Last month, Mayor Michael Bloomberg created a firestorm when he told reporters, "There aren't many panhandlers left" on the subways.
Bloomberg expanded on this the following day when he suggested panhandling in general had also declined.
To advocates for the poor and the homeless, these comments only reinforced their view of the mayor as being out-of-touch. Joel Berg, executive director for the New York City Coalition Against Hunger was quoted as saying he would "love to live in whatever city the mayor lives in -- it's an entirely different one from the one that I and 8 million other New Yorkers live in."
Bloomberg's remarks came as his administration moves to eliminate Advantage, the city's controversial rent subsidy program designed to provide permanent housing for homeless families. The city has said it cannot afford the $140 million Advantage costs. It also has indicated that Advantage may have encouraged some people to claim to be homeless in order to get city aid.
While advocates for the homeless have long criticized Advantage, they worry about what, if anything, will replace it. "Right now, the Bloomberg administration has no policy for helping homeless families move from shelters to permanent housing. And Mayor Bloomberg is the only NYC mayor since modern homelessness began not to have such a policy," Patrick Markee, senior policy analyst for the Coalition for the Homeless said in an email.
The city, though, says its policy focuses on families before they go into shelter. "We will continue to emphasize linkage to employment and services to employment” as the most effective way to prevent homelessness from occurring in the first place," Commissioner for Homeless Services Seth Diamond said.
The mayor's executive budget calls for a 6 percent cut in homeless services, including the elimination of the Advantage program. This will total $22 million in savings, Diamond said in recent testimony before the City Council’s Finance and General Welfare Committees. City Council may be able to restore some of those services as it has done in the past.
In the meantime, though, the courts have stepped in. Last week, a state appellate court ruled the city must continue the Advantage program until September, when it issues a final decision in the case. While recipients expressed relief, the administration criticized the court's action. "At a time when the city is already forced to make major cuts due to the state budget," Diamond said in a statement, "we will now have to shoulder a new bill of $15 million each month that we simply cannot afford, which will mean more cuts to other city services."
The effort to eliminate Advantage along with cutbacks and changes in other programs, basically leaves the city with very few tools left to combat homelessness beyond placing people in shelter.
Meanwhile homelessness in the city remains monumentally high. By the end of February, the nightly census of homeless adults and children in the municipal shelter system -- 39,542 people -- reached the highest point ever recorded. While some figures show the number of homeless families has declined slightly, the number of homeless single adults in municipal shelters has soared to the highest levels since the late 1980s, and the number of homeless single women in the shelter system has reached the highest point since the city has kept records, according to the coalition's State of the Homeless 2011.
The city's effort to cut Advantage leaves the approximately 15,000 households who were enrolled in Advantage -- and thousands more who had been accepted into Advantage but had not started the program -- basically out of luck. In March, Diamond sent a letter to local real estate brokers to inform them no new Advantage enrollees would be accepted.
With these vouchers, recipients had to pay 30 percent of their monthly income in rent for the first year and 40 percent for the second year, with the city making up the rest. Families could receive vouchers for no more than two years. Advantage working families have average rents of around $1,000 a month and average incomes of around $1,100 amonth.
Annabel Palma, who chairs the City Council's general welfare committee, said enrollees were reporting back to her they had been told by their case workers to "rip [their Advantage voucher] up and throw it out."
State Assemblymember James Brennansaid the city should have made plans for the funding shortage. In the state budget "New York City took tough hits," that Brennan said he believes were "a little unfair, ... but the city's been unrealistic, the writing was on the wall a year ago."
The city's decisions leave the homeless with few places to go. For years, homeless families could turn to federal programs for assistance. But in 2004, that changed as the Bloomberg administration unveiled an ambitious five-year plan called Uniting for Solutions Beyond Shelter, which was supposed to cut homelessness by two thirds within 10 years. Linda Gibbs, the current deputy mayor who was once commissioner for Homeless Services, is widely believed to have been behind the decision -- part of the 2004 program -- to cut off the homeless from federal housing assistance like Section 8 vouchers.
The city also stopped making units in projects run by the New York City Housing Authority available to the homeless. This continues to be the prevailing policy.
