Good morning:
Good news came out of New York State recently: Governor Kathy Hochul decided to opt in to a federal scholarship tax credit program that allows New Yorkers to make tax-deductible contributions to education scholarships that go directly to families. New York families can use the scholarships to send their school-aged children to private schools or supplement the education their children receive through additional tutoring or other resources.
Unfortunately, Hochul is only the second Democratic governor to choose to join the program. Taxpayers nationwide pay into the program, but only states with governors who choose to participate can receive the scholarship funding. Taxpayers should expect to receive quality goods and services for the taxes they pay, but Democratic-run states are leaving this funding on the table because it promotes school choice. Most families in New York and other states cannot afford to move simply to live in a better school district, and they usually cannot afford to pay private school tuition to escape failing or underperforming public schools.
Writing in City Journal, MI fellow Danyela Souza Egorov urges governors nationwide to demonstrate where their allegiances lie. Hochul had the good sense to reject teacher unions’ lobbying and embrace the tax credit program. “If Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, and New Jersey don’t opt in to the program,” Egorov writes, “New York will gladly take their donations and spend them on our neediest students.”
In addition to supportive state policies like the one Hochul just embraced, families need parents who will act as a bulwark against the storms of ideological “mental health” trends, including gender-affirming care. Too many parents are unaware that policies carried out during the Biden administration led to a radical transformation of the child welfare system. The administration, Joseph Figliolia writes in City Journal, “spearheaded an ambitious effort to inject gender ideology into child-protective systems nationwide.”
According to a 2024 foster-care rule, parents who do not affirm a child’s chosen gender identity are threatening the child’s safety and well-being. This policy spread across the system and undermined parental rights, procedural fairness, and the well-being of the very children the Biden administration purported to protect.
Fortunately, a new bill introduced in Congress would protect parents from allegations of abuse by establishing that raising a child in accordance with his or her biological sex does not constitute abuse. Crucially, the bill does not prevent a state from intervening in cases of genuine abuse. It’s a dose of common sense in an otherwise confused policy area, one that can protect parents and respond to confused children with the dignity they deserve.
Finally, MI scholars and staff Jesse Arm, Matthew Shor, and Karl Abramson conducted a poll of 1,000 likely California voters statewide and surveyed a separate sample of 449 likely voters in Los Angeles to gain a detailed look at both the statewide electorate and the electorate of one of the most populous cities in the United States. They found that although Democratic politicians demonstrate electoral strength, voters frequently depart from the state’s progressive reputation on specific policy proposals. On issues ranging from homelessness and public-sector unions to welfare administration, infrastructure, and taxation, voters clearly want reform and more effective governance. See the full poll results below.
There are many more highlights from our scholars in the newsletter below. Continue reading for all these insights and more. Kelsey Bloom Editorial Director
Manhattan Institute |
|
|
|
Recovery Housing as a Solution to Homelessness
By Stephen Eide | Manhattan Institute | Photo by Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
The Trump administration has changed federal policy toward homelessness and addiction. It has done this by embracing programs that pursue goals beyond keeping the formerly homeless housed; and promoting nonmedical approaches to addition.
Recovery housing, which is a residential program for people in recovery that uses social supports to help residents maintain sobriety, advances the aims of the administration, writes senior fellow Stephen Eide in a new report for the Manhattan Institute. Thousands of recovery housing residents are formerly homeless. These residents benefit from a way of sustaining sobriety in a cost-effective way that minimizes overmedicalization. This report discusses recovery housing’s potential as a solution to homelessness and explains the connection between addiction and homelessness. Eide concludes with the following recommendations: - State government is, and should remain, the main theater of recovery housing policymaking.
-
States should expand certification for recovery houses.
- States should create exceptions for recovery housing in eviction law.
|
Kathy Hochul Chooses Kids Over the Teachers’ Union
By Danyela Souza Egorov | City Journal | Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
“Governor Kathy Hochul announced that New York will officially opt in to the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit program (FSTC), giving millions of New Yorkers the ability to make tax-deductible contributions that will go to scholarships for New York students. …
“Hochul deserves credit for holding firm as New York’s teachers’ unions and their allies waged a fierce campaign to keep the state out of the FSTC program. We should hope other blue-state governors will demonstrate the same courage.
