By Gus Saltonstall
New York City Councilmember Gale Brewer wants laundry machines in Upper West Side schools.
A recent survey by the elected official’s office found that of 18,149 total students in School District 3, 1,751 are living in temporary housing, i.e. shelters, and 581 of those in shelters are students from migrant families who arrived after May 21, 2023.
Brewer contends that the lack of laundry service in many shelters, including those where migrant families are staying, contributes to students not attending school.
“Students who do not have clean clothes are less likely to go to school,” Brewer wrote in a letter to Department of Education Chancellor David Banks. “I feel very strongly that laundry service should be accessible where school leaders determine that the lack of clean clothes is preventing their students from accessing education.”
So, how many Upper West Side public schools are lacking laundry machines?
Brewer’s office found that 38 of the 45 schools in District 3 do not have a washer or dryer. Six of the schools have both a washer and dryer, but they are currently out of service at two of them. Additionally, one Upper West Side school has a washer, but no dryer.
Of the 38 UWS schools without a washer and a dryer, 31 of them have more than 10 students living in temporary housing, and nine of those local schools have more than 50 students living in temporary housing.
“The lack of an affordable installation plan is the most significant barrier to offering much-needed laundry service,” Brewer wrote in the letter to Banks.
The School Construction Authority told Brewer’s office that schools would have to fork over between $50,000 and $100,000 to install both a washer and a dryer. The Riverside School for Makers and Artists at West 61st Street, which has more than 100 students in temporary housing, was quoted over $85,000 for the installation.
Others issues have arisen for UWS schools looking into laundry-machine installations.
For example, P.S. 166 on West 89th Street was told it would have to knock down a wall to install the laundry machines, which stalled the process, according to Brewer’s letter.
The Department of Education did not immediately respond to the Rag’s request for comment on the matter.
“I request your help in identifying ways school buildings can purchase and install machines efficiently and affordably,” Brewer concluded her letter.
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This has to stop. I’m not anti-immigrant or anti-cleqn clothes but it is too much of an influx too fast. Instead of focussing on laundry would our efforts be better spent getting the federal government to spread the immigrants all around the country?
Ms Brewer: What about dry cleaning as well as laundry?
The article says out of “18,149 total students… living in temporary housing, i.e. shelters, and 581 of those in shelters are students from migrant families.” This is clearly a different issue than immigration.
They (we) all need to do laundry.
You left out very imports words with your …. 18,149 is the total number of students in District 3. 1751 of those are living in a shelter. 581 of those are immigrants arriving after last May. So 1/3 of the kids living in shelters and attending school are recent immigrants.
Why put the laundry in schools rather than in the shelters?
Can you imagine hundreds of immigrant children spending their time washing their clothes while at school instead of attending classes…… Has Gale Brewer totally lost it ?
Because not every homeless child lives in a shelter, but the baseline should be that every homeless child attends school.
We’d have to pay for them either way, so what is your objection here? That we should make life as hard as possible for kids who have the audacity to be homeless?
Not so much an objection as a question. Presumably before the recent influx of migrants there were about 11-1200 homeless kids in D3 schools. Why didn’t Gale Brewer give a damn about them?
As many othets have pointed out, adults need clean laundry too. Why put these in schools and who will be doing the laundry if they are installed?
Many laundromats have closed over the years due to high rent.
There are long-time New Yorkers who have to walk many blocks with laundry carts to the few remaining laundromats.
Gale Brewer should be working to help any resident access laundry machines/laundromats – not just to help newly arrived migrants.
It’s not just rising rent but all costs and it isn’t just NYC either. Across country laundromats, laundries, dry cleaners, and so forth are closing. This has been going on since about 2016 and recent covid pandemic didn’t help things.
Then you have competition from all the new online laundry services. Just as with nearly everything else modern technology and rise of Internet has allowed people to outsource laundry via a simple app.
https://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20150315/RETAIL_APPAREL/150319908/once-a-fixture-laundromats-disappear
Looking at the numbers in the article, only about 30% of the students in question are migrants. That means that 70% of the students who would be affected are poor New Yorkers. So this argument of supporting ‘migrants over citizens’ does not match the facts.
As for residents needing to walk many blocks, come on. You are arguing that the pure convenience of one person is akin to another persons choice between clean laundry and food?
