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*Our fax number has changed temporarily while we upgrade our infrastructureDecember 12th, 2024Press Release
As Mayor Adams meets with Donald Trump’s incoming deportation czar Tom Homan, Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams released the following statement urging the outgoing President Biden to take immediate steps to protect the immigrant communities in New York from both Donald Trump and Mayor Adams.
“The President has said that Donald Trump represents an existential threat to marginalized people – now, he has to act like it,” said Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams. “Since Mayor Adams makes it clearer daily that he seems more interested in helping Donald Trump with a dangerous agenda of deportation, it’s clear that vulnerable New Yorkers can’t rely on this Mayor for support – so I’m asking President Biden to use the time and power he has left in order to enact common sense protections. We have a moral mandate to do what we can, with what we have, to stand up for people under threat. Whatever our mayor or Donald Trump believe, immigrant New Yorkers do have rights, and I urge the President to join us in standing up for those rights today.”
The Public Advocate joined immigrant advocacy organizations and elected officials outside City Hall today just ahead of the mayor’s meeting with the deportation czar to stand up for immigrant rights in the face of threats from the incoming president and ambivalence from the mayor.
Public Advocate Williams also sent a letter to the Biden administration Wednesday urging several actions that the White House can immediately take in order to provide common sense, essential protections against many of the incoming Trump administration’s worst policies and proposals. Those actions include:
Address All Pending Decisions Regarding TPS Designations
Ensure DACA Holders and Other Long-time Residents Are Able to Benefit from Current Policies.
Actions to Safeguard Refugees and Vulnerable Migrants
Mayor Adams has recently indicated a willingness to work with the Trump administration on deportation efforts, and often scapegoated migrant New Yorkers for his own failures. He has attempted to pit longtime New Yorkers against migrants who have arrived more recently, and last week falsely declared that migrants do not have Constitutional rights.
As the son of immigrants, in a city of immigrants, the Public Advocate loudly condemned this attitude, saying of the mayor that “His rhetoric is as dangerous to our city as his leadership has been harmful. The mayor has misled the city for years about the cost of aiding asylum seekers, but the cost of his misinformation is clear… With the looming danger of the Trump presidency, and the mayor choosing to mimic rather than condemn it, we have to stand together to defend both the New Yorkers who have little and the ones who have less.”
Read the Public Advocate's letter to the White House here.
“Our Mayor has vowed to abandon NYC’s laws because that’s what’s in his personal interest," said Council Member Alexa Avilés, Chair of the Committee on Immigration. "So, we—the Council and the Public Advocate—must take matters into our own hands, doing what we can to protect the millions of New Yorkers safeguarded by our Sanctuary City status. That’s why I’m standing proudly behind the Public Advocate’s letter today. I urge President Biden to do what he can for the communities under threat from Eric Adams and Donald Trump—which are not just new arrivals, but also long-standing New York residents. Every New Yorker deserves dignity and safety, but every New Yorker will suffer under this right-wing administration. We can’t let a self-serving mayor dismantle our economy, uproot communities, and disregard democracy—it’s time for President Biden to act.”
December 9th, 2024Press Release
Today, the New York City Council and Public Advocate filed a joint lawsuit with the Supreme Court of the State of New York seeking to invalidate Mayor Adams’ emergency executive orders that suspended parts of Local Law 42 of 2024, which bans solitary confinement in city jails. The Article 78 legal filing argues that Mayor Adams’ issuance of Emergency Executive Orders 624 and 625, which declared a state of emergency in city jails because of the imminent effective date of the law in order to suspend portions of it, was unlawful, unprecedented, and an undemocratic abuse of his authority that no previous New York City mayor has ever attempted. One day before Local Law 42 went into effect, Mayor Adams signed the emergency orders, making the historically unparalleled claim that a law going into effect represented an emergency even though state law governing emergency powers does not provide justification for such a use. Since the initial issuance of the orders, the mayor has extended the emergency declaration every 30 days and his order suspending the law every five days.
“Despite his desperate power grabs, this mayor can't just ignore the laws he doesn't like,” said Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams, sponsor of Introduction 549-A/Local Law 42 of 204. “Ending the harmful isolation of solitary is a moral and legal imperative, yet the administration is desperately trying to maintain a status quo on Rikers that is dangerous to people on both sides of the bars. I am proud to partner with the Speaker to ensure that the mayor can't continue abusing the declaration of a 'state of emergency' to preserve his ego or political goals. We can't simply pardon or excuse this mayor's attempt to emulate the worst impulses of Donald Trump at the expense of New Yorkers, and I urge the court to end his false emergency so we can address the real crisis.”