Administration officials have frequently expressed concern that opening Section 8 vouchers or NYCHA apartments to the homeless would crowd out other low-income New Yorkers. “Most New Yorkers work every day," and must pay their rent without any subsidy, Diamond said.
"NYCHA units are for people in the communities, not people in shelters," he has said.
Furthermore, Diamond said, "The reality is that there is no Section 8 available," and years-long waiting lists for NYCHA.
Markee countered the city could indeed place homeless families into housing authority buildings or get federal housing vouchers for them. "All that DHS has to do to move homeless families to NYCHA public housing is refer their names to the top of the waiting list, as was done for nearly 20 years under four mayors," he emailed. "We advocate that the city allocate one third of those resources -- roughly 2,000 public housing apartments -- to help homeless families leave shelters."
The city housing authority has some 180,000 apartments. It expects to admit about 5,800 new families over the course of the year. Currently, 144,00 and 120,000 people are awaiting public housing and Section 8 vouchers, respectively.
As to the Section 8 vouchers, Markee confirmed none are currently available for the homeless or anyone else. He expressed hope "there may be vouchers available in 2012 and beyond depending on the economy and budget decisions made by Congress." However, given Congress' efforts to slash spending, that seems unlikely.
Markee said the state would like the city to once again let the homeless participate in federal programs. Gov. Andrew Cuomo "is behaving differently" from previous governors, Markee said. "He gets what needs to happen and the best way is [through] federal housing programs" to combat homelessness.
Even if it had vouchers to distribute or vacant apartments in public housing, city officials say giving this help to a homeless family could entice some families who might otherwise be able to find a home on their own to become homeless.
Palma dismisses this notion. "I was homeless," she said. "I didn't wake up one morning and say to my son, 'Let's go be homeless and let's get a NYCHA apartment.' It’s not reality."
Last year, the city also reportedly cut some 200 eligible families from homeless prevention services called Homebase. According to its website, this "is a city-wide program designed to help families and individuals overcome immediate housing problems that could result in becoming homeless, and to develop a plan for long-term housing stability."
Advocates condemnedthe cutback as a cruel experiment by the city.
The administration, though, says the move was essential to evaluate the program's effectiveness. The city is "committed to enhancing Homebase," Diamond said in an inteview, but "there are questions about the program after the stimulus money goes away."
In addition, there are plans for some reductions to the homeless youth program operated by the Department of Youth and Community Development, according to recent testimony by Commissioner Jeanne Mullgray. After 10 rounds of budget cuts where this program remained intact, which "speaks to how valuable the program is," said the youth department's chief information officer, Andrew Doba, outreach and drop-in centers were slashed in December because the department's "focus has been to provide beds." The council was able to restore that funding.
Now, though, because of the state budget, the city plans to cut 14 beds out of approximately 200 in the FY2012 budget.
Meanwhile Diamond has supported the idea of having young mothers with children under 10 share apartments. Because this is currently illegal, city law must be changed to allow for this. The city Independent Budget Office reports this plan "would affect 2,560 homeless families … saving $4.5 million in city funds in 2012 and $9.1 million in future years."
Other than apartment sharing, if the city has an alternative to Advantage, it is a familiar one: shelters.
In his letter and in testimony, Diamond said the cuts in state support and resulting reductions in Advantage and other programs would compel the city to ultimately build 70 new homeless shelters.
While shelter costs are shared between the city, state and federal governments, the city bears sole responsibility for housing programs, such as Advantage, according to Diamond. "We need more of a shared responsibility," he said in an interview.
Markee, though said that already exists. "The state’s position was (and has been) that the City of New York, like other localities in New York State, should use some of its own housing resources (like public housing) to address the problem of homelessness. Then the state will help," he explained in an email. And, Markee added, the city always has the option to pay for Advantage in its entirety.
The city spends about $3,000 a month to keep a family in a shelter.
A recent Independent Budget Office analysis of the Mayor’s Preliminary Budget confirmed shelter use would probably increase with the elimination of Advantage. "It is likely that some … would be unable to pay their rent and would return to the shelter system if the program ends," the report said.
The office examined two different scenarios for 2012. If 30 percent of households now receiving Advantage had to return to emergency shelter, the analysis projected, spending on shelters would increase by $279 million or 40 percent above the amount now budgeted for fiscal year 2012. Of this, the city would be responsible for $115 million. The Independent Budget Office's other scenario had 70 percent of households return to shelter, ratcheting shelter spending up $455 million -- a 66 percent increase -- with the city bearing $188 million.