“Under the program, tax-deductible contributions go to Scholarship Granting Organizations, which can then give scholarships directly to families. … All federal taxpayers can contribute to the program, but students can receive the scholarships only if their governors opt in. If Hochul hadn’t opted in, for example, then New Yorkers’ money could have gone to scholarships for Texas students—but not for New York students.” |
One Step to Remove Gender Ideology from the Child Welfare System
By Joseph Figliolia | City Journal | Photo by ljubaphoto/E+ via Getty Images
“On September 30, U.S. Senator Eric Schmitt introduced the Yaeli Martinez Child Protection Act, a federal bill named after a trans-identified teenager who committed suicide. Last week, Representative Mary Miller introduced it in the House, too. Yaeli Martinez was separated from her mother, Abigail, by the California Department of Children and Family Services over a dispute about her ‘gender identity.’ “While Abigail believed that her daughter’s distress stemmed from untreated depression, Yaeli was instead placed in an ‘affirming’ group home. A judge later ruled that she could receive testosterone against her mother’s wishes. Three years later, at 19, Yaeli was dead.
“The Yaeli Martinez Child Protection Act is a direct response to the radical transformation of the child welfare system under the Biden administration, which spearheaded an ambitious effort to inject gender ideology into child-protective systems nationwide.” |
Mamdani's $131.5 Million DoorDash Settlement Is Not What He Says It Is
By Jarrett Dieterle | Reason | Photo by John Nacion/Getty Images
“Another day, another settlement. Last month, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced a $131.5 million settlement with DoorDash for ‘stealing’ delivery driver wages in the Big Apple. The agreement builds on additional settlements from earlier this year with other platforms, all as part of Mamdani's ‘New Era of Accountability’ for gig companies.
“The actual details of the settlement tell a more modest story. While DoorDash did underpay a subset of workers, the average amounts at stake were relatively small. Instead, the lion's share of the settlement resulted from a dispute over how to precisely calculate driver wages—not from ‘stealing’ wages—under NYC's minimum wage rule for gig work. |
Reading Is the Ultimate Life Hack
By Douglas Murray | The Spectator | Photo by Hannes P Albert/picture alliance via Getty Images
“The phone today is such a distracting device that during a 30-minute train journey in which someone might once have got through a chapter of a novel, today they have seen 100 videos of cats being attacked by a boa constrictor or Piers Morgan being attacked by a fact. And it’s not just a problem for other people. It’s a problem for all of us. I suspect most people reading this will have noticed that we read fewer books than we used to and spend ever more time on our devices. People present this as a problem for the kids, but it’s a problem for the adults too.
“A slew of recent books and articles have lamented the provable decline in book-reading. But it’s a slightly fruitless genre. After all, none of these works is ever going to be picked up by someone who doesn’t read books. …
“The trouble is that not reading books is now not only lamented – it is celebrated.” |
|
|
California’s Contradictions: Survey Analysis of 2026 Voter Preferences Statewide and in Los Angeles
By Jesse Arm, Matthew Shor, and Karl Abramson | Manhattan Institute | Photo by LPETTET/E+ via Getty Images
“A new survey conducted by the Manhattan Institute examines the attitudes of California likely voters one month before Election Day. …
“Democrats remain well positioned electorally. … But voters also express considerable frustration with the state’s performance. Only 32% of California voters believe that their state is headed in a better direction than other states, while 45% believe it is headed in a worse direction. More than four in five Californians (81%) and Angelenos (83%) say the state has a bigger homelessness problem than other states. “A majority say California is less business-friendly than its peers, while pluralities rate the state negatively on infrastructure, public safety, and corruption. Concern about waste, fraud, and abuse in the welfare system is also widespread.” |
|
|
For more information and media requests, please contact
communications@manhattan.institute.
Are you interested in supporting the Manhattan Institute’s public-interest research and journalism? As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, donations in support of MI and its scholars’ work are fully tax-deductible as provided by law. |
|
| |
The Manhattan Institute works to keep America and its great cities
prosperous, safe, and free. Manhattan Institute
52 Vanderbilt Ave. 3 floor New York, New York 10017
Copyright © 2026 Manhattan Institute, All rights reserved. |
|
|
|
|
