Governor Hochul: “There's nothing like Long Island. It is a microcosm of the entire State. What we do here, the investments we make here, we can also talk about transporting to other parts of the State.”
Hochul: “It's not just the physical structure, the charm of the downtown buildings and bringing more housing and making apartments on empty lots and connections to waterfronts and signage and trails… and I'm really proud to announce that Smithtown-Kings Park will receive $10 million dollars in DRI funding to transform downtown into a vibrant, welcoming destination.”
Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul announced Smithtown-Kings Park as the Long Island winner of the seventh round of the Downtown Revitalization Initiative, receiving $10 million, as well as Brookhaven-North Bellport and Mineola as this year’s Long Island region NY Forward winners, receiving $4.5 million each. For Round 7 of the Downtown Revitalization Initiative, each of the State's 10 economic development regions are being awarded $10 million, to make for a total State commitment of $100 million in funding and investments to help communities boost their economies by transforming downtowns into vibrant neighborhoods. Building on the momentum of the successful Downtown Revitalization Initiative, the $100 million NY Forward program adopts the same "Plan-then-Act" strategy as the DRI, which couples strategic planning with immediate project implementation to support a more equitable downtown resurgence for New York's smaller and rural communities. With the Governor’s commitment this year of $100 million each for the Downtown Revitalization Initiative and NY Forward, the State has now invested a combined total of $1 billion in both programs since their inception.
VIDEO of the event is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.
AUDIO of the Governor's remarks is available here.
PHOTOS of the event are available on the Governor's Flickr page.
A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:
Good morning. Good morning. Please sit down. Thank you for the warm welcome. There's no better place to talk about New York's future than starting right here at Kings Park High School, where leaders like Supervisor Ed Wehrheim actually cut his teeth. Am I correct about that? He was the first class – first graduating class. I don't have to say the year unless you want me to. It was a few years back. I was still alive. Most of you were still alive.
It is great to see him. And again, thank you for your service to our country and your many, many contributions. This is where leaders are created, places like this. We have great examples. Go Kingsmen! I want to wish our teams, local teams, always. But it is so great to be back on Long Island, especially the extraordinarily beautiful North Shore. And I want to thank the leaders of this part of our State starting with our County Executive, Ed Romaine, who always welcomes me here.
I want to thank him. We have a lot of work to do together and I appreciate the way you've reached your hand out in partnership because certainly collaboration will bear many fruits for this important part of our State, so I appreciate that.
We also have the Suffolk County Clerk and members of the Suffolk County Legislature. I'm a former County Clerk, so I want to have all of you stand up and take a bow – all of our County Legislators who are here, County Clerks.
I have my partners in Albany, and again, I credit the people of this region for making sure that you send very compassionate fighters for you. And I'm going to start with Monica Martinez, someone who I've worked very closely with. Monica Martinez, your State Senator.
Mario Mattera, our State Senator as well, Senator. Assemblymember Michael Fitzpatrick has joined us, thank you. As I mentioned, our Supervisor, Smithtown Supervisor, Ed Wehrheim, and also members of the Town Board. I also spent 14 years on a Town Board, so I know all about Town Board members and they don't always get the credit they deserve, okay? All the Town Board elected officials who are here, please stand up. And if you're not here, you're probably working hard. Thank you.
Dan Panico, the Brookhaven Supervisor has joined us. Super, please take a bow. Paul Pereira, the Village Mayor. I also represented villages in my time in office. I know all about villages. The Village of Mineola, thank you for joining us as well. As well as all the Village Trustees, and we have our current and former Presidents of the Nassau County Village Officials have come as well, Elliot Conway and Nora Haagenson, I want to thank them.
And as a special treat, I have brought our Secretary of State, Robert Rodriguez, to join us today.
Now, as the role of a Secretary of State is to be a top diplomat and to make sure that peace breaks out everywhere, so I've got him right here on Long Island so we can bring everybody together. Thank you, Mr. Secretary of State.
And also Kevin Law couldn't be here, but I know he, of course, is a resident and he loves this community deeply. But he is responsible for Empire State Development, the arm that funds our businesses and truly our future. And he is chairing a meeting right now as chair of ESD, so he could not be here. But of course I want to mention our hosts here today, Superintendent Tim Eagen and High School Principal Jennifer Martino, thank you, thank you.
As I said, it's great to be back on the Island. I was just here a short time ago. I attended the Long Island Association State of the Region to highlight some of our priorities and to make sure that Long Island retains its charm, its beauty and its independence.
I was just in Hicksville and Westbury last month who showcased some of the progress we've made with the Downtown Revitalization Initiative. Our Secretary ofState, who oversees that program, was there as well. We'll talk about the DRIs in a couple of minutes. And we've really accomplished a lot together. And sometimes you don't know it until you take a look at some of the numbers.