“The democratic process of lawmaking cannot justifiably be declared a state of emergency, and Mayor Adams’ emergency orders are an unlawful and unprecedented abuse of power,” said Speaker Adrienne Adams. “The City Council overrode the Mayor’s veto to ban solitary confinement in city jails because its use has been proven to cause physical, psychological, and emotional harm and makes our city and jails less safe. Mayor Adams’ decision to exceed his legal authority, simply because he was overruled, undermines the foundation of our democracy, and it must be invalidated. This lawsuit is aimed at ensuring mayoral abuse of democratic government cannot stand, and the human rights and safety crisis on Rikers caused by maintaining the status quo of failed policies and practices is discontinued.”
“Emergency Executive Orders are not tools for any Mayor to misuse in undermining laws passed by the City Council,” said Council Member Sandy Nurse, Chair of the Committee on Criminal Justice. “Local Law 42 was enacted to save lives and reduce violence in our city jails, reflecting the will of the Council and the people we serve. Mayor Adams’ actions demonstrate a troubling disregard for our democratic process, the City Charter, and his duty to protect New Yorkers. This lawsuit is unfortunate, but a necessary step to hold him accountable for this unprecedented overreach of power.”
The Council and Public Advocate’s legal filings can be found here: Petition Memorandum of Law
The lawsuit requests that Mayor Adams’ emergency orders be found “arbitrary, capricious and contrary to law, the issuance of which is beyond [his] lawful authority,” and vacated.
Several organizations intend to file amicus briefs, including The Bronx Defenders in conjunction with Brooklyn Defender Services, Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem, New York County Defender Services, and Queens Defenders; the #HALTsolitary Campaign and Jails Action Coalition, and the New York Civil Liberties Union.
"Mayor Adam’s brazen suspension of this law is not only undemocratic and unlawful, but it sends an unmistakable message to the people we represent that their lives do not matter to this administration," said Meghna Philip, Interim Director of the Impact Litigation Practice at The Bronx Defenders. "The passage of LL42 represented a rare moment in which incarcerated New Yorkers testified publicly about the horrors they experience on Rikers Island, and our democratic system responded. The Mayor's executive orders silence those New Yorkers' voices, and the violent, torturous practices this law bans, including solitary confinement, continue on Rikers Island. We commend the City Council and the Public Advocate for standing up for the people we defend, and the courts should step in to end this abuse of executive authority by the Mayor."
“We applaud the City Council, the Speaker, the Public Advocate, and our fellow amici for today’s lawsuit challenging the Mayor’s illegal executive orders and demanding DOC implement Local Law 42,” said Anisah Sabur, the #HALTsolitary Campaign and the Jails Action Coalition. “Confinement is torture. It causes immense suffering, devastating harm, and death. It also worsens safety for everyone. After more than a 12 year campaign and robust, deliberative democratic process, a supermajority of the City Council overrode the Mayor’s veto to enact Local Law 42. This law will end solitary and instead use alternatives proven to reduce violence and better protect people’s health. The Mayor can not usurp the Council’s legislative authority and all of our public participation in the democratic process by issuing illegal executive orders to continue DOC’s torture regime. It is finally time for the Mayor and DOC to follow the law, stop torture, improve safety, and save lives by ending solitary once and for all.”
“Solitary confinement is an abuse of human rights,” said Lori Zeno, Executive Director of Queens Defenders. “We stand in solidarity with the New York City Council, Council Speaker Adams, and Public Advocate Williams in their momentous lawsuit challenging the Mayor’s illegal executive orders and demand the implementation of Local Law 42 to finally end solitary confinement. The time has come for the City of New York to end this abhorrent abuse and we urge the court to prioritize the health and safety of people in DOC custody.”
“For years, the inhumane restrictive housing practices in New York City jails have inflicted immense physical and mental trauma on incarcerated New Yorkers,” said Lucas Marquez, Director of Civil Rights and Law Reform at Brooklyn Defenders. “On behalf of the countless solitary survivors and those that have lost their lives at Rikers, the City Council passed Local Law 42 to end the torture of solitary confinement. Yet the administration has flouted LL42, failing to implement the law’s safeguards and due process protections. DOC continues to impose the draconian practice, from ‘deadlocking’ to cages-within-cells, on people in its custody. We cannot allow these abuses to continue and urge the court to take action to stop this torture.”
