The project will utilize $87 million that was previously allocated to the NYPD and $70 million in other city funding to provide broadband internet for 200,000 NYCHA residents and 400,000 other people, according to the mayor.
“For so many New Yorkers, there just isn’t access. That digital divide is very, very intense,” de Blasio said at a press conference.
Service will cost $15 per month and will be offered to the communities that were hit hardest by the coronavirus outbreak, he added.
Earlier this month, the mayor said he would reallocate $500 million in NYPD capital funding to youth and public housing projects. The $86 million announced today is part of that sum, according to his office.
During the announcement, de Blasio returned to some of the anti-big-business themes of his administration.
“The internet companies have not attended to lower-income communities,” he said. “It’s unfair. It’s not respectful of communities that have such great need, and we have to do something about that.”
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