Gotham Gazette

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Housing

Housing

  • Requests for Emergency Rent Grants Fell During Pandemic, But Expected to Skyrocket When Evictions Resume

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    Tenants on edge amid eviction moratorium (photo: Edwin J. Torres/Mayor's Office)


    A city-run emergency grant program that helps keep people in their homes has seen fewer applications during the COVID-19 pandemic, seemingly due to a moratorium on evictions. But housing advocates worry that the program will be hard pressed to respond to a “tsunami of evictions” that is likely to follow once the moratorium ends, which could happen as early as next month.

    As the pandemic raged across New York City, more than a million people lost

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  • Max & Murphy Podcast: The Looming Eviction Disaster

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    The housing picture is tenuous (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)


    July 15, 2020 - Max & Murphy Podcast: The Looming Eviction Disaster

    Fitzroy Christian of CASA Bronx joined the show to discuss housing, rent, and the looming eviction disaster amid the coronavirus crisis that has devastated people and communities across New York on several fronts.

    Listen to the conversation and let us know what you think -- we're on Twitter @TweetBenMaxand ...

  • Cash Homebuyers Threaten Covid Recovery and Deepen Racial Wealth Gap

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    Photo


    An astonishing 11.3% of New York mortgage borrowers are behind on their mortgage, a 121% increase over the same time last year. That figure only hints at the economic pain being felt in New York and across the country, and pain that is being temporarily moderated by stopgap measures like forbearance plans and unemployment insurance, but threatens to bubble over into a full-blown housing crisis.

    In just two months, the federal foreclosure

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  • To Avert Massive Housing Crisis, We Need a Government Solution for Property Owners and Renters; Here’s a Roadmap

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    There's a looming housing crisis we must avoid (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


    The anxiety and concern driving the “cancel rent” movement is real and justified, but giving rent relief to those who don’t need it makes no sense. Something must be done for struggling renters, but those requesting relief should be asked to provide financial information backing up their request and those that need it should receive it.

    However, canceling rent without subsidizing the lost rental income to property owners will only make matters worse. Without rental

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  • It’s Actually the Perfect Time for City Government to Invest in Housing

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    Mayor de Blasio makes a housing announcement (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)


    In the wake of the economic devastation caused by the coronavirus shutdown, Mayor de Blasio must find budget savings anywhere he can, while still advancing his mission to make New York “the fairest big city” in America.  

    It won’t be easy. But the sudden drop in tax revenue should not stop the mayor from continuing to make one smart investment: creating new affordable housing.

    With the pandemic exposing the full extent of the city’s homeless crisis, now is

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  • Expand ‘Right to Counsel’ to Protect Our Families and Small Businesses from Homelessness and Financial Ruin

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    Small businesses are closed or on the brink across the city (photo: William Alatriste/City Council)


    The day after the 90-day moratorium on eviction ends, residential and commercial eviction proceedings will potentially flood our courts, leaving families and small businesses gasping for air. 

    Amid this pandemic, it is imperative that New York City expands the Right to Counsel law by increasing legal capacity to meet the inevitable COVID-19 eviction demand, and, building on this model, establish a new initiative to provide free legal

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  • Renters are Facing an Unprecedented Emergency; We Need a Federal Answer, Not a Rent Strike

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    An economic crisis is upon us (photo: Edwin J. Torres/Mayor's Office)


    For millions of American families, making rent each month is a familiar struggle: last October, a new analysis found that half of American renters were spending more than they could afford on monthly rent payments. But now, with the COVID-19 pandemic ushering in a new economic crisis and the real unemployment rate at ...

  • Our Patients Need Medically-Appropriate Shelter, During Coronavirus Outbreak and Always

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    (photo: John McCarten/City Council)


    What happens when a historic pandemic collides with an unprecedented housing crisis? The inextricable link between housing and health is now more apparent than ever as doctors both care for critically ill patients with the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, and simultaneously scramble to make plans for the most vulnerable in our society who simply have no place to isolate.

