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There are a lot of reasons why Mayor de Blasio was at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia yesterday as his administration announced that his affordable housing plan financed more homes in fiscal year 2016 than the city had since 1989. The 23,284 units making the recently concluded year the second biggest in history and putting the Housing New York plan ahead of schedule.
He no doubt wants to bolster his role as a spokesman for the Democratic left and continue to make up for not endorsing Hillary Clinton the moment she entered the race. But you don’t need to be a Russian hacker to realize that there are practical policy reasons for the mayor to claim a seat on the national scene. That’s because the ultimate size and shape of the mayor’s housing plan, his top policy priority, will depend a lot on federal program whose future will be shaped by the 2016 races.
So housing policy is part of the context in Philly, as it was in Cleveland, and part of the actual text of the Democratic and Republican party platforms.
What exactly is New York City hoping to see come out of Washington in a new administration? And how does that connect to what’s happening in New York City and state, where advocates are still hoping to get an MOU out of Albany specifying how $2 billion in budgeted housing money will be spent?
In the podcast below, Rachel Fee of the New York Housing Conference joins Gotham Gazette’s Ben Max and Jarrett Murphy of City Limits to discuss whether the federal policies and programs that most affect housing affordability in New York City have been on the radar screens at the RNC or DNC.