Palma, though, said she has not seen where the money for the shelters will come from. "Wouldn't it be cheaper to invest in permanent housing?" she asked.
To advocates, the latest shift in efforts to deal with homelessness represents a failed philosophy and marks the latest in a series of unsuccessful tactics.
The elimination of Advantage may be about more than money. Certainly the program did not dramatically decrease homelessness in the city. Last year, the Coalition for the Homeless issued a report documenting what it saw as the failure of programs such as Advantage, calling them "a revolving door back to shelter."
In general, Berg said, the administration suffers from a "fairly distorted notion." They think, he continued, that "at the root of the problem is behavior. … They see people in a vacuum…that homelessness is a personal failing," and do not consider the state of the economy.
Advantage and its predecessors failed because of poor planning, Palma said. When the city was creating "programs for the most vulnerable … it wasn’t including [the relevant] stakeholders at the table."
Palma emphasized, "The city has been intent on keeping people out … and creat[ing] obstacles."
As bad as Advantage was, Palma said, offering nothing is worse. "There is absolutely not a replacement in the pipeline," she said. Though the state is giving the city $15 million dollars to fight homelessness, Palma added, "it won't be to create a [new] rental subsidy program."
What it will be for, though, remains unclear.
At midnight on June 15 the state's rent laws, which keep thousands of apartments across the city affordable, will expire.
Tenant advocates didn't want to be here. They put their energy into lobbying the legislature and Gov. Andrew Cuomo to ensure rent regulation would be renewed and strengthened as part of a budget deal. It seemed for a moment that it might work: a property tax cap to get the support of the Republican Senate and a renewal of rent laws for Assembly Democrats. Democratic senators, including Sen. Liz Krueger, said they might not be able to vote for the budget without a renewal of rent laws. Cuomo said a property tax cap and rent laws might both be part of the deal.
But as quickly as hope came, it was gone. The budget was passed, and rent laws had not been renewed.
The fear is not that rent laws will completely expire -- although it is a possibility -- but that the laws will not be strengthened. Instead, advocates fear the laws will be weakened so that more apartments are taken off rent regulated housing rolls.
Now tenant advocates feel they have been left with no bargaining chip and have to hope that Cuomo is committed enough to bolstering the rent regulation. Cuomo has expressed his support for strengthening rent laws, but, like with many of his other policy positions, he has not made it exactly clear what he wants and how he means to get it.
"I think it is up to the governor and what he is going to do," said Michael McKee, treasurer of Tenant's PAC. "He said he supports rent laws, but he hasn't given us any specifics. And he has given away the best leverage we had. I think he is absolutely key -- unless he has a specific plan we are going to wake up on June 16 and we will be screwed."
McKee has very little reason to be optimistic. The best hope for strengthening rent laws was when Democrats had control of both houses of the legislature.
Thanks to former Sen. Pedro Espada and his position as the chair of the housing committee, advocates saw their efforts to strengthen laws for tenants and to preserve affordable housing die. It wasn't a surprise for them when video was leaked this year showing Joe Strasberg, president of the pro-landlord Rent Stabilization Association, praising Espada.
"The guy who saved this industry was Pedro Espada," said Strasburg in a clip on YouTube, "and everybody makes fun of him because he's in litigation, but if it wasn't for him, this industry would have been hit on all those issues I just rattled off."
McKee wasn't shocked at all by Strasburg's comments. "Espada buried the chance over the last two years of getting stronger rent laws. He had some help, thanks to Carl Kruger and Jeff Klein," he said, adding that he felt Espada was basically "installed" as committee head by the real estate lobby.
And Strasberg's honesty about his relationship with Senate Republicans makes it even harder for McKee to believe that the Democratic majority in the Assembly can get rent laws strengthened without the support of the governor. "It's not that the Democrats are so great," said McKee. "It is that the Republicans are hopeless."
"We’re not ashamed of it. We gave and donated and supported all the Republicans,"said Strasberg on the YouTube video. "We basically emptied our piggy bank in order to make sure they capture the Senate. Dean Skelos understands how important we are as an industry -- and it's selfish -- but he understands clearly that if he doesn’t hurt us or he tries to avoid hurting us, we will be there for him next time around, two years from now."