On the other hand, as a public school teacher who teaches students in temporary housing, both migrants and non-migrants, I do not think that laundry in schools is the answer. Lack of clean clothes most definitely impacts student attendance, but I feel the push for facilities needs to be either within the temporary housing facility themselves, a program that creates laundry systems near the shelters, or even a service where the city picks up laundry from shelters to be done in a centralized facility and then returns the laundry to the shelters. It could even be a system of laundromats where all the machines are free to any resident who lives in a shelter or is on public assistance. I have students who live in NYCHA, for example, that have attendance issues due to clean clothes as well.
Josh,
With respect I’d also add…
If the goal is to get others (let’s say me) to agree with your concerns, then generally best to not denigrate them and/or their opinion.
Best thing – just politely explain your priority.
Evi, I appreciate your respectful comment on discourse.
Sorry if you felt disrespected. Honestly, it was one of my more respectful responses. It is just really hard to hear people complain “me me me – what about me?” every time they hear someone else gets something.
Josh,
Everyone needs to be able to do laundry.
City Council Representative Brewer is well aware that this is an issue for many.
And worse and worse given pace of gentrification.
But suddenly she is concerned – so yes am feeling pretty cynical
Josh,
Perhaps you are not aware there are still low income people, families, elderly who live on the West Side – and struggle to do laundry, find a place to do laundry.
May need to walk 20+ blocks or take a bus.
May need to spend whole day at crowded laundromat.
So putting laundromats in a facility like a public school is a GREAT IDEA and a GREAT USE OF TAXPAYER MONEY TO ADDRESS A PALPABLE NEED
Two examples of problematic commenting here.
1) hyperbole: no one on the UWS has to walk over 20 blocks to a laundromat.
2) responding to a comment without first reading the full comment first.
Agree. And what about adult migrants? And homeless people? These people might also like to wash their clothes, so better to address Laundry writ large than installing washers in schools
20 year resident of the UWS here who does that every week. How about Brewer teams with investors to open a laundromat staffed by migrants seeking work?
The migrants can’t work until their asylum hearing. Why should school personnel do their laundry? Put machines in the shelters and they can do their own laundry like the rest of us.
Vast numbers of these so called “migrants” are working with or without proper papers. They’ve joined the already not small number of illegal aliens , visa overstays and others who are employed in NYC without proper papers.
Underground/cash economy in NYC or tri-state area is vast and deep.
Bars/restaurants/hospitality, construction, food and other delivery, janitorial services, and more. Tons of businesses of all sorts from small to bigger hire persons off books/regardless of immigration status.
Then you have all those migrants selling food, fruit, and God only knows what else on subways, sidewalks, streets, bridges (as in Brooklyn). They’re outside South Ferry, construction sites and other areas daily selling food, drinks, etc….
BB,
I’m aware that lots of the migrants wirk without legal authorization to donso. I addressed the question “How about Brewer teams with investors to open a laundromat staffed by migrants seeking work?” Do you think Brewer or any of out elected officials should be doing anything that promotes them working when they are not legally allowed to do so? That’s just not going to happen.
May I ask why you put quotes around “migrants”? I’m afraid I am offending you by using the word. That is not my intent. Its what the mews media uses “migrants at the border”, “the migrant crisis in NYC”. Is there a better way to phrase this?
People would do their OWN laundry!
Definitely the kids should have clean clothing. I am not sure how laundry in school would increase the likelihood of the kids going to school. Wouldn’t they be embarrassed about doing the laundry in school? Wouldn’t they have to bring their dirty clothing to school and do their laundry before or after school? Or is the idea mom or dad would bring the clothing to school?
Brewer and her usual cause de jour. even though I don’t expect much from her, this one is outrageous. She completely doesn’t care about her constituents and keeps pandering to radical left causes.
Are people who live in homeless shelters not her constituents? Only those with money are? Poor people don’t and shouldn’t count?
You know how you get poor kids to not be poor adults? You give them an education!
Yes, give them education by making teachers teach them, not do their laundry
“Outrageous” that poor kids have clean clothes? Why? Should they be doing the laundry in prisons and workhouses instead?
