Press Kit
Media Contact: Greta Lin, email: glin@acenewyork.org, phone: (212) 274-0550 x 24
March 25, 2025
NYC Council Members, ACE, BIDs, & Nonprofits Deliver Message to DSNY: Repeal the Rule
City & Community Leaders Warn DSNY’s Unfunded Containerization Rule Will Undercut Nonprofit Sanitation Services, Jeopardize Jobs, Threaten Small Business Corridors
New York, NY — A coalition of more than 200 participants from the Association of Community Employment Programs (ACE), joined by ten New York City Council Members, Business Improvement District (BID) leaders, and other community nonprofits gathered this morning on the steps of City Hall to demand that the Department of Sanitation (DSNY) repeal its recently finalized, unfunded containerization mandate. The rule, which requires supplemental sanitation providers to place collected trash into city-approved containers, was denounced as a financially unworkable and operationally damaging policy that threatens essential cleanup programs across all five boroughs.
The press conference was held ahead of the City Council’s Committee on Sanitation and Solid Waste Management’s budget hearing. Speakers highlighted how the mandate will increase costs for organizations that are already operating on limited budgets, and warned that without exemptions or funding, the rule could lead to job losses and cuts to neighborhood services that help keep NYC streets clean.
“This rule puts our work—and the New Yorkers we serve—at risk,” said Jim Martin, Executive Director of ACE. “Our crews remove millions of bags of trash every year, while helping individuals rebuild their lives through employment. This unfunded mandate jeopardizes that work and the dignity it brings.”
“This unfunded mandate is a threat to the second chances we’ve worked so hard for,” said Maritsa Cosme, ACE Program Participant. “If ACE disappears, we’re not just losing jobs—we’re losing lifelines. I urge the Sanitation Department to repeal the rule so that ACE can continue to give others like me a second chance.”
The rule, finalized on March 7, 2025, drew criticism from a growing number of City Council Members who urged DSNY to repeal or revise the policy. The Council Members who spoke during the press conference included: Erik Bottcher (District 3), Selvena Brooks-Powers (District 31), Chris Banks (District 42), Shekar Krishnan (District 25), Mercedes Narcisse (District 46), Chi Ossé (District 36), Christopher Marte (District 1), Shahana Hanif (District 39), Linda Lee (District 23), Lynn Schulman (District 29), Alexa Avilés (District 38), Kristy Marmorato (District 13), Amanda Farías (District 18), Eric Dinowitz (District 11), and Pierina Ana Sanchez (District 14).
Many of the BIDs represented at today’s press conference emphasized their commitment to clean streets but warned that the current rule was developed without adequate stakeholder considerations and fails to account for unintended consequences.
“Business Improvement Districts are resilient entities, but our work to support and supplement city services can only go so far,” said Jeffrey LeFrancois, Executive Director of the Meatpacking District Management Association. “Rules created in the dark by agencies whose work we supplement is an affront to the partnership that’s been established to keep our streets clean and commercial corridors bustling. If the city is not going to pay for the infrastructure needed to execute this arbitrary rule, then it should be repealed – plain and simple.”
“Repeal the rule. DSNY should have approached its nonprofit partners in picking up the public’s garbage with the spirit of cooperation,” said Erin Piscopink and Robert Benfatto, Co-Presidents of the NYC Bid Association. “We would have happily worked with them to find a way or a series of ways to achieve our mutual objective. Clean streets. Instead, a rule was passed against our objections and we’re told now you figure out how to operate and fund it. That is not the spirit of cooperation with a partner.”
“We strongly urge the Department of Sanitation to rescind the unfunded mandates for business improvement districts to containerize the public garbage we pick up daily at the risk of fines,” said Tom Harris, President of the Times Square Alliance. “The garbage that BIDs choose to collect is public garbage that is the responsibility of the Department of Sanitation and while we embraced containerization in Times Square, it was our decision. Each BID and its board of directors, not the city or any agency, assesses its needs and dedicates resources accordingly.”
“The 161st Street Business Improvement District (BID) sits outside of one of the most famous sports franchises in the world, the New York Yankees. We receive thousands of visitors in our district throughout the baseball season. We also have a community that lives and works here in our BID, meaning that we handle a lot of trash throughout the year,” said Trey Jenkins, Executive Director, 161st Street BID. “Although our organization agrees with the City of New York’s plan for containerization, the rollout of the program and monetary support should be revisited so as to not punish smaller BIDs like ours, which already has a high sanitation cost. Having to direct additional funds to containerization in such short notice would cause our organization to cut programs that are beneficial to our small businesses and the community at large.”
For more information about the unfunded containerization mandate, click here. To watch the press conference, click here.
PIX 11 News – March 13, 2024 – New York City, nonprofit creating jobs and cleaning up Coney Island
Cleaning up Coney Island and helping people with a history of homelessness, incarceration and addiction. Both objectives are being met under a new program to begin on March 25.
