Good morning. It's Monday. We'll look at continuing problems with operators of homeless shelters. We'll also find out about a personal project that two actors began during the pandemic. |
 | | Matthew Okebiyi, the chief executive of African American Planning Commission, which operates nine homeless shelters.Bronx Community Board 8 |
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New York City, required by a court order to house every homeless person, depends on roughly 60 providers to operate shelters in the five boroughs. Last year, as the city was paying them more than $2.6 billion, officials began a sweeping review. |
It came after The New York Times revealed that some shelter executives had enriched themselves at taxpayer expense. The mayor at the time, Bill de Blasio, announced the review on Twitter and said it would be led by the Department of Investigation. |
A year later, it is not clear what that review has found or whether officials are willing to take action against operators who has flouted rules. City officials have declined to answer basic questions about their review. Diane Struzzi, a spokeswoman for the city's Department of Investigation, said the agency was "moving forward with the sensitivity and urgency that this review requires." |
But the city has been slow to force changes at one group that operates shelters, African American Planning Commission, which became the subject of concern one year ago. Its chief executive had been paid unusually well — more than $500,000 a year — while his brother had received about $245,000 annually and his sister-in-law was on the organization's board. |
My colleague Amy Julia Harris writes that in the fall, the officials gave the group a choice: Drop the chief executive's brother or risk losing millions of dollars in city shelter contracts. African American Planning Commission, which runs nine shelters, promised to yield. |
But the brother remained on the job and the group remained a city contractor, collecting $24 million this fiscal year, a Times examination has found. Drawing on records and interviews, the Times examination also found that the company had made payments to consulting firms tied to its chief executive, Matthew Okebiyi, and his family. |
Okebiyi said in a statement that African American Planning Commission had drawn up plans to comply with city contracting rules. He also said that his brother, Raymond Okebiyi, would stop working as its finance chief on April 1. |
But he said that his sister-in-law, who is Raymond Okebiyi's wife, would remain on the five-person board as an unpaid, volunteer member. He said she had recused herself over the years from decisions involving him and his brother. |
City officials have now placed nine shelter providers on an internal watch list, citing possible conflicts of interest, questionable spending and financial problems. They said they were adding Okebiyi's group to the list but had not yet finished the paperwork. All of the organizations continue to receive city funding. |
Isaac McGinn, a spokesman for the Department of Social Services, which oversees shelter contracts, said the agency's strategy was forged as homelessness climbed to record levels. He said that strategy was to bring problem organizations into compliance rather than banning them from receiving future contracts. |
"The fact is, we provide vital emergency services to thousands of New Yorkers every day," he said, "and at the same time, we are reforming and transforming the system." |
It's a sunny day, New York, with temps in the mid-30s. The evening will be partly cloudy with temps dropping to the high 20s. |
In effect until Wednesday (Ash Wednesday). |
- Eric Gonzalez, the Brooklyn district attorney, was elected in 2017 after promising a modern, progressive approach to criminal justice. As he begins his second term, increases in shootings and gang violence have complicated his efforts to fulfill that pledge.
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Preparing for a premiere as parents |
 | | Elianel Clinton for The New York Times |
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Justin Mortelliti has auditioned for thousands of roles, including Roger in "Rent" in California and Mr. Darcy in "Pride and Prejudice: a New Musical" on Amazon Prime. But when he logged onto Zoom in the spring of 2020, "I was sweating and shaking" — even though this time, he was in charge. |
He and his husband, Mark Evans, also an actor, were meeting the woman on the Zoom screen to decide if she should bear their child. "I said, 'I'm nervous,'" Mortelliti recalled. "She said, 'Me, too.'" |
That helped clinch the decision — the most significant in a journey of significant moments toward surrogacy that began soon after Mortelliti and Evans met in 2015. Their daughter is due in early May. |
"We knew from when we first started talking when we met that marriage and a family were important," Mortelliti, 41, said. They married in September 2019, and when the coronavirus arrived in the country a few months later, they made having a baby through surrogacy a pandemic project. |
Evans, 37, was appearing in "Mrs. Doubtfire," the $17 million musical adapted from the 1993 movie. As my colleague Michael Paulson wrote in 2020, the coronavirus was at the stage door when the curtain went up on the first preview. After only three performances, Broadway shut down because of the pandemic. A few weeks later, on what had been planned as opening night, the company gathered online and performed the entire show for one another — the "fauxpening," rhyming with opening, they called it. Evans was so involved in organizing the Zoom show that there were moments when he could not remember his lines. |
Still, they found meaning in "Mrs. Doubtfire," which they saw as a celebration of all types of families. Evans had expected the show to do well and be "our ticket to stability with regard to starting a family." |
But having a child through a surrogate is complicated. There are no federal laws covering surrogacy, so states have drafted their own regulations. A bill to allow paid surrogacy in New York State passed the State Senate last year, but it was never brought up for a vote in the Assembly. The surrogate for Evans and Mortelliti lives in Arizona, they said. |
They had help from Elevate, a Los Angeles-based in vitro fertilization and egg-donor agency started by two actors they knew casually — Kyle Dean Massey, who played the singer-songwriter Kevin Bicks on the television series "Nashville," and Taylor Frey, whose credits include "The Carrie Diaries," Gabriele Muccino's "Summertime" and "It Chapter Two." Frey met Evans years ago when Evans was in the touring company of "The Book of Mormon." |
As it happened, after assisting hundreds of couples through surrogacy, Massey and Frey also decided to become parents during the pandemic. They had a baby through a surrogate, a daughter who weighed nine pounds nine ounces when she was born on Oct. 31. |
Mortelliti and Evans would not say how much they had spent. "It's a lot of money, and once our daughter is here, then we have a child to pay for," Evans said, adding that the range is typically $75,000 to $150,000. |
They are excited about becoming parents, but they have done their research. |
"Talk to us when we're completely sleep deprived," Evans said, "and we'll be like, 'Can we get a refund?'" |
The fish can't jump
the dam upstream,
but fish eggs stuck
on duck legs do. |
And so Gen Next
begets the rest
to stock
the stream anew. |
Pray tell me, Mister,
who are you
to tell me what
I cannot do? |
I have two legs
and a pair of shoes,
so I'll scoot
my way past you! |
Good to be back. See you tomorrow. — J.B. |
Melissa Guerrero, Reagan Lopez, Olivia Parker and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com. |
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