday, June 12, 2020, NYC Mayor de Blasio - Free Air Conditioners and Energy Bill Subsidies

Now, the restart is heating up, but something else is heating up and that is the weather, and we can all feel that hot summer ahead. We've talked about the fact that we have to get ahead of the hot weather and protect New Yorkers, particularly those most vulnerable from what mother nature may have in store for us. And we have to particularly focus on our seniors, our seniors have borne the brunt in the coronavirus crisis. We need to make sure they are protected against the heat ahead. So, we have a program we launched weeks ago called Get Cool NYC, and the idea of Get Cool NYC is to focus on those who are most vulnerable, make sure they're kept cool, make sure our seniors are safe.

So, first of all, most important immediate piece of this is giving out 74,000 free air conditioning units to low income seniors and a focus, particularly, on low income seniors in public housing, about a third of those air conditioners will go to low income seniors who live in NYCHA. Right now, there has been outreach to approximately 180,000 seniors to find out who needs these air conditioners, 25,000 have met the standards and we're moving to install those air conditioners and then keep going from there. The goal is to have all 74,000 installed by the end of June, we are confident we can meet that goal.

Now, we sent a particular request to the state public service commission, asking help with low income New Yorkers who have to pay their energy bills over the summer, as the hot weather's coming we want people to be able to afford that air conditioning. The state public service commission has come through and they're going to double the current commitment for subsidizing the energy bills of low income New Yorkers. Almost 440,000 New York City families will benefit because of this decision by the state public service commission. And the average savings per customer will be about $140 this summer, that's, for a lot of families in this city, a lot of money.
Edited for redundancy, grammar, and emphasis
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