And we truly are trending in the right direction. Since I took office, unemployment on Long Island has gone from 4.5 percent to 3.3 percent. That's the right direction it should be going. And we created over 45,000 good paying jobs.
But also when you're driving to those jobs, I know as I come out here all the time, all I would hear about are the potholes on the roads. So I took care of the potholes. I came out here and said, “I'm announcing, after hearing from everybody on Long Island, and I mean everybody” – I announced $1 billion statewide to take care of our potholes and fill them up.
And I literally went out there and filled some myself. And as a result, over 208 lane miles were paved on the LIE in the southern States. So hopefully, it's a smoother ride for everybody. Anybody been out there? Okay, there you go.
But as we're at a school like this, we're talking about investments in education. And I've been Governor just a little over two years now, and I knew that we had to make up for a lost time and to continue to help our schools overcome the ravages of the pandemic – and how disruptive that was for our teachers, our administrators and most of all our students. So we have, as Governor, put a record $4 billion in education right here on Long Island.
We'll talk about education in a couple minutes, but $4 billion in the two years. That is significant. And we said at the time, these are great numbers, but we're not always going to have numbers like these, but we want to make sure that for that short time when we had it, we can make that infusion of money to help make up for disinvestment in the past.
And one of our crown jewels here, we have great educational institutions. SUNY Farmingdale, and I see the President is represented here, John, it's great to see you. We have great community colleges throughout. And also, we made sure that our – to draw a lot of attention to education here on Long Island – that we made Stony Brook a flagship. Now, no one had done that before. And what that does is it adds the extra prestige for federal grants and for more researchers to want to come here. And more students are paying attention. In fact, as a result of my move doing that just two years ago, we have seen enrollment is up, I think, about 20 percent.
And that helps Farmingdale, and it helps the feeder schools. And so we are very excited about that and what that designation has done. And it is going to continue to be a premier center for research and higher education.
So why are we focusing on Long Island so much? Because there's nothing like Long Island. It is a microcosm of the entire State. What we do here, the investments we make here, we can also talk about transporting to other parts of the State. Because here – and I've been to many of them – you have wineries, small farms, charming rural areas. People don't know that about Long Island, but in the North Shore you do.
We've got some suburbs. And I took note of the fact that I'm the first Governor ever from the suburbs. I’ve represented suburbs. So I understand what suburbs are all about. We also have vibrant cities and communities and charming downtowns. We have it all here. And we have the oldest history in the State, practically, and we have the brightest future.
So this is why we spend a lot of effort to make sure that Long Island knows that you may be geographically out a little bit in your remote area, but to me you're not remote at all. You're very much top of mind. And so I knew when I finished my Executive Budget just this week, after a lot of effort with an incredible team, I knew I wanted to come to Long Island first for my first rollout of the State.
So as you saw, we presented a $233 billion spending plan, and affordability has been an important focus because that's another issue I hear about on Long Island is things are so expensive. And people are worried about how they're going to continue to care for their families.
And so what we did was just like the families have to do – put forward a balanced budget, do what you can afford, live within your means, without any additional burdens. Now, the focus of this is to help everyday New Yorkers. Part of that is also make sure people feel safe. I know, as a parent, the anxiety that you have when your kids go off to school or they go over to their friend's house and go walk around downtown, are they going to be okay?
That's always constantly top of mind. And so you get anxious when you see crimes going up. And we took this on seriously. We knew that people needed to feel safe; families needed to feel safe. And even now, there's issues like retail theft. People are stealing with abandon. Going into our little gas stations and the convenience stores and our downtowns and just swiping things off the shelves. I know what that feels like because our little businesses work so hard.
My mom wanted to start a flower shop in our little village. My mom didn't know anything about flowers, other than she liked them, they're beautiful. And she didn't know anything about retail, she didn't know anything about business. But she had the heart to go forth and do what all small business owners do, and take that risk, and be willing to go out there, and work long, long hours. And you sit there, and I used to go help her on Sunday afternoons, and you sit there and you pray that little bell rings, that someone's going to come in, so you can make a little money that day. Doesn't always happen.
So when we see people going into businesses and showing that they're so callous that they're just willing to steal their merchandise and sometimes even hurt the shop owners, we have to do something. We have to take State action to try to help our localities. So we're going to be taking on crimes like retail theft, domestic violence, hate crimes.
We're going to rebuild our mental health system after years of underinvestment. We're going to keep our kids safe, not just in school, but online as well. This is something that I don't think our Supervisor, when he went to school here a few years ago had to worry about this, right? But teenagers today are in a totally different world.
