Council Member Rivera, one of the co-authors, at a CLT rally (photo: John McCarten/NYC Council)

In the midst of a persistent housing crisis, there are tens of thousands of rent-stabilized apartment units sitting vacant across New York City, as speculators and unscrupulous landlords contribute to scarcity and a lack of affordability. 

In March 2021, The Real Deal reported that landlords had removed over 1,800 apartment listings in Manhattan alone, a number three times higher than in February 2020, and that they were leaving them empty in response to the 2019 Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act passed in Albany, which was intended to strengthen tenant protections and make the housing market more fair. At a time when 50% of New Yorkers do not earn enough to meet their basic needs, and when about 30% of families are spending more than half of their income on rent, we have an obligation to ensure every habitable housing unit is online. New Yorkers don’t need more luxury development -- we need affordable housing and spaces that meet the needs of our communities. 

Nonprofits and Community Land Trusts (CLTs) provide an alternative for housing development that puts community needs first by prioritizing people over profits. The Community Land Act (CLA) is an urgently-needed City Council bill package that would increase opportunities for CLTs and nonprofits to acquire land, remove housing from the speculative market, build new deeply and permanently affordable housing, and enhance public input on public space. 

One fundamental pillar of the legislative package is the Community Opportunity to Purchase Act (COPA). For decades, landlords and private equity have leveraged their market power to buy rent-stabilized buildings, seeking to deregulate units, and ultimately gaining profits as working class New Yorkers feel cornered financially dealing with increasing prices and reduced availability. COPA seeks to increase the stock and would require that qualified and eligible nonprofits are notified of sales and provided with the opportunity to submit the first offer matching any competing offers for the property.

This legislation has been implemented in other localities to discourage displacement of legacy residents and to strengthen tenants’ bargaining power. Given the demand on land and housing in New York City, we ought to be intentional in stewarding development in a way that meets the needs of our communities for generations. 

CLTs like the Bronx CLT, founded by NWBCCC, have a long history of amplifying tenant associations’ power to take over buildings when landlords sell and are a critical leader in the fight for permanent affordable developments. When the Council helped secure a new Council Initiative to fund organizing for CLTs building on the work of community-based organizations in El Barrio, Port Morris, East New York, and Cooper Square, the $850,000 went directly toward community organizing in order to maintain, develop, and incubate CLTs throughout the city, resulting in an expansion of affordable properties. Even more groups are poised to benefit from COPA when it passes — right now, East New York CLT and Brooklyn Level Up are
working with tenants to negotiate acquisitions of their buildings.

Another critical piece of legislation in the package is the bill to mandate Public Land for Public Good. It will finally ensure that in the city dispossession process related to public land, CLTs and nonprofit developers are prioritized over for-profit developers. New York City nonprofits and CLTs have a proven track record of reaching deeper and longer-term affordability levels, and add additional benefits like community control, permanent affordability, and long-term stewardship.

Our communities have reaped the benefits that result when public land is developed by organizations with deep ties to the community. 

In Council Member Rivera’s district, the Cooper Square CLT, which took on an urban renewal plan pushed by Robert Moses at its inception, is the oldest active CLT in New York City, with a portfolio of over 22 affordable buildings. They are core to the work of protecting and empowering tenants on the East Side of Manhattan. 

At the Broadway Triangle in Council Member Restler’s district in North Brooklyn, land was transferred to Unified Neighborhood Partners, made up of local nonprofits St. Nicks Alliance, Riseboro, Los Sures, UJO, and Mega Contracting. That development will result in 390 units of permanently affordable housing, and permits the development of landscaped open space, a workforce development center, a shared community center space, and a coffee shop with youth employment programming.

Too often public land is sold to for-profit developers for unimaginably low costs, resulting in rental rates that lead to displacement and financial stress. These projects aren’t solving our housing crisis -- they’re often adding to it -- and New York City should not be in the business of selling public land at steeply discounted costs to for-profit developers when we know that CLTs will bring meaningful, much needed affordable housing to our neighborhoods. 

We must pass the Community Land Act to ensure we are giving these organizations every possible opportunity to build more housing and address NYC’s worsening affordability crisis.

***
City Council Members Carlina Rivera and Lincoln Restler represent parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn, respectively. On Twitter @CarlinaRivera & @LincolnRestler.

Mayor Adams overdose reversal treatment (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)

New York City’s overdose crisis has reached historic levels: 2,668 people died of drug overdoses in 2021, a 78% increase since 2019. As with many public health crises, the impacts are uneven. People with a lower income are more than twice as likely to die of an opioid overdose compared to more affluent groups. And last month, the CDC reported that Black Americans are dying of fentanyl overdoses at significantly higher rates than other communities.