According to McKee, it would be a win for the real estate lobby to have the rent laws re-approved as they are. But he expects Senate Republicans to try to draw the process out until the last minute and try to force the Assembly to accept a bill that actually weakens them.
"We cannot win by pressuring Republican senators. We can't count to 32 in the Senate. I think they will use the classic Republican strategy that Joe Bruno used: let the clock tick, people will get nervous and just before the deadline the Senate will pass a weakened bill, send it to the Assembly and leave town." The only alternative McKee sees to this is for Cuomo to exert his political might and push for a repeal of vacancy decontrol so that rent-controlled apartments aren't taken off the rolls.
Assemblyman Vito Lopez, a supporter of stronger rent laws, says he sees other options. "We have two out of three houses supporting stronger rent laws. We have the first governor to come out strongly for rent regulation and enhancements. Has he been specific? No. But we are in negotiations now on a property tax cap, ethics, and those may be coupled together to work out a compromise."
Some legislators say a push by tenant advocacy groups to include rent regulation in the budget was misguided. Now that the budget is out of the way, they need to redouble their efforts to make sure their concerns are heard while other key issues are being debated.
McKee said that he wants it to be clear to legislators that this is not an issue simply for current tenants; it is also an issue for future generations. "Preserving affordable housing is an issue for the future so that the next generation can afford to live in the city. When we lose an apartment to deregulation it is gone. It's not coming back."
In the days leading up to and immediately following Gov. Andrew Cuomo's inauguration, almost all attention has focused on what Cuomo might do to fix the state's budget woes and clean up Albany. The governor's stands on other issues have received far less scrutiny, and that includes his position on the status of the state's largest affordable housing program -- rent regulation.
2011 will be a big year for New York's tenants, especially for those living in rent- stabilized apartments. On June 15, the state laws governing rent regulations -- which primarily affect New York City -- will expire unless the legislature and governor successfully broker a deal to renew them. Along with limits on some rents, these regulations give tenants the right to renew their leases and protect them against eviction without legal cause, and ensure services.
Cuomo takes office at a particularly turbulent and risky time for housing in the state as New York suffers the fallout from years of predatory lending and the collapse of the housing market. Although Cuomo once served as U.S. housing secretary and has run a housing nonprofit, he has given little indication of what he might do about this crucial issue. The stakes, though, are undeniably high.
Approximately 1 million apartments in the city fall under the protections of rent stabilization. Another 40,000 city homes are rent-controlled, which is an older -- and some would say more draconian--version of tenant protections. Brooklyn City Councilmember Jumaane Williams, a former tenant organizer, said he is "very worried about the expiration of rent laws. ... I couldn't imagine [the] whole scenario -- I don't know what New York City would look like" without rent regulations in place.
Under the rent stabilization system, the city's Rent Guidelines Board oversees rent adjustments on such apartments. The board itself is a bit of a hot potato as the mayor appoints all nine members without input or approval from the City Council. The Rent Guidelines Board has never not voted in favor of rent increases since its inception in 1980.
Williams said he is "waiting for someone in leadership to really champion the issue …[but I] haven't seen it."
This weekend, rent protection finally seemed to get notice. The Daily News reported that State Assembly Democrats -- the faction in the legislature most supportive of rent regulation -- could demand a strengthening of these protections in return for backing a cap on property taxes, something that Cuomo and many Republican legislators clearly want.
"If we are doing something with real property tax reform, which affects most areas not the City of New York, then the correlating issue for standard of living is affordability of apartments in New York City and that issue should be addressed as well," Assembly Majority Leader Ron Canestrari of Albany told the paper.
Cuomo, though, rejected the link. " My approach is going to be to deal with these individual issues on their own merits," he told reporters. Cuomo has indicated he favors extension of the rent laws, but has not said whether he would support strengthening them or other changes.
Mario Mazzoni, director at the Metropolitan Council on Housing said, when it comes to housing and tenant issues, the new governor's "platform has been extremely vague and it seems intentionally so. ... It's clearly strategic.”