Those influences out there could really take them to a dark place, and as leaders, we have to do something. We can't just say, “this is the way it's going to be”. We're also going to work on issues, help family get back to basics with reading. Remember phonics, right? For about 20 years, people forgot what phonics were.And teachers were told to teach kids this newfangled way, and it's going to be better, except our reading scores have only gone down, and it's been frustrating for our teachers for such a long time. They've been begging for a change. And again, it's hard to change education, especially in the State of New York. But I said, “we must be bold, we're going to just call it out like it is, call it a failure, and get back to basics.” That's what we're going to do, and we're going to make sure our teachers have the resources to do that, so we're going to be looking forward to better outcomes.
Also, making sure our kids not just get a better education, but they're safe, especially when they do things like swim. Everybody in Long Island needs to know how to swim, right? We're surrounded by water. That's the joy of Long Island. You have to know how to swim. But there are communities where there are not swimming pools to teach kids and we have to focus on that. I'll be talking about that in a minute.
And also, maternal and infant health. Now, we are seeing horrific outcomes. It's shocking that the incidence of infant mortality has not gone down, it's actually gone up. And how we compare to the rest of the world is rather shocking. But I know, now that we took care of the potholes on those two roads, I don't hear much about those, but I still hear about crime and taxes, right? So let's talk about how we deal with those.
Let me tell you this, in my budget, State income taxes will not go up and we'll have strategies to make crime go down. It's real simple. As I mentioned, we made historic investments in law enforcement thus far.
Really proud because of our targeted approach and working with local law enforcement – gun violence in the two years I've been Governor is now down 49percent. That's just in two years. So we're on a trajectory where it kept going up and up. We invested a lot of money, working with our Legislature into trying to be very smart about how we give resources to our local governments, how the State Police and the crime intelligence centers can help solve crimes.
But it's been working. It's been working. We now have the lowest number of shootings on Long Island. The lowest number in record. The lowest year on record before was 2018, we're 16 percent lower than the lowest record ever. That is a very good outcome. That is a very good outcome. And again, last year we committed $347 million to drive down gun violence, which is a 52 percent increase over prior spending.
See the difference? You realize there's a problem, you put money and smart strategies behind it, and all of a sudden, things start getting better. And that's the good news here. So we attacked gun violence from every angle. We know it works, and that's why I want to continue that trend. I don't want to ever see it go up again.
Another $347 million to support law enforcement strategies. Also, as I mentioned, the retail theft: we're going to continue focusing on helping our business, our hard-working entrepreneurs. I met someone named Harry Singh, he owns the Bolla Market. He has 100 stores and gas stations, you've probably seen them driving around.
He told me what was going on in his shop, especially late at night. And how terrorized some of his workers were, and some of them were assaulted. And I was so struck by this, that these people just going to work every day have to live in fear now. That's not right. That shouldn't be happening anywhere, and it certainly should not be happening anywhere on Long Island.
So I said, “we're going to do something about it.” We're putting $40 million into combating retail theft. We're going to have dedicated teams in our State Police Department. Using our crime intelligence centers, we're going to find out who these are. And I'm not just talking about someone stealing a pack of gum, I'm talking about the organized crime operations that are sweeping the shelves and then selling it on social media and eBay. So we have a whole system of working with the federal, State, and local government to deal with this, and we will start driving down retail theft.
Another crime that is not talked about as much is domestic violence. We talk about crime statistics – we see too often, headlines of horrific murders and assaults. But it's more likely to be committed by someone, a known partner, than a stranger on the street.
And we all know, it's primarily women who face this violent experience. And sadly, the majority of these cases are never prosecuted. The woman may have the courage to say, “I need help,” which is still a hurdle to overcome, but the majority of them are dismissed. We cannot let this happen. We have to make sure that law enforcement and they.
Our district attorneys and our police officers, they need extra help from the State to focus on this crime that people know is there, but when it's happening to your family and your own children are terrorized or you're terrorized, again, we cannot turn a blind eye to this. We have to say, “no, it's real, it's happening to people and it must stop.”
So we're having $40 million allocated for law enforcement and district attorneys to help combat domestic violence. New tools to gather evidence, prosecute the abusers and help survivors rebuild their lives.
Now let's also focus on hate crimes. It breaks my heart to know that since October 7, the attack by Hamas on Israel, we've seen a shocking escalation in hate crimes, especially against Jewish and Muslim New Yorkers. Swastikas drawn on schools right here in Smithtown, hateful messages scrawled across the health food store in Montauk. A menorah met vandalized on a front lawn in West Hampstead. But it's not new. It was back in July of 2022 when I visited a mosque in Ronkonkoma where someone had vandalized with an incendiary device the crescent moon out front.
Hate has touched to many of our communities. And people deserve to worship wherever they want without fear that in that place, that hallowed place or on their way there, or being on our streets, dressed the way they want to represent their faith. They now have to live in fear.
Last year we invested $25 million to address this – that's before it got really bad, what we're dealing with now. So to combat this, we're adding another $10 million in grants for a total of 35 million to our most vulnerable communities so they can get those security cameras, they can get the guards, they can protect themselves and they know what they need to do.