Excerpt from the Memorandum of Law:
“During the 180-day period in which the Administration was given time to implement the law, the Mayor did not take any discernable steps to implement the law. Instead, the Mayor signaled that he would seek judicial relief from Chief Judge Laura Swain, the federal judge presiding over Nunez v. City of New York, a constitutional challenge to conditions of confinement at Rikers Island. DOC informed Chief Judge Swain that they believed Local Law 42 conflicted with court orders she had issued in that case requiring, among other things, a court-appointed monitor’s approval of certain security measures (Nunez Doc. No. 724). Arguing that Local Law 42 was federally preempted by Chief Judge Swain’s orders, DOC told the chief judge in a June 2024 letter that they planned to file a motion asking her to issue ‘an Order suspending the requirements of Local Law 42’ (id.). In response, the Council prepared for a court battle over the proper scope of the monitor’s authority and whether Local Law 42 was truly preempted by federal court orders. To that end, the Council passed a resolution authorizing the Speaker to ‘engage in legal action on behalf of the Council to defend Local Law 42.’
“But Mayor Adams and DOC never filed their promised motion with Chief Judge Swain. Instead, the Mayor took matters into his own hands: he suspended Local Law 42 himself. In doing so, he became the first mayor in our City’s history to issue an emergency order to prevent the implementation of a local law that passed over his veto.”
Excerpt from the Memorandum of Law:
“An overridden veto is not an emergency. “Emergency powers may only be exercised in the face of “disaster, rioting, catastrophe, or similar public emergency.” Exec. L. § 24(1). But when Mayor Adams declared a state of emergency and suspended Local Law 42, he identified no imminent emergency that required a swift, unilateral response. Instead, the purported “emergency” was the impending “effective date of Local Law 42” and the supposed “risks” posed by the purposeful implementation of that local law (EEO 624 at 7). But neither of those things constitute a “disaster, rioting, catastrophe, or similar public emergency,” as a matter of law. Exec. L. § 24(1). Because this core threshold requirement of the Executive Law has not been met, the Mayor’s declaration of emergency and accompanying suspension of Local Law 42 are illegal and invalid.
“Neither the passage of a local law nor the consequences anticipated by the law’s opponents constitute a “disaster, rioting, catastrophe, or similar public emergency” under the Executive Law. The text, structure and purpose of the Executive Law compel this conclusion for a variety of reasons.
“First, courts have found that the Executive Law gives mayors the power to engage in “prompt and immediate unilateral action” when there is no time for “a deliberative body such as a [local] legislature” to respond. Prospect v. Cohalan, 109 A.D.2d 210, 217-18 (2d Dep’t 1985) (citing Exec. L. §§ 24(1), 25, 26, 29-b), aff’d, 65 N.Y.2d 867 (1985). Indeed, the mayor’s broad but temporary emergency powers are necessary because “emergency situations” require “prompt and immediate unilateral action … to preserve and protect life and property.” Id. If prompt and immediate unilateral action is not necessary, and the situation can instead be addressed by a legislative body, then it is not a “disaster” or “emergency” for the purposes of the Executive Law. See id. For that reason alone, deliberative legislative action and its immediate consequences are not a “disaster” or “emergency” sufficient to enable emergency executive measures, as a matter of law.
“Second, the plain text of the Executive Law confirms that duly-enacted legislation and its purported consequences are not a “disaster” or “emergency” under the statute. The Executive Law mandates that a mayor’s emergency suspension of a local law must be “reasonably necessary to the disaster effort.” Exec. L. § 24(1)(g)(ii). This requirement—and, in particular, the phrase “disaster effort”—makes no sense if the supposed “disaster” is the enactment of a local law. A local law is not a “disaster effort”; it is something that must be done via the democratic lawmaking process. Simply put, the Executive Law’s clear requirement that any suspension of a local law be “reasonably necessary to the disaster effort” cannot be squared with the Mayor’s unprecedented position that the passage of a local law may itself constitute a disaster.
