Know Your City: North Shore, Staten Island

This year, we will be publishing a series of Know Your City posts about specific neighborhoods across New York City and what poverty and injustice and brokenness looks like there. We’ll also provide some context around the numbers in the hopes of providing a better understanding of the unique issues present in our neighborhoods specifically and our city as a whole. We also want to encourage prayer for the needs of these communities.

These posts will correspond with our monthly devotionals, which also focus on the beauty and brokenness of specific neighborhoods. Read our Staten Island devotional here: The Compassion Revolution on Staten Island.

North Shore, Staten Island

The following statistics are for Community District 1, which includes Grymes Hill, Mariner’s Harbor, Port Richmond, Stapleton, St. George, West Brighton, and Westerleigh.

Total population: 178,689

Demographics: 39% White, 29% Hispanic, 22% Black, 8% Asian, 2% Other

Foreign born: 23%

Poverty: 20%

Unemployment: 9%

Click here for more in-depth statistics on Community District 1.

Staten Island, known as the “forgotten borough,” is actually the wealthiest of the five boroughs, boasting the highest median household income. At the same time, there is clear wealth discrepancy within the borough. For example, residents of Staten Island’s wealthiest neighborhood make seven times more than those living 10 minutes away in the West Brighton Houses, an eight-story NYCHA development in West Brighton.

The North Shore of Staten Island (Community District 1) differs from the rest of the borough in a number of ways. The incarceration rate of North Shore neighborhoods is almost twice that of Staten Island as a whole, at 110 per 100,000 adults. The highest percentage of Staten Islanders living in poverty are concentrated on the North Shore, where one in 11 adults is unemployed and half of residents spend more than 30 percent of their monthly gross income on rent.

But the entire borough is in the throes of an opioid epidemic. From 2015-2016, there was a 66 percent increase in fatal drug overdoses in Staten Island, the highest rate of overdose deaths in the city, at 31.8 per 100,000 adults.

How can you pray?

Pray for those on the North Shore who are unemployed and/or lack access or resources necessary to obtain jobs. Pray that they would be given opportunities to provide for themselves and their families and that the Lord would make a way for them to be more financially stable.

Pray for those in Staten Island who are stuck in the throes of addiction or are actively battling addiction. Pray that they would be freed from drug and alcohol addictions and that they would find the supportive community and ample resources they need to live full and healthy lives.

Pray for Urban Hope, a HFNY affiliate doing incredible work with young people in the West Brighton neighborhood of Staten Island. Ask that they would be encouraged in their work, resourced to do it well, and effective as they seek to transform their community.