Because every single New Yorker deserves to be safe. Whether it's a mosque, a synagogue, a temple, church, anywhere, it's a fundamental right to be safe.
As I mentioned, ensuring that our kids have a top-notch education is not just my priority, I know it's the priority of all parents here on Long Island. And since taking office, we've increased statewide school aid by the largest amount ever, $5 billion, and we fully funded foundation aid for the first time ever. You all heard about this foundation aid. We all knew how districts were not getting what they should get. I said, “No more. People shouldn't have to go to court for this. It should have been resolved years ago.” And for the last two years, I said again, “I have to take this infusion of money, put it out there to make up for all the years of underinvestment.” And we did that. We did that. We stabilized. We did what was right. It's the largest amount ever.
And during that same period, I’ll focus on Long Island today. We increased funding for Long Island schools, increased by $1.4 billion dollars – a 38 percent jump, 38 percent more. That's pretty darn good. Now, can you do 38 percent every year or two? No. I wish I could, I just can't. No one really expects it, and you really don't want to have to pay more out of your pockets.
We do have outstanding education here on Long Island. We are blessed with that. We have dedicated superintendents and principals and administrators and incredible teachers. We will continue to support them. We also supported Long Island with a $1.2 billion increase in foundation aid, and this year we're investing overall $35.3 billion in school aid, a 2.4 percent over last year. So, we didn't go down. Our overall State numbers are up and an increase in aid to Long Island schools is up $147 million for a total of $5 billion.
So, those are the real numbers. Those are the numbers. Love to have them more for everybody. Let's see how the next couple years go. But I think that's pretty darn good, given what we had to do over the last couple years.
Children's mental health – I remember sitting with a school psychologist and she was in an elementary school, and I said, “What percent of the students are you seeing are still affected by COVID or having mental health challenges?” She immediately said, “40 percent.” I said, “40 percent of kids in grade school are suffering from mental health challenges?” She said, “Yes.” I said, “Every single school needs to have people dealing with this, do they?” “No.” That was not the answer I wanted to hear.
The use of school-based clinics where they exist is up 70 percent. That statistic is sad in itself, but those are the places that actually have school clinics. What about the ones that don't? Every single school needs to have one. We're directing $45 million to make sure that we have school-based, wraparound services, peer to peer support and strategies.
Take care of our kids now, so they're not relegated to a lifetime of needing help later. That's where these investments make all the sense in the world. And make sure they're getting a quality education, as I mentioned, phonics, back to basics. We have to make sure we have re-education programs for our teachers, because the teachers have been asking for this. And we're going to teach the teachers to help these new strategies. So, $10 million to help 20,000 teachers start teaching our kids the way that we think is going to have better outcomes. Get rid of those old, debunked theories. Say, “It was a mistake, bad experiment and let's get that done.”
Now, this will not only help our kids to read, but also prepare them for their access to some of the best higher educational institutions in the world right here on Long Island. I'm seeing Farmingdale. John, just wave your hand. He's so proud of Farmingdale. And we'll invest $207 million for SUNY operations in addition to current school fundings and investing $1.2 billion statewide into higher education capital projects.
For too long, these institutions needed money for basic capital improvements, and they were denied this because budgets were tight. They're still tight, but if we don't make these investments now, it’s going to cost a lot more later when the infrastructure starts collapsing, and we haven't made the investments to compete with all the other schools, the privates. So, right here on Long Island, we're adding $211 million for institutions right here on Long Island. Excited to do this. We've listed, I'm not going to list – Farmingdale, Old Westbury, Stony Brook, Old Westbury, $91.5 million, is that a typo or are they really getting that much? You can have it. $52 million for Farmingdale, $49 million for Stony Brook. Our community college, we don't forget our community college, $14 million for Suffolk, and $4 million for Nassau County. So, there you go. There you go. The money's there. We're going to make those investments.
What else do Long Islanders talk about? The weather, extreme weather. You don't just do modest weather. Long Island does extreme weather very well. And I know you want to focus, and we are focused, on combating climate change. It's very much top of mind. Just look no further than this last week, what happened at Fire Island or Overlook Beach. They took a beating, back-to-back storms washing away some of the most magnificent beaches in the world. Some of the worst flooding since Superstorm Sandy. That was supposed to be once in a 100-year event.
Barriers are breached, dunes disappeared and basements are filling with water. And our little downtown businesses were smacked. It's becoming a relentless cycle. It's like an unwelcome Groundhog Day, where every storm just keeps echoing the past. We talk about these 100-year storms. Aren't they supposed to come every 100 years?
I was at 100-year storms, flooding storms, upstate, that happened every other year. I don't think we should call them 100-year events anymore. They're literally becoming the norm. And that's the pre-challenge for us. We even had a 1,000 year-event, flooding event, in the Hudson Valley this past summer.
