“Hurricane Sandy damaged 10 percent of the city’s housing. In a city with a vacancy rate of 4.5 percent, even a temporary loss of the housing supply isn’t just a problem for those directly displaced: it tightens the market for everyone, making it harder and more expensive to find housing.”
The dearth of affordable housing across the city—and the nation—should prompt Congress to increase rental assistance programs and supercharge the National Housing Trust Fund, Sarah Saadian of the National Low-Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) told WBAI’s City Watch. The fund sends money to states to develop homes for extremely low-income Americans.
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 Stable Families Act builds off the massive pot of money that Congress sent to states and local governments to cover rent arrears for tenants who could not make payments as a result of the pandemic
The city has distributed 91 percent of the roughly 7,800 new emergency housing vouchers (EHVs) they received last May—a dramatic increase since March, when they had issued less than a third of the total. Now comes the hard part: helping recipients use the subsidies to actually lease an apartment.
De Blasio told City Limits that he wants to see New York City-style right-to-shelter laws for people experiencing homelessness in all cities, rent regulation across the country and a path to citizenship for 12 million immigrants living in the United States without authorization.
Our elected leaders can bring about meaningful improvement in the economies of particular places through policies that address what we’ve learned from the shortcomings of the Opportunity Zone incentive and other similar laws.
“Many food management companies and producers of color are small to mid-sized, and we have benefited from the added flexibility in the way schools negotiate. The waivers have allowed us to retain staff and pay an honest living wage and continue buying fresh produce while serving scratch-made meals to a larger student body.”
‘Immigrants are forced to live in a system with arbitrary restrictions that discourage us from advancing our education, obtaining a stable career, and providing for our families. All the while, our community is continuously relied upon as key drivers of the state’s economy.’
‘Currently only 25 percent of eligible households receive the housing voucher, meaning that nearly everyone in need of aid does not receive it. The impact of fully funding vouchers would be astounding: it would help an estimated 1.1 million households in New York state alone.’
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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