Jenna: High, I am Jenna Flanagan.
As one of the hosts of "The View", Sunny Hostin does not hold back.
We don't often get to hear Bronx natives thoughts on the issues impacting New York City.
She growth and the housing project in the South Bronx with her Puerto Rican mother and African-American father, and experience she chronicled in her best-selling memoir.
It launched a national conversation on race, identity and social justice.
The former federal prosecutor turned journalist is a lot to say about what goes on in the city.
From immigration to the mental health crisis and homelessness, to gentrification.
She is also a New York Times best-selling author once again, finding local inspiration for her reading novel, summer on Sag Harbor, set on a historically black beach community on Long Island.
She joins me right now.
Sunny: Thank you so much for having me.
Jenna: First I want to get into the book that you have written before, and talking just about diving in to those complex narratives of intersectionality, a word that we use regularly.
What that process was like writing it, and unpacking those different parts of your identity.
Sunny: The memory was tough.
I/O is thought fiction would be more difficult, that is not true, I know from experience.
As a journalist, when you make yourself the subject, it is already uncomfortable.
When you are writing a memoir about identity, people have a lot of views on it.
Including my own mother, who snuck an advanced copy and was with upset about how I remember things.
I found it to be difficult to broach a lot of the topics.
I did it to start conversations that I think we need to have.
Conversations that we have every day on "The View", but our country remains uncomfortable about.
What is identity?
How do you assign value to yourself?
You get to determine who you are, no one else gets to do that.
I will say, it was difficult to write.
I will not write anymore members, I don't think.
[LAUGHTER] I wrote it in both English and Spanish, I am happy that I did it, but I prefer fiction.
Jenna: Definitely a one and done situation.
Sunny: I think so.
[LAUGHTER] It was a bestseller and it was great that so many people read in, and it did start honest conversations about identity and social justice, and about poverty.
Jenna: Speaking of that part of your childhood identity, your journey of growing up poor and living in housing projects, I am wondering if you could take us to how QC the city's current housing crisis.
There are so many challenges that working-class New Yorkers are facing in just being able to stay in the city that they love, that they have made so fibrin, and that they also work in.
Sunny: It is really terrible what is happening.
I understand gentrification, I think that can actually be a good thing.
But what I do not agree with is displacement.
I think unfortunately that is what we are seeing, especially in New York, but also around the country.
You have communities, like the African-American community that built up New York.
You had the great Gratian and Black folks that came to New York to build families, to grow in communities like Harlem.
Now you are seeing gentrification, you are seeing displacement.
I don't read over the statistic, but in the past couple of years, you have had an exodus of black families.
The flavor is different when you walk around.
I was surprised to visit Harlem recently, and it has changed.
I'm not sure that that robust community is there.
I visited the South Bronx often, I see the same thing.
People that made the community what it is have been displaced.
That is problematic.
Jenna: Of course.
Displacement unfortunately can add to not necessarily in every situation, it can add to people finding themselves house lists or without a steady place to live read we know that the homeless crisis is growing exponentially in New York City.
I am wondering, from your perspective, how you see that being addressed?
Is this an ongoing problem that will always be part of New York?
Or is it something that, if we band together, we could make a difference?
Sunny: There is no question that we could make a difference.
We have other states sending migrants to New York, and 50% of the hotels are filled with migrant families.
They are looking for work, they are getting services.
New York is a very welcoming place.
But unbeknownst to some people, I will also say that, we don't do enough.
We don't do enough for those that find themselves without homes, for families that find themselves without homes.
For people that are suffering from until health.
There are no services for those folks.
If we can spend $5 billion per year on policing in New York, I don't understand why we can't spend a commensurate amount on housing, for those that find themselves without, why we can't spend money on mental health services, which are sorely needed in the city.
Why we can't spend more money on education and arts programs in our public schools.
It seems to me that rather than policing, we should be helping these communities thrive and grow.
I am saddened by the lack of resources that are funneled into those buckets.
Jenna: One of the interesting things that always seems to come up is that whatever there is a crisis, especially when it comes to an outburst of violence or perceived violence, the subject of middle health comes up.