City Council Finance Chair Justin Brannan tells PIX 11 News he’s using about $50,000 of reallocated money in the current budget to hire workers with ACE or the Association of Community Employment Programs. The nonprofit serves about 600 New Yorkers annually, offering them job training and eventual employment. (Read More)
Queens Post – January 24th, 2024 – Bank of America awards grant to Long Island City-based ACE for community clean-up and workforce development
Through the multi-year grant, funding and extensive leadership training will be provided and programs and services addressing workforce equity and community development will be able to expand. Brooklyn’s Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation was also a recipient of a $200,000 Neighborhood Builders grant.
“Local nonprofits are vital institutions that provide economic advancement for communities across New York City – their programs and services create long-lasting change and stability,” said José Tavarez, president, Bank of America New York City. (Read More)
QNS – August 4, 2023 – Councilman Gennaro partners with organization for cleanup initiative throughout District 24
As part of his ongoing efforts to boost the quality of life in his district, Councilman James Gennaro collaborated with the Association of Community Employment Programs (ACE) for its first graffiti removal project at the Chinese restaurant Panda Garden, located at the intersection of Union Turnpike and 147th Street in Kew Gardens Hills on July 31. (Read More)
AMNY – April 19th, 2023 – New York City Council Member Christopher Marte announced the first street-sweeping initiative in collaboration with ACE and LIMA.
New York City Council Member Christopher Marte, whose district includes Little Italy, announced the first-ever street-sweeping initiative in Little Italy in collaboration with the Association of Community Employment Programs (ACE) and the Little Italy Merchants Association (LIMA).
ACE, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary in June, provides career development and work experience for homeless and formerly incarcerated New Yorkers.
Queens Gazette – May 2nd, 2018 – Borough President Katz Announces Jamaica Together Cleanup Effort
As part of a the continuing revitalization of Jamaica that has been spurred by the Jamaica NOW Action Plan, Borough President Katz today announced a coordinated effort with the Association of Community Employment Programs for the Homeless (ACE), Councilmember I. Daneek Miller, Councilmember Adrienne Adams, the Jamaica NOW Leadership Council, the New York City Department of Sanitation, the Thomas White Jr. Foundation and Queens Community Board 12 in sponsoring a neighborhood cleanup program in Jamaica.
“Jamaica Together: A Neighborhood Cleaning Effort” is a six-month pilot program that will provide weekday cleanup services along Guy R. Brewer Boulevard from Tuskegee Airmen Way to 109th Avenue in Jamaica. The services will be provided by workers paid by ACE, a not-for-profit organization with a mission to provide recovering homeless individuals with the skills, support services and motivation they need to obtain and sustain employment and economic independence.
New York Times – November 11th, 2017 – Alcohol Derailed His Life. Now He Drives Barflies Home.
Carlos Nin stays awake well into the night, keeping the same late hours he had as an alcoholic. His evenings are spent in the familiar company of barflies, revelers and party seekers. Except Mr. Nin is not their companion. He is their ride.
As an Uber driver in New York City, he frequently chauffeurs intoxicated customers. He says he does not feel tugs of jealousy or temptation being around such clients. If anything, he said, he feels remorse.
“Why couldn’t I do that when I was younger?” Mr. Nin said recently. “Just go out, have a few drinks.”
Brooklyn Reporter – September 6th, 2017 – Eighth Avenue looks to clean up the trash and crime
Police officers from the 72nd Precinct, representatives of the Association of Community Employment Programs for the Homeless (ACE), and Councilmember Carlos Menchaca gathered at Eighth Avenue and 55th Street on Friday, September 1 to announce efforts to clean the busy shopping district which has been plagued by excessive garbage as well as to limit crime in the area.
Menchaca and Deputy Inspector Emmanuel Gonzalez, the commanding officer of the 72nd Precinct, introduced two initiatives.
“This is a community that is plagued by so many issues, including illegal dumping and over-capacity trash bins,” said Menchaca, who announced that $150,000 in City Council funding would be dedicated to street cleaning and trash removal along Eighth Avenue as part of NYC Cleanup Initiative. In addition, Menchaca said that $50,000 had been allocated to the Department of Sanitation (DSNY) “for extra corner waste basket pickups.”
He also acknowledged ACE which helps clean Eighth Avenue. “They do a great job of picking up trash, packing it for Sanitation so it’s easier to take trash out,” Menchaca said.
NY1 Spectrum News – June 30th, 2017 – Not-for-Profit Helping Homeless Individuals Gets a New Home in LIC
This computer class is hard at work, while taking steps to get back to work. The students have overcome hardships to be here. Some used to be homeless; others like Anthony Antoine are in treatment programs.
“What they’ve helped me do here is prepare my resume, dissect it a little. Get it updated,” said Antoine.
The Association of Community Employment Programs for the Homeless or ACE provides job training programs, work experience as well as counseling and mental health treatment.
Times Ledger – June 26th, 2017 – Two formerly homeless men hired to clean Roosevelt Avenue
Two formerly homeless men will work full-time cleaning Roosevelt Avenue between 82nd Street and 90th Street, beginning July 1.
