NYPA PLANTS TREES

Counterclockwise: Kerry-Jane King, NYPA senior director of sustainability; Yonkers City Councilman John Rubbo; Wilson Kimball, president and CEO MHACY; Yonkers City Council President Lakisha Collins-Bellamy; Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano; and Lisa Payne Wansley, NYPA, vice president of Environmental Justice; Yonkers City Council member Shanae Williams; and William Serratore, Yonkers sustainability director.

Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano and city officials joined the staff of the New York Power Authority”™s Tree Power program to plant trees at a Yonkers Housing Authority property as part of an on-going Housing Authority Climate Resiliency program. 

Wilson Kimball, president and CEO of the Municipal Housing Authority for the city of Yonkers, said the planting dovetails with an ongoing partnership between the Yonkers Housing Authority and Groundwork Hudson Valley to plant trees and create bioswales at housing authority properties to mitigate flooding and the effects of summer heat islands in urban areas. 

The Tree Power program is planting a total of 66 trees across the city. As they grow, the trees will capture and sequester carbon from the atmosphere, mitigating the effects of climate change in line with New York”™s Climate Act. 

The Municipal Housing Authority for the city of Yonkers is the largest provider of affordable housing in Yonkers and the second largest public housing authority in New York state.