As someone with lived experience with substance use, I know that harm reduction is far more helpful than the failed War on Drugs and telling people to “just say no.” Harm reduction is often misunderstood or stigmatized, but it has been shown to reduce the risk of infections and overdose. By meeting people where they are and helping them reach their goals, this approach ensures individuals who use drugs are treated with dignity and respect—not judgment.

I am also a manager at Alliance for Positive Change’s Lower East Side Harm Reduction Center, and I see every day how the tools and resources we provide are helping people. The good news is that harm reduction is starting to become more widely accepted. A big step in the right direction was the FDA’s recent approval of over-the-counter sale of Narcan, which will go into effect this summer. Getting this safe and easy-to-use overdose reversal medication into the hands of more people will certainly save lives.

However, barriers to accessing Narcan will persist. People who do not have the resources to purchase the drug will likely continue to face challenges obtaining it. It remains to be seen whether over-the-counter Narcan will be covered by private and public insurance plans, and regardless, it may still be inaccessible to those who are uninsured. Also, not everyone will feel comfortable going into a pharmacy and purchasing Narcan due to fear of being judged.

Community-based harm reduction organizations like Alliance for Positive Change can help to break down these barriers. In addition to providing free support, harm reduction organizations have spent years building trust with participants, so they feel comfortable coming to us for Narcan. We also go further than a pharmacy can, providing fentanyl testing strips, individual and group counseling, syringe exchange services, and more.

Our resources are in great demand: last month, we saw a record number of participants, and handed out a record number of fentanyl test strips.

Local and federal leaders should build upon the momentum of Narcan’s over-the-counter approval and invest in organizations that offer no-cost, nonjudgmental harm reduction resources in communities most impacted by the overdose crisis. It will save lives.

***
Joel Teron is a harm reduction manager at Alliance for Positive Change’s LES Harm Reduction Center. On Twitter @thealliance_nyc.

The People's Money in action (Civic Engagement Commission)

Not everyone knows this about Mayor Eric Adams: he is the first Mayor in the City of New York to give every New Yorker, ages 11 and up, regardless of citizenship, a direct say in how to spend a part of the city budget. This is New York City’s first citywide participatory budgeting program, run by the Civic Engagement Commission (CEC), and it builds on the Mayor’s legacy of supporting participatory budgeting in schools and Council districts in Brooklyn.

Here are four key reasons for New Yorkers to participate:

First, citywide participatory budgeting prioritizes the lived experience of every day New Yorkers, and it lets residents lead on solutions to the most pressing problems in their communities.

Community voice has been central for each step of the process. Over 12,000 New Yorkers came together in small groups to generate more than 4,000 proposals for solutions to problems such as public safety, youth development, and mental health. A volunteer group of New Yorkers then came together in assembly committees to carefully review these ideas and they created ballots for each borough and each of the 33 equity neighborhoods designated by the city as hardest hit by COVID-19.

Now, New Yorkers are invited to choose which proposals they want to see in their boroughs and neighborhoods. The funding for implementation will go back into the community, to organizations that will complete the winning projects. 

Second, the program is grounded in dignity and equity for groups that deserve more voice in decision making, and better service from government.

The CEC divided Mayor Adams’ commitment of $5 million across the boroughs based on poverty level and population size. It also gave $50,000 to each of the 33 equity neighborhoods, so that residents will vote on projects both for their neighborhood and their borough. Partnerships with community-based organizations will ensure that youth, seniors, people with disabilities, veterans, public housing residents, justice-impacted individuals and families, faith communities, and people who self-identify as LGBTQIA receive special outreach.

Paper ballots are available for those who may not have access to vote online. Translated ballots are available for New Yorkers with limited English proficiency. And there are no geographic barriers to participation by borough, council district or neighborhood.  

Third, New Yorkers will see fast results of their engagement.

Once the vote period is completed by Sunday, June 25, projects receiving the most votes will be announced in July for each borough and the 33 neighborhoods. Community-based organizations will lead the implementation phase and complete winning projects by June 30, 2024. 

And finally, it’s a moment to celebrate that our democratic system works.

The reason New York City is implementing participatory budgeting citywide is because voters asked for it in 2018 as part of the charter revision process. New Yorkers wanted a direct voice in shaping the city budget, and they were confident in their own ability to influence critical spending decisions.

Paying close attention to moments when democracy is working is important because democracy is a living, breathing relationship between people and government; giving attention to the successful parts of the relationship will help democracy to flower and thrive.  

To participate in citywide participatory budgeting, go to on.nyc.gov/pb to vote online.

