Adi Talwar
Egiberto Adames in July sitting next to his RV with his dog Arewin on Gerard Avenue in the Bronx.
For the past few months, City Limits has sought out New Yorkers in unique living arrangements to find out why they live where they live. We homed in on three people, all Bronx residents, with three very different accommodations: an old RV, a two-story houseboat and a room in a spartan warehouse.
It’s been an eventful year in New York City housing. Mayor Eric Adams launched a new plan for housing production and a controversial approach to street homelessness. At the same time, the city’s homeless shelter population reached historic highs this year, fueled in part by an increase in migrants from the southern border and by soaring rent costs, including the biggest price hike for rent-stabilized apartments in nearly a decade.
Over half of New York City food stamp applicants are forced to wait for their benefits to arrive as staff at the understaffed Human Resources Administration fail to keep pace with demand. The state’s Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance has declined to issue a waiver that would relieve the backlog.
More than 73,000 NYCHA households are behind on rent, what officials say will force the public housing authority to draw from operating reserves and make other cuts in the year ahead—and could potentially hamper its repair plans. Meanwhile, the state’s already-exhausted Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP) to aid New Yorkers in rent arrears is unlikely to reach NYCHA.
The Human Resources Administration (HRA) is promptly processing just 46.3 percent of applications for SNAP benefits, commonly known as food stamps, the agency told councilmembers at a committee hearing on the impact and cause of the bureaucratic delays.
An annual vigil honored the New Yorkers who died on the streets and in shelters while highlighting the lethal impact of chronic homelessness. “We should be clear that these outcomes are the result of public policy choices we make in the United States,” said one of the organizers.
El Concejo de la ciudad de Nueva York celebró una audiencia el jueves para discutir la Ley de Oportunidad Justa para la Vivienda, que haría ilegal que arrendatarios y agentes inmobiliarios tengan en cuenta los antecedentes penales al considerar un inquilino. Los partidarios dicen que la vivienda estable es clave para prevenir la reincidencia, pero los críticos han criticado el proyecto de ley, alegando preocupaciones de seguridad.
Adams’ early commitments to open new “low-barrier” shelters comes into sharper focus as he closes out his first year in office, with yet another plan to remove homeless New Yorkers from trains and public spaces. New York City has about 600 new specialized shelters for street homeless New Yorkers, but data shows relatively few people are moving from the subways to the largely congregate sites.
The heads of household in 25,000 NYCHA apartments will soon have an opportunity to vote on how to best raise capital and complete repairs in their individual complexes, choosing from one of three funding models. For those elections to be considered valid, at least 20 percent of heads of household named on leases must cast a ballot, new rules state, though NYCHA says it will “strive to achieve turnout far greater.”
A newly formed committee of NYCHA residents is advising Comptroller Brad Lander as he prepares to audit the public housing authority, with the task force first targeting the most common complaints made by peers. Sanitation and repair orders being closed without repairs topped the list.
City Limits uses investigative journalism through the prism of New York City to identify urban problems, examine their causes, explore solutions, and equip communities to take action.
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