“Third, the Executive Law’s detailed definition of “disaster” does not, by its plain text, include the passage of a local law or the law’s purported implementation risks. Exec. L. § 20(2)(a) (defining “disaster”). The statutory definition includes a long list of illustrative examples of events that count as “disasters.” Id. That list consists entirely of disease outbreaks, weather and climate-related disasters (e.g., floods and hurricanes), other natural disasters (e.g., earthquakes), and a narrow set of man-made disasters such as malicious attacks and accidents that result in immediate, true emergencies: terrorism, cyber events, explosions, radiological accidents, bridge failure or collapse, and nuclear, chemical, biological, or bacteriological releases. Exec. L. § 20(2)(a).
“None of the statute’s examples even remotely resemble the enactment and implementation of a local law over a mayor’s veto. That’s because the State Legislature did not intend for mayors to be able to declare that the passage of a duly-enacted local law constitutes an emergency. For that reason, the definition of disaster cannot be reasonably read to apply…”
Excerpt from the Memorandum of Law:
“Mayor Adams’ emergency orders violate the Executive Law in at least four separate ways. First, the Mayor’s unilateral suspension of Local Law 42 was not premised on any “disaster, rioting, catastrophe, or similar public emergency” as those terms are defined by the Executive Law. Exec. L. §§ 20, 24(1). Second, there is no rational basis for the Mayor’s finding that public safety is imperiled by the law going into effect. Exec. L. §§ 20, 24(1). Third, the Mayor failed to meet the multiple enumerated requirements for the suspension of a local law, including that any suspension provide for the “minimum deviation” from the requirements of the local law. Exec. L. § 24(1)(g)(v). Fourth, an overbroad interpretation of the Executive Law that enables these sorts of emergency orders runs headlong into both the intent of the Executive Law and the City Charter’s separation of powers.
“Any one of these four failings, standing alone, renders the Mayor’s emergency orders unlawful and invalid.”
“And left in place, the Mayor’s illegal suspension of Local Law 42 sets a dangerous precedent for future mayors to abuse their emergency powers when they are dissatisfied with the outcome of lawful democratic processes and have lost a policy debate.”
Excerpt from the Memorandum of Law:
“If these bedrock principles are taken seriously, it is impossible to interpret the Executive Law to enable a mayor to do what Mayor Adams has done here: to declare that the passage of local law constitutes an “emergency” necessitating the unilateral suspension of that very law. Allowing these executive orders to stand would amount to endorsing a mayoral “super-veto” over any local laws that touch on issues of public safety.”
Excerpt from the Petition:
“This Article 78 petition seeks judicial intervention and an order finding that these two emergency orders are outside the scope of the Mayor’s authority and an abuse of his emergency powers. No other mayor in the City’s history has ever used these emergency powers as an end-run around a local law, and a finding otherwise—that the Mayor can override a super-majority of Council members—would set a dangerous precedent. In our system of government, there is a balance of powers between the legislature that makes laws and the executive who executes them. Council members, and their votes, represent the will of the people. The Mayor cannot disregard a local law just because he disagrees with the Council’s well-deliberated policy choices.”
“The Mayor’s emergency orders declare a state of emergency and then extensively re-write Local Law 42 by suspending, modifying, or replacing nearly all of the policy choices embodied in the law’s text. Those policy choices of Local Law 42 address acute harms suffered by incarcerated people and their loved ones, and these choices were enacted through the democratic lawmaking process following a hard-fought policy battle between the Council and Mayor. In the place of the policy choices that prevailed at the conclusion of that policy debate, the Mayor’s emergency orders substitute his own policy preferences and priorities—the very ones that the Council rejected when it overrode his veto by a vote of 42 to 9.”
Background: In December 2023, the Council voted to pass Int. 549-A and ban solitary confinement in city jails. The bill descended from a previous version (Int. 2173) introduced by the Council in December 2020, which was the subject of a hearing that year. Int. 549 was introduced in June 2022, received a hearing in September 2022, and was the subject of deliberations with stakeholders and revisions over the course of more than another year. Among those revisions was a 120-day extension of the law’s effective date to allow more time for its implementation. Following its passage, the mayor vetoed the bill in January 2024, and the Council voted to override his veto by a vote of 42-9.