Many tenant advocates see a need for government to become more actively involved in creating and maintaining affordable housing. The unregulated go-go mentality of the financial world and predatory lending practices during the housing boom have placed rental buildings at risk of foreclosure, leaving many families facing possible eviction or living in apartments where landlords no longer provide essential services.
This "same dilemma" could sooner face middle-income Mitchell Lama rentals, according to Manhattan State Sen. Liz Krueger, although a recent court ruling preserving rent regulation at those apartments may give tenants hope.
Throughout New York City, Krueger said, people who were ill-equipped and "ill-prepared" to own buildings had "fantasies" about making a killing on peoples homes and then bought properties at inflated prices they could not afford. She pointed to the example of Vantage Properties which "went into real estate with a business model, little experience and [the thought they could] increase profits dramatically...by throw[ing] out rent-regulated apartments." Such avarice, the senator said, "fed into predatory lending, which rolled into the economy."
As a result, Cuomo, Krueger said, "inherits an unresolved huge public policy [issue] ... the impact on NYC is literally overwhelming."
Krueger, who was the ranking member of the housing, construction and community development committeeagreed Cuomo "has kept his positions close to the vest. ... I hope he has an aggressive agenda."
She does not necessarily infer anything significant from Cuomo's silence. He has a history of working on housing and homelessness issues, she pointed out.
In 1986 Cuomo created Housing Enterprise for the Less Privileged, now one of the country’s largest builders/operators of affordable housing linked to support services. Connecting support services, such as counseling, with housing as a means to eradicate homelessness was considered groundbreaking at the time.
Cuomo joined the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in 1992 as an assistant secretary for community development and became HUD secretary in 1996. Cuomo was generally credited with reforming what was once regarded as a grossly mismanaged agency. Overall, Cuomo’s HUD record is considered to be mixed.
Despite this background, advocates find some aspects of Cuomo's track record quite worrisome. Before his election as state attorney general in 2006, Cuomo worked for controversial business/real estate impresario Andrew Farkas and his company, Island Capital Group.
Then there are the massive contributions from the industry to help fund his run for governor. According to the New York Times, real estate interests were Cuomo's biggest donors over the previous three years, accounting for more than 15 percent of what he raised between 2007 and last spring.
Of particular interest is the vast amount donated in 2010 -- more than $150,000 -- by the family of Jerry Speyer, all high-level executives at Tishman-Speyer Properties. Tishman is one of the companies that excessively overpaid and then defaulted on Stuyvesant Town/Peter Cooper Village, the multi-building Manhattan housing complex created in 1943 to provide affordable housing in more than 11,000 once rent-regulated apartments. The complex was turned over to creditors last year. In the process, the fiasco has become the poster child against real estate speculation and predatory lending.
Cuomo, recent articles say, has turned to real estate interests to raise money for a planned public campaign over the budget and against the state's public employee unions. "Business and real estate executives intend to raise $10 million in the coming weeks in support of Gov.-elect Andrew M. Cuomo's looming showdown with government employees unions over wages and pensions," the New York Times reported.
The director and founder of TenantNet, John Fisher, was blunt: "Andrew Cuomo is basically a creature of the real estate industry. ... He's completely bought by developers and landlords."
Frank Ricci, director of government affairs for the Rent Stabilization Association, a landlord group, agreed it is unclear where Cuomo comes down on housing issues. "It's early," Ricci said.
On its website, the group takes credit for what many tenants consider to be the massive weakening of regulations in 1997. "Our long-term lobbying efforts in the State Legislature and the City Council resulted in the greatest benefits for property owners in the history of rent law negotiations including permanent, realistic vacancy allowances, deposit of rent in court and a strict four year statute of limitations," it reads.
If history can serve as a guide, the real estate industry will spend and lobby lavishly to push its agenda -- including the demise of rent laws. In 2003, Common Cause-NY released Connect the Dots, a report on money in the state's politics. It found, "On top of making large campaign contributions, RSA and REBNY (the Real Estate Board of New York) each have spent over half a million dollars lobbying in the capital since 1999. ... Both organizations consistently report lobbying on rent regulations throughout this period. In total, they spent nearly $1.2 million lobbying in Albany from 1999 to date."
Real estate interests donated approximately a half million dollars to both senate campaign committees of parties between January and July 2010.
Asked about this, Ricci said he would give his customary response to all press inquiries into the matter, that the Rent Stabilization Association has been “meticulous about campaign finance on disclosures."