    Only a few weeks into this crisis, we have seen numerous patients recuperating from COVID-19 who linger for days in the hospital because of their need for

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  • The Coronavirus Crisis Demands a Federal Emergency Housing Response

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    Keeping people in their homes is of the essence, the author writes (photo Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office


    The federal response to the economic crisis just over a decade ago swiftly bailed out banks and other financial institutions, but left far too many struggling families in the lurch. It was too little, too late. This was devastatingly true for black families, whose home-ownership rates dropped from 50% to 42%, representing an enormous loss of generational wealth.

    We must respond differently this time to ensure that homeowners hold onto their homes and apartment building

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  • Health and Housing are Inextricably Linked; My Patients Need Home Stability Support

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    A push for a new state homelessness-housing voucher continues (photo: John McCarten/City Council)


    As a doctor in the hospital, I bear witness to some of the most severe downstream effects of health inequity in our community. In my field, I care for any person who presents to the emergency room and is then deemed too sick to be discharged. Through years of clinical service, I have come to appreciate housing as the most vital component of a person’s ability to stay well.

    More recently, research surrounding individuals experiencing homelessness has

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  • New York Must Halt Evictions Amid Coronavirus Pandemic

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    People need secure housing for themselves & others (photo: Benjamin Kanter/Mayoral Photo Office)


    No one is immune to the novel coronavirus: The World Health Organization recently declared the outbreak a pandemic, Governor Andrew Cuomo declared a state of emergency, and the congressional doctor reportedly expects up to 150 million citizens to be infected.

    Do you know who is most vulnerable to COVID-19? Health professionals have identified people who are elderly and sick as particularly at risk, but we must not forget those who are poor or

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  • 5 Steps to Properly Combat Housing Discrimination in New York

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    (photo: Edwin J. Torres/ Mayoral Photography Office)


    The landmark report on housing discrimination on Long Island recently published by Newsday requires action by government and the real estate industry in the region but also in Albany and statewide. The rampant discrimination revealed is not limited to Long Island and displays a dramatic failure by New York State government that must be corrected.

    Newsday’s three-year

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  • Lessons from Amazon 'HQ2': Corporate Tax Incentives and Affordable Housing Need to be a Package Deal

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    The planned Amazon site (photo: Kevin P. Coughlin/Governor's Office)


    This week marks the one-year anniversary of Amazon’s contentious withdrawal from its Long Island City plans. Meanwhile, the construction of 'HQ2’ is making steady progress in Arlington County, Virginia, and

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  • Max & Murphy Podcast: Taking Stock of City Housing & Neighborhood Development Policies

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    (photo: Ed Reed/Office of Mayor Bill de Blasio)


    January 15, 2020 - Max & Murphy Podcast: Taking Stock of City Housing & Neighborhood Development Policies

    matt murphy 150Matthew Murphy, executive director of NYU's Furman Center and a former city housing official, joined the show to discuss the city's housing and neighborhood rezoning policies, and the larger housing context.

    Listen to

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  • What’s Really Been Missing from the Democratic Presidential Debate Stage

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    (photo: NYCHA)


    Another Democratic presidential primary debate is now behind us, and once again not a single question has been asked about how our next President will address one of the federal government’s biggest failures of the last half-century – the neglect and divestment in our nation’s public housing.

    Candidates across the board are developing new and exciting progressive policies that have energized the Democratic electorate (including many around affordable housing). But this central issue of restoring public housing, once a

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  • A Well-Meaning But Misguided Housing Proposal

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    Council Member Salamanca (photo: John McCarten/City Council)


    A year ago, a homeless woman confronted Mayor de Blasio during his gym workout in Park Slope to ask why the city doesn’t set aside more apartments for homeless people. The incident and a video of it in which the mayor refused to talk with the woman, Nathylin Flowers Adesegun, were widely ...

