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Eric Adams: “We are about to close Rikers, right? Build four more jails.”

Featuring: Eric Adams, Democratic | Mayor of New York

Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns

Published May 7, 2025 | Video Starts at 15:00

Albany must look at the reforms that they did that is making it easier for people to come out of jail. And here's what we're about to do, folks. Here's what we're about to do. We are about to close Rikers, right? Build four more jails. The jails. When they first made this decision in 2021, the jails were going to cost us $8 billion. Now it's going to cost us $16 billion. (15:00–15:07)

CLAIM

Asserts that Rikers Island is being closed and four new jails are being built.

This is an excerpt from a raw transcript. The assertions have not been audited or verified. Tap the video to view the source footage and understand the context.

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Eric Adams

“We took 21,500 illegal guns off our street.”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 03:29-03:35
“The last quarter that we just experienced was the lowest number of shootings in recorded history in the city.”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 03:35-03:44
“It cost us $7.5 billion [to house, feed, clothe, and educate 40,000 migrant children].”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 04:49-04:52
“The jails were going to cost us $8 billion. Now it's going to cost us $16 billion.”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 15:11-15:18
“We have a population of 73,7400 people on Rikers Island.”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 15:19-15:25
“We closed 1500 illegal cannabis shops.”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 26:21-26:27
“We have a 1.4% vacancy rate, really functionally zero.”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 31:29-31:35
“Out of those 59, 10 of them were building more housing than the other 49 combined.”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 31:44-31:52
“We lost almost 200,000 people left this city of middle income that are hurting.”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 54:36-54:42
“We broke employment records. We have more jobs in our city, in the city history.”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 01:25-01:32
“We decreased unemployment over the whole city. But in the black and brown community, we decreased unemployment by 20%.”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 01:32-01:42
“We invested in foster care. Children 6 to 700 age out every year.”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 01:41-01:47
“We are now doing dyslexia screening in every school.”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 02:13-02:17
“We are now giving free high speed broadband to all NYCHA facilities.”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 02:26-02:32
“We developed more housing in year one and year two.”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 02:49-02:54
“We moved more people out of shelters into permanent houses.”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 03:00-03:04
“We had more people get subsidized housing through FEPs vouchers.”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 03:05-03:10
“We took off 80,000 illegal vehicles off the street.”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 03:45-03:51
“100,000 Summer Youth Employment is never done before in the history of the city.”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 05:14-05:19
“We are leading the state in reading and math for our children.”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 05:23-05:27
“We're opening up seven more new schools that's teaching our children the health industry, artificial intelligence.”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 05:45-05:52
“There's never been a blue collar, working class, public school dyslexic mayor in the history of this city.”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 07:20-07:29
“In New York City, 3 strikes, 5 strikes, 10 strikes, 15 strikes, 17 strikes, and you're still not out.”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 10:46-10:58
“In this city, we have been fighting to bring down crime, which we have done.”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 13:10-13:16
“We just took down a group of gang members who did 20 robberies.”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 13:27-13:35
“A police officer was shot two weeks ago off duty.”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 13:39-13:43
“The individuals, two of them who shot him, they were arrested 10 times.”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 13:42-13:47
“The grandmother who was shot in Harlem... the person who shot her last year, he stabbed two people in a robbery.”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 13:47-14:01
“The former jails that they're building are only going to house around 4,600 people.”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 15:25-15:32
“We're down over 38% since inception of this pilot program.”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 25:24-25:29
“The commissioner put in place a 1500 person unit.”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 26:34-26:39
“Every precinct is going to have a quality of life person assigned.”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 26:38-26:44
“We have put 25 billion into our housing plan.”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 31:22-31:27
“We have 59 community boards in the city.”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 31:41-31:45
“We have broken records on the amount of housing that we have built.”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 32:04-32:10
“We are bringing on, I believe 4,000 [police officers] are coming on.”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 34:30-34:35
“We're trying to get to 35,000 [police officers] by 2026.”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 34:37-34:42
“We modified the rules to be appointed as a police officer.”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 34:45-34:50
“The department is now reflecting the diversity of the city.”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 35:14-35:19
“We were dealing with a $7.5 billion with a B hole in our budget.”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 36:52-36:57
“We have made it clear that [the proposed rent increase] is too high and we're going to fight like heck to bring it down.”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 39:29-39:45
“We probably, I think we have about 10,000 vouchers that people are walking around with in their hands and they can't get housing for because…”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 40:46-40:56
“We had a huge deficit in our budget.”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 44:56-45:02
“We have a fixed budget. And that budget is used to pay for our cops, our teachers, our older adult centers.”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 45:25-45:34
“Sometimes we'll lose a million dollars because of a major issue. Sometimes we use 5 million.”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 45:38-45:44
“When you lose $7 billion with a B, that comes out of your budget.”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 45:44-45:52
“Washington was supposed to be our insurance. And what they said, we're not taking your claim.”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 45:51-45:58
“We had to find $7 billion.”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 46:17-46:28
“We were able to do some successful things like drop the cost of child care and investing in our libraries and cultural institutions.”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 46:37-46:47
“Heating your apartment is the law is by law, there's a certain temperature A certain time of the year and a certain temperature outside that…”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 47:25-47:38
“If you don't have heat, you call 311, an inspector will go out, and an inspector would make sure that that landlord is held accountable.”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 47:37-47:46
“We have a major project that we're doing in Manhattan at Elizabeth Street Garden.”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 49:38-49:45
“City of Yes rezoned the entire city.”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 53:24-53:28
“We build more affordable housing and projected to build more affordable housing under our administration and the previous two…”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 1:00:22-1:00:31
“We have been teaming up with getting a trauma center here on Rockaway.”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 1:01:39-1:01:45
“Whenever there's an emergency, medical emergency, either NYPD or EMS must come.”
Eric Adams' Town Hall in Rockaway: Addressing Crime, Housing, and Community Concerns | Uploaded May 7, 2025 | 1:05:07-1:05:15