Solitary isolation, even only for a few days, leads to significantly heightened risk of death by accident, suicide, violence, overdose, and other causes. Research shows that people placed in solitary confinement are over seven times more likely to self-harm and six times more likely to commit fatal self-harm. Solitary confinement has also been shown to induce acute anxiety, depression, psychosis, and other impairments which may seriously reduce one’s capacity to reintegrate upon release. In New York City, these disastrous effects are felt almost exclusively by Black and Latino New Yorkers, who make up over 90% of all people in city jails. Since 2022, 33 people have died on Rikers. Though Mayor Adams has repeatedly claimed solitary confinement does not exist in city jails, a Columbia University Center for Justice report - Solitary by Many Other Names – outlined its continued use.
December 9th, 2024Press Release
"The life of a Black, homeless young man in a mental health crisis still has value – or, it should. I believe Daniel Penny was not trying to kill Jordan Neely, on camera, but he did. And while the level of accountability may be difficult to determine, no accountability at all is not an acceptable option. Does anyone doubt that if the roles were reversed, and a white former Marine in a moment of crisis was choked to death by a Black homeless man, there would have been a different outcome?
"This is the result that our mayor and many others wanted – that’s why he said that Penny did what the city 'should have done.' That the right response to a man in desperate need of food and support is violence. Instead of adding services to support people like Jordan Neely, the mayor has added to an environment of fear, rather than one of compassion.
"We don’t know everything that passengers saw or felt on that train car, and can't dismiss any real or realized fears. We do know that neither Blackness nor poverty nor nuisance constitute an imminent threat. Yet this verdict tells people that the system is okay with violence against marginalized people.
"Much has been made of the precedent a guilty verdict would have set, that New Yorkers would no longer intervene to help New Yorkers in need of aid. I am alarmed by the opposite precedent being set forth – another man killed on camera, without any consequences, will only invite more violence.
"Jordan Neely needed aid – and intervention would have meant food, or shelter, or mental health support, or a simple acknowledgement of his humanity. Instead he was met with violence. Jordan Neely is dead, and Daniel Penny is being celebrated, and that is neither safety nor justice."
December 6th, 2024Press Release
"Jordan Neely's life had value, and there must be accountability for his death. "One charge has been dismissed, and it is clear that despite what the mayor has said, regardless of the intention, Daniel Penny did not do "what we should have done as a city," and I hold hope for some semblance of justice."
December 5th, 2024Press Release
After the New York City Council passed the ‘City of Yes’ housing proposal today, New York City Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams released the following statement:
“The housing and homelessness crisis impacts New Yorkers across our city, and every community must be a part of combatting it. With today’s vote and the months of negotiations that preceded it, the City Council has taken a significant step forward to increase housing production, and should be applauded for it. At the same time, we cannot simply build our way out of the affordability crisis. Today’s plan, and the City for All investments paired with it, must be part of an overall strategy that includes preservation, voucher expansion, tenant protections, and more. I look forward to working with partners in government and advocacy to ensure that deeply affordable, truly accessible housing is the priority as the City of Yes is realized.”
Last month, the Public Advocate responded to the plan’s vote through committee with a statement on its benefits and limitations. Ahead of today’s vote, the Public Advocate published an op-ed in City Limits which explores what must be done after the plan passes, and where it fits into a larger strategy for housing affordability. The piece is available online, and full text is below.
How Can New York Be a City of ‘Yes, And?
by Jumaane D. Williams, Public Advocate for the City of New York
On Thursday, the City Council is set to vote on “City of Yes”—a plan to increase housing production, put forward by the mayor and adjusted to be significantly more feasible to pass through the work of City Council in recent weeks. Despite some worrisome cracks and carve-outs, the Council will approve the proposal, and be applauded for it.
And then what? While revised zoning enables new structures, what other structures can we put in place to ensure that rising developments aren’t accompanied by still-rising rents? How can we be a City of ‘Yes, And?’
First, we hold developers of new units to strict affordability standards—not lax guidelines that are easily circumvented, such as those set forth at the state level under decades of 421-a. Government can and must invest more in and subsidize affordability, but that does not constitute a blank check for no return.
At the same time, as I’ve always argued, we can’t build our way out of this crisis, both because only a minority of new units will meet affordability standards, and because even 80,000 to 100,000 apartments will not increase housing stock at the levels needed, and certainly not on the urgent timeline this ongoing emergency demands. Preservation, not merely construction, is an essential part of any serious housing strategy.