First of all, I said, “Who was keeping track 1,000 years ago? How do you know this?” But they assured me that it was a 1,000-year event. So, that's what we're dealing with. And shame on us if we don't lean hard into this and figure out whatever we can do to protect the people of Long Island and our beautiful beaches and our shorelines
We've got to build resiliency. There's a lot of ways to go at it. We know the benefits of having more trees, for once. We know they protect against flooding, the roots. Take Pine Barrens for example, we need more places like Pine Barrens on Long Island. That's why I'm investing $47 million to plant more than 25 million more trees by the State. Let's get it all done by 2033.
So, when you leave here today, take some seedlings, right? Because we're all going to have a lot of work to do to plant 25 million by 2033, but we'll get it done. We're also putting our $4.2 billion Clean Water, Clean Air, Green Jobs Environmental Bond Act money to work, and thank you everybody, thank you voters for making sure we got that over the finish line, but really putting a special focus on homeowners hit by coastal flooding.
When Long Islanders bought their homes or built their homes 30 years ago and got their mortgages, they had no idea that not that far into the future this persistent flooding and extreme storms would be the norm. So, we're investing $435 million into resiliency projects, including $250 million to create a voluntary buyout program.
Some people may just say, “I can't take it anymore. I have to move to higher ground,” and help families move out of harm's way. And then we'll transform those areas into resilient habitats, natural habitats to be barriers for the other communities. And I've mentioned the beaches many times. Probably not a lot of people going there now, but we are known for the beaches here, and just the most beautiful places, from the North Shore to the South Shore.
So, we are focused on making sure that all these beaches are maintained, and one of our prides and joy is certainly State Park Jones Beach, which welcomes nearly six million visitors a year. That's extraordinary. So, we're investing $100 million dollars into revitalizing the bathhouse. So, people have a nice place to change and recreate at the end of the day. That's investments coming for Jones Beach.
And also, as we think about beaches, what happened last year? One of our hottest years on record, right? People wanted to go to the beach. Why were they closed? Didn't have lifeguards. Not enough lifeguards. Who would have thought? Everybody wanted to be a lifeguard when I was growing up. Is that how it was for you, Supervisor? Even back in the 60s, huh? 60s – I had to get that in there. Lifeguards. We don't have enough of them. So, the State said, “Why don't we have enough,” because they can make more working at McDonald's down the street, right? So, I said, “Okay, pay them more. Pay them more. Supply and demand. We'll get more if we pay them more.”
But unfortunately, we've seen a high number of drownings, record high in recent years and this is not sustainable. We've had to suspend last year swimming on eight beaches because lifeguards were back to school and we have to get more lifeguards. So, we're going to make sure that we can play a role.
We're at $160 million dollars to hire lifeguards, increase swim lessons, build more swimming pools because I don't want anyone to drown. I want people to be safe at the beaches. I want to make sure people know when they come here, there's going to be a lifeguard that can make sure their children get home at the end of the day. So, that's an investment we're doing as well.
And also, I had fun announcing this last year, we're going to keep it up – $1 million to help communities along Long Island and fly drones. Why? Spot the sharks. I actually went out there and launched drones to make sure it worked. It worked. I saw a lot of sharks. I didn't go swimming that day. But other days are great, I'm sure. So, those are the kind of investments we're making. Just everywhere we can think of to just improve the quality of life here on Long Island and enhance it.
But also, part of a quality of life is making sure you can get to your jobs easily, on time. Making sure our infrastructure is strong and supports future growth. As I mentioned, we went after the potholes. I told you this last time, it was a high priority. This year we have $72 million to repair local roads and bridges on Long Island. So, that's going to be important for local governments. I know when I was in local government, we were always begging the State, “Please give us more money, roads and bridges, sewers, water.” And for a long time, I was in for 14 years. No, we were not a top priority. So, bringing my local government experience, what it's like and how hard it is, I said, “Let's just make it easier on our local governments. Let's just give them a hand. Let's be real partners. Let's not always be on their backs. Let's be on their side.” And that's the philosophy we're taking when it comes to making sure you have the investments to grow.
LIRR riders, we want to make sure they have an easy commute too. Now since November 2023, not that long ago, right before the holidays, we had 69,000, almost 70,000 more trains than the year before. Think about that, 70,000 more trains than we had a year before on the LIRR – that's 49,000 more than 2019, all because of our investments in the third track. I was at all these great ribbon cuttings and openings and the opening of Grand Central Madison, which I hope when people come out of the ground there, they have a totally different experience is what we're trying to do everywhere.
And the best part is, because I'm always saying what's our on time performance? We have a lot of trains, but if people are late over the summer of hell, 2017. Never again. We had the best on time performance in 50 years. Just announced that, 94 percent of the time, on time.
