Data-driven reporting and visualizations on NYC’s most pressing policy issues. This project is generously supported by the Altman Foundation.
The City Council approved a modified version of the mayor’s sweeping zoning reform plan, City of Yes for Housing Opportunity, with a vote of 31-to-20. Here’s how each lawmaker landed.
Two years into the mayor’s anti-rodent siege, rat infestations persist, but one consequence of the policy change has emerged: a major uptick in homeowner fines. “The summonses started escalating,” said Betty Davis, an 80-year-old retired homeowner on Dean Street who’s received $930 in fines in 2024.
A record-high 146,733 students were living in the shelter system, doubled up, or staying in hotels, motels, or unsheltered, a new report finds. In some school districts, as many as one in five experienced homelessness.
A new state law requires New York City marshals to post notices of eviction to the state court website, in addition to serving them in person. Several marshals posted them late—or not at all—according to City Limits’ review of a sample of September eviction notices. Some lawyers say it’s a violation of tenants’ due process rights.
New York City is responding to more reports of housing code violations that threaten the health and safety of New Yorkers, but not every repair is an easy fix. Violations are highly concentrated in a few Bronx and Brooklyn neighborhoods.
As the mayor’s citywide zoning reform plan undergoes public review, City Limits is keeping tabs on responses. So far, more than half of the city’s community boards have voted unfavorably, though four out of five borough presidents have come out (largely) in favor.
Last year, marshals served more than 13,000 evictions, up from 5,000 in 2022, and just 268 in 2021, when the pandemic eviction moratorium was still in place. Over the past five years, six of the city’s 28 marshals were cited for errors during evictions.
“I think those of us who have homes should think about those who don’t have homes,” Mayor Eric Adams said in a recent push for his housing plan. “Far too many New Yorkers can’t afford to live in the city and we don’t have the housing stock that we need.”
Amid a steep rise in people living in shelter, few are exiting the system, and even fewer are finding housing, a City Limits analysis of public data shows.
Viewed in isolation, a proposal to exempt small residential portfolios from new eviction protections could exclude hundreds of thousands of New York City apartments. Perhaps more significantly, this type of estimate isn’t easy to make.
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.
Founded in 1976 in the midst of New York’s fiscal crisis, City Limits exists to inform democracy and equip citizens to create a more just city. The organization is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit funded by foundation support, ad sponsorship and donations from readers.
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Support local, investigative journalism that has informed and empowered New Yorkers for 45 years.
