Adi Talwar
L., who asked to go by her first initial to protect her identity, has been searching for an apartment she can afford ahead of the 180-day deadline runs out at the domestic violence shelter she and her son have been staying in.
A six-month cap on stays and a lack of permanent housing options have combined to drive more than 1,550 families out of domestic violence shelters and directly into the Department of Homeless Services system over the past two years, records show.
The discovery of arsenic in the water supply at NYCHA’s Jacob Riis Houses is a scary reminder of how little control most people have over their taps. While most of the water in New York City apartment buildings is perfectly potable, older plumbing can leach toxins, especially lead, during the final stretch from street to sink.
Strained for shelter space, the Adams administration confirmed it was exploring the possibility of using camp facilities “should they become necessary,” to house asylum seekers arriving from the Southern border. The city has relied on commercial hotels and other stopgap facilities to quickly add shelter capacity for decades, but camps would be a new sort of accommodation for families.
The proposal has encountered resistance from would-be neighbors and local Councilmember Marjorie Velázquez, who’ve cited concerns about impact on infrastructure, parking and the area’s suburban feel. But one planning commissioner who voted in favor of the project Wednesday believes the opposition is driven by a rejection of affordable housing.
City Limits rounds up the latest housing and land use-related events, public hearings and upcoming affordable housing lotteries that are ending soon.
Bronx incumbent Gustavo Rivera and DSA-endorsed Kristen Gonzalez both seemed likely to prevail in their State Senate races, despite being targeted by SuperPACs that spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to undermine the progressive candidates, stuffing mailboxes with flyers and running digital ads disparaging them or boosting their opponents.
By 6 p.m. Tuesday, 237,888 New York City residents had voted in the unusual August primary, where some neighborhoods were home to heated State Senate and Congressional races while others had no candidates on the ballot at all. Polls close at 9 p.m.
The legal battle over redistricting this year resulted in two primaries for New York, including Tuesday’s rare August contests for State Senate and Congress. City Limits spoke to city residents about what they’re looking out for this second summer Election Day—or if they’re looking at all.
“If everything…is just a question of ‘Does the local community support or not support it,’ the answer will almost, inevitably, always be ‘no,’ so it can’t just be that, it has to be a broader consideration,” the former councilmember said during an interview on the WBAI radio program City Watch.
The question soon facing the City Council—and in particular, local member Julie Won—is how much affordable housing is enough to replace the Queens industrial scene with a complex three times bigger than One45, another Harlem development proposal recently squashed over affordability concerns.
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