“It’s a complicated question,” said Rosalind Black, citywide housing director at Legal Services NY, which aids tenants under the landmark city initiative to provide free representation to low-income New Yorkers facing eviction in housing court. Though the results have been overwhelmingly positive, the program has never been funded to cover every eligible tenant.
Promise NYC was intended to help asylum-seeker families whose immigration status makes them ineligible for other, federally-funded child care assistance. But the program, which offered subsidized care for 600 children, is only slated to continue for the remainder of the school year. “I really don’t know what I’m going to do,” said one participant with a 7-month-old son.
The Bronx Metro-North rezoning is among the first initiated by the city since Mayor Adams took office, and will look to spur development of 6,000 homes around future train stations in Morris Park and Parkchester. The plan is in line with Gov. Kathy Hochul’s strategy to increase housing statewide, with an emphasis on building denser in “transit-oriented” communities.
“This policy, while likely formed with good intent, is short-sighted and places more strain on a system that is close to breaking. It also shifts focus and continues to villainize individuals who need help, rather than providing the resources that they desperately need. This is a band-aid, meant to make the problem less visible, ignoring the real issues.”
The Senate and Assembly on Tuesday released their annual budget resolutions, responding to Gov. Kathy Hochul’s $227 billion spending proposal unveiled last month. They rejected the bulk of Hochul’s strategy to increase housing production statewide, while entertaining eviction protections the governor has ducked.
Councilmembers are weighing a slate of bills to expand programs and resources that follow the model of social housing—deeply affordable homes built “for public good” rather than profit, what supporters say could help turn the tide in a city where increasing numbers of tenants are struggling to afford rent. But City Hall officials pushed back on some of the proposals, saying they could undermine Mayor Adams’ efforts to build new housing as quickly as possible.
“If Mayor Adams truly wants to make good on his promises to stem the homelessness crisis in the city and provide substantive mental health to the city’s youth, he must first make it easier, not harder, to access safe and affordable housing.”
“The city and state must stop relying on failed capitalist strategies when developing more housing, which is why I introduced a bill Thursday that would require the city to study the feasibility of creating a municipal social housing development agency.”
City Limits rounds up the latest housing and land use-related events, public hearings and upcoming affordable housing lotteries that are ending soon.
“Invoking environmental concerns to block construction is a classic page in the NIMBY playbook, but when suburbanites push back against dense, transit-oriented housing, they are not just hurting the people who urgently need housing in our city—they are hurting the climate for future generations of New Yorkers, too.”
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