MOTT HAVEN — Free tablets and internet access are coming to thousands of families living in Bronx public housing.
Mayor Bill de Blasio and Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro kicked off the initiative on Friday afternoon at the Betances Community Center, where de Blasio stressed that it was very difficult for New Yorkers to have equal opportunities in life if they did not first have equal access to the internet.
"There are very few examples that are stronger of a tale of two cities than the question of Internet access," he said. "It cuts immediately along economic lines. You have money, you have Internet access. It’s a given. And if you don’t have money, a lot of people don’t have it."
T-Mobile will provide the tablets, and the city's Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications will fund two years of data for the devices to help support the city's goal of achieving affordable Internet access across New York by 2025.
NYCHA will begin distributing the tablets in January to families that qualify who have children younger than 19 years old, and the devices come preloaded with apps meant to help users connect to city services, including the 311 app and the New York Public Library's SimplyE app, which gives users with library cards access to all 300,000 of the library's e-books.
Almost 26 percent of houses in The Bronx do not have Internet at home or a mobile Internet plan, significantly higher than the citywide rate of 19.8 percent, according to the mayor's office.
Castro said the program, part of the Obama administration's ConnectHome initiative, was an example of how HUD is meant to be a department of opportunity, adding that housing can be a powerful platform to create more opportunity in people's lives.
"In this 21st Century global economy, access to the Internet in a meaningful way is no longer a luxury," he said. "It is a necessity."
