For the first time in a generation, a sweeping coalition—embracing many of the city’s leading tenant groups, community development corporations, labor unions, homeless service agencies, and advocates for the poor—is coming together for a public demonstration demanding that elected officials take aggressive action to promote and protect affordable housing. At a rally set to take place on Broadway outside City Hall on Wednesday at 4:30, the groups will ask the Bloomberg administration and City Council to pledge to redirect Battery Park City revenue to affordable housing, as originally promised when the development was built; to extend inclusionary zoning, which is now being implemented on Manhattan’s West Side and the Brooklyn waterfront, to areas throughout New York City; press the state to relinquish its control over rent protections; redirect dollars from emergency shelter to permanent housing for people with AIDS; and to beef up enforcement of the city housing code. Organizers expect more than 5,000 to attend the rally, representing groups that include ACORN, Coalition for the Homeless, Make the Road by Walking, Local 1199, Asian Americans for Equality, Habitat for Humanity, Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development, Tenants and Neighbors, Supportive Housing Network of New York, the New York City Central Labor Council, Housing Works, the Working Families Party, the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board, the New York City AIDS Housing Network, Community Service Society, and the United Federation of Teachers. [1/31/05]