City Limits’ coverage of homelessness in New York City is supported by Trinity Church Wall Street.
More housing-related series:
“Having housing and a place to call home gives one hope and stability, which is essential, especially when you grew up in a system that gave you neither.”
The new budget directs $2.4 billion to homeless services in the coming fiscal year, invests billions more in housing over the next decade and funds an increase to rental assistance programs, but is nevertheless facing criticism from advocates who say the spending plan fails to adequately address New York City’s affordability and homelessness crises.
When COVID-19 hit, policymakers saw an opportunity: The city had interconnected affordable housing and homelessness crises; the city also had hundreds of empty hotels hemorrhaging cash. But a year after the state passed a law funding the conversion of hotels to affordable housing, not a single one has happened. The experience of the Paramount Hotel on West 46th Street illustrates why.
“The very forces contributing to a worsening housing emergency are also impacting the workers tasked with solving that crisis. Those who work to find permanent and safe apartments for the housing-insecure and homeless should not find themselves at risk of eviction and displacement.”
The City Council’s Committee on Environmental Protection met Tuesday to discuss a newly introduced bill banning heating oil No. 4 by 2025, five years earlier than was agreed upon when Local Law 43 passed in 2010.
Reporter David Brand’s story on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on homeless New Yorkers with health needs earned the Merit Award for Feature News Reporting from the Silurian Press Club, part of the storied organization’s annual Excellence in Journalism Awards.
What exactly did state lawmakers do before starting their nearly seven-month break? Here’s a rundown.
The legislation would amend existing public health law to empower children under age 18 who are classified as “runaway or homeless youth,” or RHY, to give consent for medical, dental, health and hospital services, and comes amid a wave of legislation targeting trans kids elsewhere in the nation.
Non-profit developers and tenants rights advocates have also been sounding the alarm on the need to create more income-restricted apartments across the five boroughs and to keep existing renters stably housed, especially in communities of color.
” We propose a new hybrid financing model that would combine a land value tax (LVT) and community land trusts (CLTs) to address New York’s changing fiscal environment as well as the housing needs of working families.”