Many ppl – even those who pay rent- do laundry in the tub and hang it to dry. Oh the humanity! Life w/o someone to DO my laundry for free!!! Because THAT is beneath my status.
Sarah, please don’t twist my words. You seem to like doing that when you don’t agree with someone.
I’m not against kids having clean clothes and you know it very well.
The way for them to have clean clothes is a frivolous idea. Clean clothes for the kids and adults could be achieved in more efficient, safe and overall sane manner.
Again, not against clean clothes – just against this lunacy.
Thank you for your attention, Sarah.
she doesn’t pander to the left, she panders to the money.
“ The Riverside School for Makers and Artists at West 61st Street, which has more than 100 students in temporary housing”
Our public education is bad as it is and we have over 100 students from migrant shelters? That means 5 full classes. Our students don’t get enough attention, tutoring, help from teachers and paraprofessionals as it is, but we put over a 100 in one school and worry about … washing machines?!!!!
Why not install laundry in shelters? Will teachers also do laundry or does BOE need more budget to hire new staff? I do my own laundry.
How is this reasonable, rational, or fair to the students and teachers?
fyi, i’m not anti-immigrant, but i am anti-Brewer.
Just $4-5 million, “efficiently and affordably,” what’s the big deal… And don’t forget to force the teachers to stay after hours to do the laundry.
The migrant families don’t know where the public laundromats are? Noone can print them a $0.25 map?
700,000 loads of laundry (at $7 per load), at 1x load per week per family, would last 500 families….27.5 years.
But, yeah, let’s knock some walls down before we do the math.
If teachers stay late to DO laundry they get overtime??? Maybe there will s a method to Gale’s madness???
I’m used to the usual complaints in the comments section about immigrants and people living in shelters, but complaining about kids having access to clean clothes is low even for you. Just stop.
$50,000 to$100,000 to install a washer and dryer? I know everything in New York costs more, but that’s ridiculous. Something in the schools bidding/construction process is seriously broken.
Why don’t we give grants to folks looking to start self serve laundromats in the same amount they plan to give to schools for laundry?
Between 86th and 104th St, there are a total of THREE self serve laundromats. I think that’s a huge problem, and would gladly accept an $80k grant to open a fourth one. Then, it could serve all searching for a place to do laundry, not just public school students (also, practically, are these families going to lug all of their laundry to their school?)
When the government has to step in and enable someone to open a laundromat in an area where others have not been able to do successfully, that’s a good argument against awarding grants of taxpayer money. Isn’t it abundantly clear that government cannot spend financial resources efficiently?
This solution would enable a regular person to make money and run a sustainable business. I think the preference these days is for it to be govt or not for profit service provider connected to the govt. The individual might make a profit and actually become…..wealthy as a result of “capitalism.”. Can’t have that.
I don’t think it’s fair undocumented migrants should be doing their own laundry.
Gale Brewer should hire workers to wash, iron and fold their dirty clothes.
Once again Gale Brewer showcasing her lack of common sense. This is not what schools are set up to do. They have enough on their plates educating. Now they should be laundromats. And how would this even work? Bring all of your dirty clothes to wash at school? Too embarrassed to wear dirty clothes but sure bring your wash to school. No one’s going to tease you for that. Someone please primary Gale out of my life.
I saw a movie where students were doing their laundry in school but I couldn’t remember where it was filmed. I came across this article from Nov ’23 while I was looking for info. Thanks to Whirlpool it’s already being implemented in 40 states!
“Appliances installed in schools through the program now provide an estimated 50,000 students across 40 states with access to clean clothes, helping to combat chronic absenteeism.”
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/whirlpool-brand-increases-access-to-laundry-in-schools-through-its-care-counts-laundry-program-301977668.html
Laundries in the shelters seem the best result. Having people going in and out of schools to do laundry seems a security issue. Having educational staff doing laundry is not appropriate.
Maybe the city can turn a handful of illegal weed stores into free laundromats funded by fines collected by the NYPD. There has to be at least 50 on the UWS on Broadway alone – $100k each and that’s $5 million for new laundromats for the needy. Could even hire asylum seekers to staff them with temporary work permits. Problem solved!
Wait wait wait. We have a building code that requires a change in a building’s certificate of occupancy to put a laundry room on site. Getting a new certificate of occupancy is a HUGE and cumbersome task that takes forever in our city bureaucracy.
