Dear neighbor,
Every year on Thanksgiving, I am grateful for the opportunity to represent you and to work together with you to make our community and our city a better place to live for all.
This year I am more thankful than ever for my family's health, and I am thinking of those we have lost. While many of us are not able to be together this year with our loved ones, I hope you are able to find a way to make this holiday special.
As we give thanks for what we have, we must also think of how we can help our neighbors. Although there are more than 15,000 vacant apartments in Manhattan alone, more than 10,000 families do not have a permanent roof over their heads this Thanksgiving.
We can make a real difference this holiday by opening our vacant apartments to house our homeless neighbors. You can read more in an op-ed I co-authored with Urban Pathways CEO Frederick Shack.
In our neighborhood, nobody should go hungry, whether on Thanksgiving or any other day of the year. Yesterday, as we do every year, we distributed Thanksgiving turkeys at public housing in the district.
We can be grateful that we have amazing local non-profits providing meals to anybody in need—and we are proud to provide funding to many of these partners.
If you or anybody you know is looking for a thanksgiving meal this holiday, they are welcome at Thanksgiving meal services throughout Manhattan.
These resources were compiled by the Neighborhood Coalition for Shelter, in partnership with the Eastside Task Force for Homeless Outreach and Services (ETHOS), which I co-founded with Borough President Gale Brewer and Senator Liz Krueger.
Thank you for everything you are doing to strengthen our community.
Happy Thanksgiving,
Ben Kallos
Council Member
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