Fortunately, while our reported vacancy rate is alarmingly low, there are units across the city excluded from the count that need to be included in our housing strategy. Property owners have spent years warehousing apartments. They have decided these units are worth more to them vacant than occupied, and tenants everywhere are paying the price. In many cases, these “zombie apartments” become dilapidated and harm residents of entire buildings and blocks. Any owner truly struggling with costs should be connected to the many supportive programs available, and hopefully some new ones, not pass costs to struggling renters or leave rooms vacant when space is scarce.
When I was in the City Council, I passed a “Housing, Not Warehousing” bill to require a canvassing of the city for vacant properties which could be utilized for housing production. The Adams administration has instructed agencies to perform similar work in the past with city-owned spaces. But private owners are taking advantage of a lack of oversight and enforcement, and we need both an accurate count and actionable steps to bring these units back online. A significant investment must be made in HPD’s inspection and correction of these spaces. Advocates suggest about 80,000 apartments may currently be warehoused, and making them available would essentially double the promise behind City of Yes. In addition to revitalizing long-vacant spaces, under-used office buildings should continue to be prioritized for conversion.
The need for preservation also extends to maintaining what are intended as the most deeply affordable units in our city, NYCHA’s public housing. Fulfilling the promise of NYCHA requires deep investment in capital upgrades to existing buildings, as well as the development of additional units—potentially through land trusts, RAD-PACT partnerships and in authentic partnership with residents. NYCHA residents have seen their living spaces and their trust in city management decline for decades. While the worst private landlords take housing off the market and make rents unaffordable, too often poor conditions in public housing make units unlivable.
No amount of new units will address the housing crisis if New Yorkers simply cannot afford to move into them. This administration wants to trumpet the Council’s pending passage of “City of Yes” as a win, but refuses to implement housing voucher expansion passed by the Council years ago. They are actively preventing the most immediate means of getting New Yorkers into permanent homes, while supporting record rent increases on regulated units. If the mayor is committed to housing reforms, even only for political gain, he can at the very least stop ignoring the city’s housing laws for political purposes.
Particularly in areas where new large-scale developments may not be best, we should expand efforts to prevent and enforce against unscrupulous deed theft—families who have held homes for generations cannot be displaced.
Finally, while affordability percentages were increased in the final package, the city’s income-targeted mandates remain flawed at their foundations. This is a federal failure—as I have written in the past, Annual Median Income is calculated using far too wide a map—including suburban counties to set so-called “affordable” housing rates that are completely out of reach for the New Yorkers most in need of homes. A federal re-calculation of AMI, centered on our city, is vital for a long-term strategy that recognizes the reality in our streets, not the hypothetical on a spreadsheet
No measure, no singular vote, will solve the housing crisis that has been building for decades. Addressing housing insecurity, affordability, and homelessness requires not just new construction, but a deconstruction of the root causes and foundational solutions. Only then can we build up our city in a way that lifts up New Yorkers and keeps them in their homes.
December 4th, 2024Press Release
With the City Council set to vote on the ‘City of Yes’ housing plan on Thursday, City Limits has published an op-ed from Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams on the ways in which the plan fits into an overall strategy for housing affordability, and how to go beyond it, entitled ‘How Can New York Be a City of ‘Yes, And?’ In the piece, the Public Advocate questions what comes next after the plan passes.
As the Public Advocate points out, “No measure, no singular vote, will solve the housing crisis that has been building for decades. Addressing housing insecurity, affordability, and homelessness requires not just new construction, but a deconstruction of the root causes and foundational solutions. Only then can we build up our city in a way that lifts up New Yorkers and keeps them in their homes.”
Among the necessary steps put forward are holding developers to strict affordability standards, repairing and maintaining NYCHA, and working to bring tens of thousands of ‘warehoused’ vacant apartments back onto the market through enforcement. As the Public Advocate declares, “ We can’t build our way out of this crisis… Preservation, not merely construction, is an essential part of any serious housing strategy.”
“While the worst private landlords take housing off the market and make rents unaffordable, too often poor conditions in public housing make units unlivable,” he argues. “No amount of new units will address the housing crisis if New Yorkers simply cannot afford to move into them.”
Finally, the Public Advocate demands the administration commit to meaningful affordability policies rather than declare victory, that “This administration wants to trumpet the Council’s pending passage of ‘City of Yes’ as a win, but refuses to implement housing voucher expansion passed by the Council years ago. They are actively preventing the most immediate means of getting New Yorkers into permanent homes, while supporting record rent increases on regulated units.”
The full piece is available online here.