Over the years, real estate interests been key supporters of Senate Republicans in particular, and the return of the Senate to GOP hands almost certainly bodes well for the real estate industry.
Though there were a few accomplishments -- such as cracking down on illegal hotel conversions and strengthening the rights of regulated tenants whose building is in foreclosure -- during their two years in control of the senate, Democrats disappointed many tenant advocates.
To their dismay, the leadership did not make Krueger head of the housing committee, instead choosing Sen. Pedro Espada who was instrumental in the coup that held up Albany in 2009 . Upon assuming the chair, Espada blocked reforms already passed in the Assembly and introduced legislation many housing activists considered a "Trojan horse," misleadingly friendly to tenants but harmful to them in the long run. Espada, who was defeated for re-election, now faces various criminal and civil charges.
Coincidentally, or not, the Observer has reported, the real estate industry gave $290,000 to the Senate Democratic Campaign Committee in the first half of 2010.
In his campaign policy book, Urban Agenda, Cuomo remains silent on rent regulations. The policy book emphasizes the state's need to take advantage of existing federal programs to create affordable housing and spur community development.
It also calls for supporting foreclosure prevention services, and the creation of land banks "to assemble, manage and dispose of vacant land in order to stabilize neighborhoods to encourage re-use or redevelopment of urban property."
Perhaps of the greatest relevance to tenants and owners alike, the Urban Agenda devotes considerable space to the matter of "over-leveraged properties." It calls for the state Mortgage Insurance Fund "to provide credit insurance for refinancing of affordable units" and to work "with bank regulatory agencies to encourage lenders to ...participate in this kind of restructuring process" to save homes and stave off foreclosures.
Beyond that, the book barely discusses the preservation and maintenance of existing affordable homes and says nothing at all about the rent laws, which advocates say are key to keeping affordable apartments affordable. In fact, in his State of the State address last week, Cuomo never discussed the topic though Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said in his own remarks, “Let us work together to extend and to enhance the protections for these rent-controlled and rent-stabilized apartments so that New York's middle-class families will not find themselves priced out of their homes and communities."
Cuomo’s agenda also does not mention more specific issues regarding rent regulations, many of which have been pending legislation in Albany. That includes repealing vacancy decontrol, which allows landlord to remove some vacant apartment from rent regulations and the Urstadt Law, which bars the city from passing its own, more stringent rent regulations; Major Capital Improvement reform, and an increase in the maximum income tenants can have in order to keep stabilized rents.
Met Council's Mazzoni argued, that given Cuomo's "fiscal conservatism" and emphasis on making government work better for less, he should be at the forefront of strengthening rent laws. "All other affordable housing programs account for barely half the size of rent regulations" which costs the government very little," Mazzoni said. "Ending vacancy decontrol would accomplish more than future constructions of affordable housing."
Cuomo's agenda also omits mention of controversial tax abatement programs that have given developers huge -- though not necessarily permanent -- tax breaks to create small amounts of affordable units. These include the city’s J51 or the state's 421A programs and inclusionary zoning.
These programs do cost the state revenues, which could make them vulnerable in tough fiscal times. That would be fine with some tenant groups.
In a separate email, Mazzoni wrote, "We need to end the so-called affordable housing programs that are geared toward for-profit developers and landlords. It's extremely expensive and inefficient when the cost of running an affordable housing program includes subsidizing landlord profits. It also leaves these assets in the hands of entities whose goals are to maximize profits, not to provide decent housing to people who need it the most -- so they'll always be looking for loopholes to get out of their obligations."
One of Cuomo’s biggest issues during the campaign was to clean up Albany. He stressed that again in his State of the State speech. This could reduce the power of money by establishing public financing of campaigns, establishing low campaign contribution limits for lobbyists and eliminating so-called "pay-to-play" practices.
For Krueger, reform is the key to everything. "The most important is campaign finance, [fighting] abuses, the public interest versus the private interest of lobbyists, who have disproportionate power...[and] say in the legislature and in policy," she said. "I hope Andrew Cuomo is committed to challenging the status quo of lobbyists and funders as the state government."
Jillian Jonas is a freelance journalist focusing on local and national politics, government and public policy. She is a former national political analyst for U.P.I.