These are some of the investments we've made. But there's one we can work on – infrastructure, beaches, places. But let's get down to people. Our people need help. And I wasn't just referring to kids, but our kids really need a lot of support. Just a five-minute walk down here, down Lawrence Road, is the old King's Park Psychiatric Center. A former State-run facility that at one time pioneered innovative approaches to mental health. But then there was overcrowding and underfunding and it ended up closing. Now, what was plan B after that closed? People went out to the streets, right? It didn't just happen here. It happened everywhere.
When I was growing up, there was a place called the West Seneca Developmental Center. And we knew that was closing and my parents and my sister Sheila is here today, the first sister of the State of New York. She loves when I call her out. She remembers, we had six kids in a small house, but my parents were the kind of parents that are always bringing people in. We had everybody, kids up from the City, spending the summers. And then there was the need for people to be the home where people that were going to be transitioned out in the community could come and learn what it's like to live and survive in the outside world.
I remember being about a 13, 14-year-old and taking these 18-year-olds to the local store to show them how to shop and this is a bicycle, you can get around town. That was special. I remember that experience and think about that all over the State. There never was a good plan for these people, and it didn't happen here either.
So, that was the genesis, the beginning of real homelessness. All over. Those problems still exist. And we have to reverse the decades of disinvestment and neglect, and callous disregard is what I'm going to call it out as, because these people for all decades have needed help.
So, since I've been Governor, State investment in mental health is up more than 45 percent, $4.8 billion dollars, up from $3.3 in 2022, across the whole continuum of care. It's $122 million dollars to have supportive housing units, because people will otherwise be on the street if they're not in a house, a home, where there's professionals who know how to take care of them, we'll create 200 new inpatient beds.
But also, there's a group of people that we know are tough. They're strong. They show up in the worst of times. They see the worst of humanity. I'm talking about our first responders. And they're also suffering in a quiet way. Their experiences on the job expose them to horrific circumstances. And now we know that suicide rates among law enforcement are 60 percent higher than the rest of the population. It takes its toll. But they don't talk about it because there's not a culture. There's stigma associated with this. But they are human beings who are exposed to some of the most horrific circumstances and they're not able to get the help because it might affect their ability to stay on their job. Right? That's an issue.
And it shows in their mind’s weakness when in fact it shows strength to get help. The whole society should know this and understand this, but I want to focus also on law enforcement. Tommy Shevlin from the Nassau County PBA spoke to me about this. Tommy, if you're here, stand up. Right? Tommy's probably solving a crime somewhere. But I want to thank him. I want to thank Tommy for the conversation we had together for shining a spotlight and being a champion for this. And as a result of that conversation and understanding that this is real, I allocated $13 million to tackle this very issue in our budget.
So, let's go out there and show our law enforcement, the men and women out there on the front lines that we support them. We want them to be strong and healthy as well. So that's a commitment I'm making with our budget this year.
And the opioid crisis, which just doesn't seem to be breaking. The fever's not breaking. It hit Long Island really hard. Stony Brook research shows that Long Island experienced the highest number of opioid related deaths than anywhere else in the State.
That's not the image people have of Long Island, but it's real. Last year we began distributing $200 million from the Opioid Settlement Fund, and this year we're dedicating $67 million of that toward harm reduction programs, medication assisted treatment, more prevention and recovery programs. Yesterday I was speaking to the Statewide Sheriff's Association, and I told them, I said, “One area we can be helping people is to have medication assisted treatment available in the jails, right?”
If people can start recovering while they're incarcerated, but I had heard a few years back that it's wildly expensive, so they couldn't do it. And I told them yesterday, and I'm repeating, when I was a local government official, I hated the phrase, unfunded mandates. I said, “I'm not going to do this to you.” I said, “I'm going to make sure you have the money to help stop this cycle of dependency.”
Let's start right where people are. And sometimes that's in our jails and prisons. So we're focusing on that, more prevention and recovery strategies as well. There's another issue I know you all love to talk to me about here on Long Island. Let's have that talk. Let's have that talk. The housing shortage is plaguing every corner of our State.
It is not just specific to our cities or our suburbs. Our rural communities are struggling as well. Last year, I presented a transformative plan, and a lot of legislators, local officials said, no, that's not what we had in mind. And I listened. I listened. And I went around and I had forums with the supervisors, Suffolk County, I was sitting with 10 supervisors, Suffolk County, just last spring.
I said, what do you want? What'll jumpstart more housing being built here? Because right now, teachers and first responders, firefighters and police officers, they can't even afford to live in the communities that they're working in. Go out east. How long do people have to drive to be able to go to their job working in hospitality, especially in the summertime?