At the same time, does not seem clear as to exactly who is supposed to be responsible, even from my perspective as a local journalist.
It seems there is a lot of political hot potato, it's not the city's job, it is the state's job, it's not the state's job, it is the federal job.
Who do you see as being responsible?
Who needs to step in and make sure we can provide something as critical as mental health services?
Sunny: A couple ways to approach this.
We know that when it comes to violence, that those who are mentally ill are generally the folks that are the recipients of violence, rather than committing violence.
This is a statistic.
I am always concerned when I hear people in this country blame mental illness for violence.
That is not the case.
With the case we saw on the subway system recently, the gentleman that was mentally ill, that was telling his fellow citizens, I am hungry, I am thirsty, I don't feel a reason to live.
That is someone who is asking for help.
However, he was met with violence.
And murdered, in my view.
I think it is a multipronged issue.
I think everyone needs to help.
I thing we can do more federally, in terms of medical care.
We have the affordable care act, what it seems to me that whenever the government has a shot at it, they don't fund mental health services.
It is terribly misunderstood.
New York State has to do a much better job.
Of providing programs for those that are homeless and mentally ill.
I think the city has to do a much better job.
We have interviewed the mayor, and I know that he would disagree.
Some of the money that is funneled to policing in the city needs to be funneled to mental health services.
When I was a federal prosecutor, the local Metropolitan police department in D.C., emotionally disturbed persons.
They did not want to respond to situations involving EDPs, they wanted to concentrate on crime and felony level crimes.
They were called often to deal with family issues dealing with mental health.
Why can't we address that issue?
The cops don't want to sponsor to those issues, nor are they trained to.
Why don't we have a mental health response team that responds to a situation like the one on the train?
There have been states like in Ohio and Cleveland that have specialized units that are filled with mental health professionals, that go to the scenes and have made a difference in terms of the outcome for the citizens and in terms of middle health care.
I don't understand why a city that has so many resources, so much money, it doesn't know how to take care of this.
Jenna: That is such an important conversation to have.
I want to thank you for even a robust and thoughtful answer.
I want to pivot, we have two minutes left.
You have a new book out, called "Summer on Sag Harbor", tell us a little bit about what makes this book stand out monks other summer creeds.
Sunny: It is based in history.
It is historical fiction, something that I love very much.
I love a good each read, I like an elevated beach read.
I realize there were places in the country of black excellence that we do not focus on.
I think you can also start discussions about difficult issues if you place them in a beautiful place.
[LAUGHTER] For me, I wanted to center stories on Black and brown folks, around women, older women as well, which is a demographic we forget even exists sometimes.
I wanted to center those stories and relationships.
I wanted to place them in a historically black beach community.
HBBCs, these places are federally recognized as historically Black beach communities.
Sag Harbor is close to my heart, black people have been summering there since the 1940's.
You have a group of civil servants, doctors and lawyers that pulled money together to buy beachfront property.
At the time it was not desirable because it was on the bay.
It is a beautiful community with generational wealth.
Which is something that I talk about often.
People do not know about it.
I found out about it 20 years ago because Barbara Smith invited me to Sag Harbor.
It was quite the invite.
She was like the black Martha Stewart.
I was amazed at this incredible community that I discovered.
I have been summering there ever since.
Jenna: Why does it take place?
Sunny: It takes place in the current day.
I was writing during the pandemic.
I felt like wow, I can't ignore what New Yorkers are going through.
I wanted to relive, not only the pain that we went through, I lost many family members from Covid.
But also the gelling of so many communities, people were looking after each other.
I couldn't ignore that.
It is not all sad, it is actually very joyful in many respects.
I am proud of it.
I was surprised, because sequels rarely hit the New York Times bestseller list.
But this one did.
I am thrilled that the first book did and this one did.
I am happy at the reception that the book has received.
Jenna: I think that is a beautiful note to leave it on.
And a beautiful setting that I am thinking of right now.
I want to thank you so much for joining us on "Metro Focus".
Sunny: Thank you so much for having me.
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