State Sen. Jose Peralta (D-East Elmhurst) secured a $75,000 state allocation for the Association of Community Employment Programs for the Homeless, the non-profit that helps homeless people get back into the workforce by offering them jobs where they sweep the streets and pick up trash.
NY1 Spectrum News – June 16th, 2017 – Homeless New Yorkers Get Back to Work by Cleaning Jackson Heights Streets
As Robert Perez helps to beautify Jackson Heights, he’s getting a chance at a clean slate.
“Before I came to this program, I was a mess. Legal problems, I was homeless. I had really no hope,” said Perez.
Perez is referring to the Association of Community Employment Programs for the Homeless or ACE. It’s a work experience program designed to give homeless people a new lease on life.
Perez says getting paid to clean the streets helped raise his self-esteem.
The New York Times – January 11th, 2017 – Twin Strands of Music and Compassion Run Through a Life
The power of song has run through Benita Rudolph’s life.
At 8, she joined the choir at the church in Malvern, Ark., where her father was a pastor. By 11, she was composing her own music on a small keyboard her father had given her.
“There’s a joy that you feel when you see people’s faces,” Ms. Rudolph said. “It was kind of amazing to me, really, to see them thinking, ‘No, that cannot be you.’ They didn’t connect my voice to the little girl.”
The Queens Chronicle – March 24th, 2016 – Dirty Kew Gardens Park Gets Scrubbed Down
Gone are the cigarette boxes, paper plates, piles of garbage and pigeon poop.
One day after the Chronicle and another media outlet reported on significant litter accumulation at the sitting space known colloquially as Kew Cinema Park, Councilwoman Karen Koslowitz (D-Forest Hills) enlisted the Association for Community Employment to clean the location last Friday. (Read More)
The New York Times – November 6th, 2015 – Getting Clean for His Son
It was not until after his arrest and decision to stop dealing drugs that Donta James became addicted to the very thing he had been peddling: crack cocaine.
A few years earlier, his father sent Mr. James from New Jersey to Fayetteville, N.C., where his mother lived, with the intention of curbing his son’s drug dealing.
“When I got down South, my mom had a job ready that day,” Mr. James, 42, said. “I was going to stop selling drugs and all that.”
The New York Times – November 3rd, 2015 – A Chance to Improve the Community and Himself
Elbert Copeland spent eight of his formative years living in the Fulton Houses, a public-housing project in the Chelsea section of Manhattan, in the late 1980s and early ’90s.
“Those years were pretty tough,” he said. “There was drugs. There was prostitution.” He attended schools in the neighborhood, but he left in the 11th grade after seeing crime regularly spill from the street into his schools. (Read More)
The New York Times – December, 15th Fear of Dying Alone Dove a Panhandler to Seek Drug Rehabilitation
“It had grown dark, and Rickey Henegan was seeking refuge for the night in a spot behind two Dumpsters. But the spot was occupied by the corpse of a fellow homeless man, who had been dead long enough for his body to start decomposing. “Either people didn’t notice him or they didn’t care,” Mr. Henegan, 54, said.”
New York Nonprofit Press – September 11, 2013 ACE Gets $65K from Robin Hood Relief Fund
” The Association of Community Employment Programs for the Homeless (ACE) is pleased to announce the receipt of a one-year grant of $65,000 from the Robin Hood Relief Fund. The grant will support hard-skills training and placement costs for 55 ACE program graduates, in order to help increase their earning power and enhance their prospects of obtaining higher-value employment. Specifically, these graduates will receive the opportunity to obtain certification in Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) and Mold Assessment & Remediation.”
The New York Times – June 2, 2013 A Streetcorner Serenade for the Public Plaza
“All these New York plaza projects haven’t come up roses. Neighborhoods mostly request plazas with an agreement to look after them; poorer communities, without Business Improvement Districts, have sometimes had trouble with the maintenance. To aid them, Ms. Sadik-Khan said, the Transportation Department is working with the Horticultural Society of New York and the nonprofit ACE Programs for the Homeless to develop a jobs initiative in which ex-convicts and homeless people provide horticultural services and general upkeep.”
SoHo Life Magazine Cover Story – April 2013 ACE Founder Henr Buhl
“The executive director threw up his hands and shouted, “Hallelujah, you could be my savior.” Buhl asked, how? The executive director explained that BRC took men coming out of jail and housed them, fed them, clothed them and provided medical care (the most expensive segment) for more than $31,000 a year per man. After two years the clients’ government benefits were terminated, they would migrate to the streets and become homeless again as no employer would hire them because of their criminal records
Huffington Post – July 26, 2012 Henry Buhl’s 20-Year Help to Homeless Celebrated at Sotheby’s
“Henry volunteered to find a new street cleaner and went to the Bowery Residence Committee to try to recruit one. They recommended two people, so Henry asked the local merchants to kick in more and hired them both. Two lead to three led to four and the SoHo Partnership was born.”