  • How 2020 Can Be the Year of the Homeowner in New York

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    (photo: the governor's office)


    This year New York state government passed historic housing affordability reforms achieved by the pro-tenant Housing Stability and Tenant Protections Act of 2019, but a truly equitable approach to the state’s affordable housing landscape requires opportunities for working families to build equity. Now it is time for Albany to address the long-neglected affordable ownership sector of the housing continuum by passing a

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  • As New NYCHA Chair Takes Over, the Future of Public Housing Hangs in the Balance

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    Chair Gregory Russ visiting a NYCHA complex (photo: @NYCHA)


    “These first few months of our work have revealed NYCHA as an organization fraught with serious problems in structure, culture, and direction, and perhaps even worse,” wrote Bart Schwartz, the new federal monitor of the city’s public housing authority, in his first progress report, released July 22.

    Three weeks later, this past Monday, Gregory Russ arrived in Manhattan for his first day of work as NYCHA’s new Chair and CEO, with an enormous task in front of him.

    NYCHA’s short- and long-term futures

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  • An Old, Unfair System: New York City’s Property Tax Conundrum - Part II - Deep and Complex Inequities

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    (photo: Edwin J. Torres/ Mayor's Office)


    This is part two of a three-part series. Read part one - Taking on the Difficult Task - here. (Skip to part three - The City's Bottom Line - here.)

    Elected officials and their critics alike have decried the complexity and inequality of the state’s property tax system.

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  • What's The [Data] Point? 5, with former Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen

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    What's The [Data] Point? Episode 69 -- 5, with former Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen[You can download What's The [Data] Point? wherever you get your podcasts, including on iTunes]

    Alicia Glen was Deputy Mayor for Housing and Economic Development under Mayor Bill de Blasio for more than five years, until she recently left the administration after being the chief architect of its signature affordable housing plan, a broad variety of economic development initiatives, and more. Glen joined the podcast (for the second

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  • Private Sector Failure Requires NYCHA’s Preservation

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    (photo: Mayor's Office)


    Many New Yorkers likely wonder why Mayor de Blasio wants to spend $24 billion on saving the aging towers of the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA). Much of this public housing consists of plain brick towers, which the city built rapidly from the 1930s to the 1960s, in a dated “towers in the park” design, now worn down from decades of hard use. In Singapore and much of Europe, government policy has targeted public housing of this age and type for billions in spending to remake projects to match changing urban tastes, family size, and

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  • As Affordability Crisis Becomes More Acute, Real Estate Donations Emerge as Litmus Test for Some Democrats

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    Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez & Zephyr Teachout (photo: Gotham Gazette)


    This is part of AGENDA 2019, a joint Gotham Gazette-City Limits project
    Find the rest of the series here

    Queens City Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer ...

  • Max & Murphy Podcast: Homelessness & Affordable Housing Development

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    Ben Max, left, of Gotham Gazette, and Jarrett Murphy, right, of City Limits


    November 28, 2018 - Max & Murphy Podcast: Homelessness & Affordable Housing Development

    This is part of AGENDA 2019, a joint Gotham Gazette-City Limits project
    Find the rest of the series

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  • The Mayor and Governor Found Amazon a New Home Right Down the Street from My Shelter

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    (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


    The red carpet has been rolled out and Mayor de Blasio and Governor Cuomo are giddily holding open the doors: Jeff Bezos and Amazon are coming to town, for the low price of $3 billion, a helipad, and prime real estate in Queens. For years, homeless activists have pressed the mayor and governor to invest resources and political will to tackle the historic crisis of homelessness plaguing both our city and state. Instead, they partnered in selling out taxpayers and sidelining politicians to make the Amazon deal a

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  • To Make New York City More Affordable, End the Cap on Density

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    (Benjamin Kanter/Mayoral Photo Office)


    New York’s severe housing crisis can be traced to a simple fact—our city doesn’t have enough homes for the people who want to live here. The shortage has led to ever-increasing rents, the steady displacement of long-standing communities, and levels of homelessness not seen since the Great Depression. To put it bluntly, we need to build more homes. Lots of them. Affordable and market rate. Yesterday.

    One senseless obstacle to new housing is a statewide cap on the density of new

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