Even if we allocated this money, would the schools be exempt from this onerous code requirement? Can’t we all be exempt from this onerous requirement and thus make it easier to get laundry rooms in more buildings in the neighborhood?
Because it *feels* like the rules are being bent on an issue that could have benefited long time voters and tax payers ages ago.
What a dumb idea. And laundry installers are clearly salivating at dealing with the inefficient NYC government and are wisely doubling (or more!) their normal fees.
This is a perfect case for vouchers. There is a laundrymat near me on 85th near Broadway between Broadway and WEA. There is a migrant shelter a block away on 85th between Broadway and Amsterdam. I bet the laundrymat has excess capacity and would love to make a little more money. Give the people in the shelter a voucher to use at the laundrymat. This will cost the city a lot less than buying and installing machines.
And if you need to scale this up, there are lots of empty storefronts in the neighborhood. Assuming our system works right and the owners of these spaces would rather have a tenant than nothing (a topic subject to debate here), they can be rented cheaply, outfitted for washer/dryers and force someone who is eligible to work, gets benefits, and claims to not be able to find a job to go work there or lose their benefits. People bring their laundry and their vouchers and get to use it. Problem solved. Much lower cost. People employed. Yeah, America!
Heck, I’m tempted to see if my building would be willing to let people pay to use our vastly underused laundry facilities. It will keep down my maintenance.
I’m speechless.
How is it even conceivable?
Why at schools and not shelters?
Who is going to be doing the laundry if schools are not allowed to have unauthorized adults on their territory? Schools personnel will be doing laundry?
How do you separate the laundry? The migrant families will send their kids’ laundry only but not for the entire family?
How does ANY of it make any sense?
There was a time and a place when I would see NYC waste money and it would make me angry. Now that I have retired I no longer pay New York State tax or New York City tax. So Knock yourself out.
The migrant statistic is distracting. The number to focus on is that nearly 10% of students in District 3 are unhoused. The other stats in the article also are unhelpful and frankly jumbled — is this what Brewer’s office is using to convince the public? Bottom line is that it is unnecessary and impractical, for many reasons, to install W/D at all schools.
There are much better ways to approach the issue. Mobile washing comes to mind. In Greece for example they run mobile laundromats for the unhoused. I’ve seen it, it works. You could park similar vans outside schools and rotate them from school to school for a lot less money and a much faster launch vs building in each school. The DOE already provides mobile dentists and other mobile services to schools.
I’ve never heard of mobile washing – what a great idea !! Where do the trucks get the water?
Uhhh those quotes are NOT standard for washer/dryer installation. Classic contracting bloat
Am I missing something? Who is going to do the laundry in the schools? Why don’t they put more laundry machines in the shelters?
Below 72nd Street – and closest to the Riverside School,
I believe there are still a few self-service laundromats ?
71st near Columbus
67th between Amsterdam & Broadway
53rd & Ninth Avenue
There used to be more laundromats.
Gale’s politely written comment regarding the costs posited by the school’s construction department are what have me googley eyed!! The charges are simply outrageous and reflect a lack of what good planning and project redundancy will vet. Perhaps it’s not built within the confines of the school but as an add on facility that can be accessed, as many have suggested, by the entire community without compromising the school itself. We also have community centers, senior centers, religious houses, etc. where these could be located as well and the foot traffic might be welcomed. These could be made into mobile operations as long as there’s a water and electric hookup.
The priority should be cost efficiency, targeting the location to best serve the community (where they might serve as more than just a laundry) or be brought to a place where it can be of service to the greatest amount of people for the longest amount of time.
PS-The laugh of the day is that some of the new folks who’ve come here to work are are installing washers & dryers or using them while working for someone and all without working papers and I can assure you – they are not being paid $100K to do it.
You’re advocating for City government to go into the laundry business. Instead of desiring the efficiencies of private enterprise, you want government involvement in what should be private businesses? Why stop at laundry…let’s turn everything over to government.
At $50K for an install, for let’s say 20 families per a school – that’s .., $2500 per a family.
That’s a lot of laundry cards ….
And … are the kids supposed to do laundry during school? Or … are we letting random people into the school buildings to do laundry?