Amid a record-breaking homelessness crisis, there are some bright spots. Mayor Adams has dedicated roughly $4 billion in capital funding to construct affordable housing—a campaign promise that he fell short on last year. Yet staffing cuts and shortages still plague the city agencies tasked with assisting homeless New Yorkers.
Lawyers who represent tenants facing eviction in housing court are poised to see millions of dollars in new funding in the coming year, yet far less than the roughly $350 million boost they’ve said is needed for the Right to Counsel program to live up to its name.
The city pilot program called Promise NYC, which covered up to $700 a week in child care to undocumented children with low-income parents during the second half of 2023, will be continued and expanded in the city’s budget for the upcoming fiscal year, City Limits has learned.
“Despite the mayor’s repeated statements that he wants to fund more ‘upstream’ services that address the city’s mental health crisis, his agenda, instead, focuses on post-crisis points and increased law enforcement. To effectively address the City’s mental health crisis, the mayor must invest in more preventive and evidenced-based supports.”
“You think about a $106 billion budget—we’re asking for $400 million with an M,” Councilmember Carmen De La Rosa said at Thursday’s rally. “NYCHA tenants deserve more and we’re going to continue to stand with you until we see a budget that reflects the dignity that you have long deserved.”
“The mayor needs to look somewhere else to cut funding. Successful higher education programs should not be on the chopping block.”
City Limits rounds up the latest housing and land use-related events, public hearings and upcoming affordable housing lotteries that are ending soon.
“If Mayor Adams wants to make a positive impact on the city and take his ‘working people’s agenda’ beyond rhetoric, he needs to embrace a trifecta of change that establishes a culture in City Hall centered on the needs of everyday New Yorkers. This means establishing a re-imagined social contract, ending the austerity mindset that has dominated the city’s budget and policymaking, and managing for consequential change.”
According to the DOE, 43 percent of NYC’s students spoke a language other than English during the current school year. The Immigrant Family Communication program, which had been budgeted for only one year, was renewed in the 2023 budget but was not expanded to the $6 million requested by advocates.
ANHD’s 2022 Housing Risk Chart highlights the compounding pressures, and risks, to affordable housing in dozens of neighborhoods. Indicators of speculation, gentrification, and displacement pressure are distributed throughout the city and show the necessity of tenant and homeowner counseling and support programs that defend affordability in every neighborhood.
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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