Our farmers. I go out and visit some of our wineries. They're extraordinary. They're beautiful. They're always saying to me, can you get me some more workers? I said, yes. He goes, well they have to live closer because the only ones we can get can't come from the City of New York, travel hours and hours one way to get to a job picking grapes
So this is a crisis. And even sitting down last year with labor leaders and business leaders, I said, “what stresses you out at night?” They said the fact that our workers are commuting in from New York, from New Jersey and Connecticut. Now those are two words I don't ever want to hear. Okay. This is New York.
Okay. Workers should be living in New York. They should have a home. And as a new grandma, I'm also going to say this. A lot of young people grow up in great communities, great education, schools like this, and they think someday that when I have a family, I'm going to raise the kids near grandma and grandpa because they can babysit.
Okay. See how that works? It's beautiful. But now those kids can't afford to live in the town they grew up in. That is heartbreaking. It's just wrong. And I'm really proud that last year, yes, we started a conversation. And yes, it was weaponized, and I'll be kind, I'll say it was lied about what our intentions were.
People were not honest. I said, I came back again, I said, “can we have an honest conversation about what I was proposing,” which is saying, can everybody grow 1 percent a year? That wouldn't even meet the demand, but it was a modest request. And if the answer is no, then let's find some ways to make it happen, because I was told, give us some more carrots.
Make it taste better. I'm not sure why. I would say cookies, personally, because carrots. I'm giving you some cookies. Okay? Let's see if that works. But if it doesn't work, what are we supposed to do? Work with me. I need more housing built. I needed 800,000 housing units just to get to a place we can go.
We have to build more housing. I'm working. I'm doing what I can. I need the commitment of our local officials, we can get this done, please support this. And I've also said, I'll look at all State land. If there's a spot of grass over here, I'm thinking, can I put some housing on this? So we're looking, we surveyed all of our land, especially transit oriented development.
Does anybody think that an empty parking lot with tumbleweed blowing at the end of the workday is better than putting first floor little coffee shops, maybe a dry cleaner. A little sundries, maybe a little flower shop, put in some parking above it, the parking that you're losing, maybe two or three levels, so you can actually double, triple the parking, then some housing above that, maybe it's affordable, maybe it's market rate, I don't care, I never said what kind of housing, any. But just build housing.
The top floor, you can have a great restaurant, or a swimming pool for the people who live there. I have seen, this is not imagining this, I have seen this on Long Island. It works. And everybody who has that empty parking lot should be banging down my door saying, help us bring life here. Help us bring people here.
Let people have the ease of living right here. They don't even need a car. They can live here and take the train into work if that's where they're going. It just makes sense. So I'm working on State property. $500 million I'm putting aside to build one, 15,000 units on State owned property.
Okay, that's good. It won't get us to the finish line, but it's better than sitting here twiddling our fingers saying, oh, whoa, it can't happen, because I will never be that person. We're going to continue our five-year, $25 billion housing plan, which will create or preserve 100,000 affordable homes.
See how expensive? $25 billion, when it's all affordable, gets me 100,000 homes, okay? This is not inexpensive. And we came up with a new idea. We'll have pro housing communities certify that they support growth targets, which are not high, but they'll support them. Get your Legislature or your Town Board to pass it.
And have that be a requirement to access over $650 million in discretionary funds, like our Downtown Revitalization Initiative and the Long Island Investment Fund. Have some skin in the game. Show me that you're willing to grow, and then that money will be unleashed for you. Does that sound like a good enough carrot for all of you?
Because I think that can work. That can work. And communities want local control, and I'm putting the ball back in your court. Show me. Show me that we can do this. Because that was last year, the conversation started, people said, the New York Times said I'm the first Governor since Rockefeller to talk about building housing because everybody thought it was too politically – it's a hot wire, right?
And I'm never afraid of that. Because I'm really proud that this year, everybody's talking about housing. We made that leap. And now here's some commonsense solutions. And I'll listen to all yours if you have more. And I know sewers are important. I did land use as a town board member, planning board, traffic safety board, our IDA.
I know how to get the deals done. I did them for 14 years. I know at the bottom, the foundation, literally the foundation, you need sewers to grow. I get that. That's why we're here to help as well. So that's what we're going to do. And I'm really pleased to see that a number of communities on Long Island have already expressed interest because the $650 million made them, their ears perk up.
Brookhaven, Greenport, Hampstead, Mineola, Patchogue, Port Washington, North Smithtown – they've all applied. So these are the communities that have already said, “yes, we're in, Governor, we want to do this.” We want to unleash that money, but we're also going to unleash the potential to build more housing because our people are begging for it.
And there's a story on Newsday yesterday about the homes on Long Island. Anybody catch that? The median price for a home in Suffolk County increased in one year, almost 10 percent, $600,000. Median price in Nassau increased almost 8 percent over last year. It's $725,000. How does that work for a teacher?
How does that work for a police officer? A young person out of college who wants to come back home and work at our great tech jobs, work at the university. How does that work? They're not going to be able to have a home? That was always the badger of success, right? The first suburbs in the country started here on Long Island.
People came after World War II. They built their lives here. They built great schools and great institutions. And the dream was always to be able to own a home. And now people can't even get an apartment. I say we act now. And I feel there's a commitment in this room, and I feel there's a commitment on Long Island.
And I don't want to hear the voices, try to overpower those who know that this has to happen, or else we will stagnate. Places around us, other metropolitan areas, Philadelphia, Boston, Washington, Newark, they're all growing in population because there's homes. That's the difference. So this Executive Budget I've gone through is a reflection of our values, not just mine, but our values, and a commitment to the hard-working people of Long Island and our State, and I'm really proud of it.
And I want to keep making Long Island more successful, more prosperous, more desirable, and ultimately more livable. And I mentioned before I wrap it all up, because I know you've been a very patient audience here, but there's so much to talk about, there's so much to talk about, so many good things are happening.
I mentioned the DRIs, Downtown Revitalization Initiatives. I love this program because I go back to my days representing a small village. And if someone had told us that if we applied and had a vision that was created by our local residents, that the State would fund it to the tune of $10 million for the DRI, I would have thought I died and went to heaven.
I said, that never happens. If you get $10 million from the State, it's usually over about 20 years. Oh, here's a little bit here, a little bit here. You never get that critical mass of transformation. You never can come back and say, three years later, this downtown is different. And I'm going to tell you right now, I've seen it all over the State.
It's not just the physical structure, the charm of the downtown buildings and bringing more housing and making apartments on empty lots and connections to waterfronts and signage and trails. There's so many things you can do, but it's not just the physical. It's the psychology that changes. People that have been down on their communities, who don't feel they have the luster that they should have, and when they were kids they look – the good old days.
When those transformations happen, people's minds start to change. They say no, this is a community that's got value. It matters. And there's civic pride that's extraordinary, especially those who work so hard. And all the long days and nights and hours to put together the application and looking at what others have been doing and it takes a few years to get it, but you don't give up.
That's why I love this program. That's why our Secretary of State loves this program. And I'm really proud to announce that Smithtown-Kings Park will receive $10 million dollars in DRI funding to transform downtown into a vibrant, welcoming destination. So there you go. I'll be back for ground breakings and ribbon cuttings, and I cannot wait to see it.
And they said they want to use the money to enhance community charm and character. Who could be against that? Charm and character. It has a lot, but it's going to be even more extraordinary. They want to attract new businesses and visitors and stimulate the local economy and I want to, again, congratulate Supervisor Wehrheim.
It takes a lot of work. And to your committee, I'm sure they're all here. Can everybody stand up who was involved in this application process? Come on, stand up. I know you're out there. I know you're out there. Yeah, one person does not do this. Thank you. Thank you. I look forward to coming out and seeing the realization of not my vision, not Albany's vision, but your vision. That's the beauty of this program.
Now, what I also said was the DRI program is great because $10 million, you have to show you want to spend it. Some of our smaller communities felt they were getting overlooked because I, my town is just a couple of little intersections. But I want to change it though. I want to make it better. And I listened. I spent a lot of time in small communities. And they said, if you could have a smaller version of this, more of us could apply.
And I said, yes, that makes sense. Let's do that. So I want to focus on our smaller communities, and today, our program called New York Forward, I'm announcing two winners, Brookhaven-North Belport and the Village of Mineola will each receive $4.5 million dollars in State funding. Congratulations.
Brookhaven-North Belport, their vision wants to, now this is, music to my ears, wants to boost affordable housing. Now that's a visionary community right there. Congratulations. They want to increase grocery stores, and restaurant options, and have better transportation options. So they all sat down and said, what do we need to be better?
And we're going to fund that plan. And congratulations to Town Supervisor, Dan Panico. Thank you. Stand up and take a bow for your, there you go. Now the village of Mineola, also, I'm going to be announcing, I don't know if I've announced this yet, but our next pro housing community, congratulations, they're going to reinvent themselves as a destination by upgrading the storefronts and upgrading downtown lighting and developing green space.
All these independently don't sound like, what's that really going to do? Collectively, it's a transformation. It really is, and I cannot wait to see that in person, I want to congratulate Mayor Paul Pereira, I want to thank him for his hard work, you and your team.
So I'm excited to see what's in store for these great communities, and again, it is always a pleasure to come. I love how people of Long Island, they care so deeply. They care, they show up, they participate, and that makes a difference. It gets my attention as well. That's why I come so often, because there's so many great announcements and great, so many things to showcase.
And when you have problems and challenges, we're also there to help as well. And that's why I talked about the areas. I'm not afraid to talk about the areas we have to tackle, but I know with the optimism and confidence of people in this room and across Long Island, that we will achieve better days not just for Long Island, but the entire State of New York.
So thank you everybody for your participation, congratulations to our winners, and let's get some checks out to everybody. Thank you.