You can also vote on a paper ballot at in-person voting sites around the city such as local libraries and community organizations.

Encourage your family, friends, colleagues, and neighbors to also vote. Participatory budgeting is for you, and when you add your voice, you will help make inclusive democracy even more real.

***
Dr. Sarah Sayeed is Chair & Executive Director of the New York City Civic Engagement Commission. On Twitter @SarahSayeedNYC & @NYCCEC.

CUNY graduates (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)

There is perhaps no institution in our city that has done more to create economic opportunity for New Yorkers than the City University of New York (CUNY). For generations, CUNY has provided its students with the tools they need to build a brighter financial future for themselves and their families. Yet today, CUNY finds itself at a financial crossroads. Steep budget cuts threaten the programs that are most effective at helping students earn a degree.

To ensure that far more New Yorkers from low-income backgrounds can succeed in the city’s fast-changing economy, policymakers should prioritize fully funding CUNY.

The stakes for New York are clear. A 2023 report from the Center for An Urban Future found that over 60% of jobs posted in New York City in 2022 required a bachelor’s degree — with these jobs offering a median starting salary of $79,800, compared with a median salary of $42,900 for jobs that don’t. 

As industries with a large share of accessible jobs, such as retail and hospitality, struggle to recover from the pandemic, helping more New Yorkers obtain well-paying jobs will require new efforts to close the city’s alarming college attainment gaps. Just 25% of Hispanic New Yorkers, 30% of Black New Yorkers, and 49% of Asian New Yorkers hold a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared to 68% of white New Yorkers. 

Investing in CUNY isn’t just a win for students, it’s vital for the economic security of New York City and State. CUNY graduates earned $57 billion and paid an estimated $4.2 billion in New York State income taxes in 2019, according to an analysis by the office of New York City Comptroller Brad Lander. Nearly 80% of graduates stay in the city when they’re done with their studies, and CUNY has educated approximately 10% of the state’s private-sector workforce. 

Despite the essential role CUNY plays in creating economic opportunity, it faces a difficult financial picture. The end of federal pandemic aid, coupled with declining tuition revenue and city-imposed cuts, means that CUNY stands to see a net budget cut of $140.9 million in fiscal year 2024. This gap could widen even further if tuition revenue continues to decline.

Alarmingly, many of the programs jeopardized by these cuts are delivering phenomenal results. The Accelerated Study in Associate’s Programs (ASAP) initiative has become the most effective program in the nation for increasing community college graduation rates with intensive advisement, scholarships, and other supports that help students finish on-time. The Accelerate, Complete, and Engage (ACE) program has similarly boosted graduation rates by 40% at CUNY’s four-year colleges, although restricted funding has limited that program to serving just 3% of all eligible students.

Also at risk is CUNY Reconnect, which has helped more than 16,000 New Yorkers with some college credits but no degree to return to CUNY over the past year. These programs are boosting enrollment and increasing CUNY’s effectiveness, while serving as a lifeline to students from low-income, immigrant, and first-generation college families. 

New York’s elected leaders are nearly unanimous in expressing the desire to expand economic mobility, while ensuring New Yorkers are ready for the well-paying jobs the city’s economy is creating and making the state’s tax base more resilient. 

No institution is better positioned to deliver on those needs than CUNY. Now is the time to invest in CUNY’s effectiveness, not limit its potential.

***
Jonathan Bowles is the Executive Director of the Center for an Urban Future (CUF). Eli Dvorkin is CUF’s Editorial and Policy Director. On Twitter @jbowlesnyc, @wetwax, & @nycfuture.

City buildings lit up for Juneteenth (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

Juneteenth commemorates the day in 1865 when Black Americans who had been enslaved in Texas finally received word that President Abraham Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring them free two years earlier on January 1, 1863. 

It’s easy to imagine the hopes and dreams, long held within, that finally were released into the universe, and the disappointment that surely followed when Black Americans realized that freedom from slavery did not mean their rights as American citizens would be respected.

It would take another 100 years for Black Americans to have their civil and voting rights legally recognized and protected with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Yet still today, Black people and others, whom those expansive bodies of legislation were intended to protect, do not universally enjoy the freedoms the laws promised.

But why not? Because laws that outlaw discrimination do not automatically end bias, implicit or explicit. Attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors stemming from prejudice and stereotypes persist, and when they are held by those in power disparate treatment and outcomes also endure. For instance, systemic inequities persist in areas such as wages, hiring, and education funding to name a few.

Black people experience higher unemployment rates and lower wages across all educational attainment levels and age cohorts than white persons. Even as Black persons earn college and graduate degrees at significantly higher rates than in the Civil Rights Era, material gaps in employment and in wages remain. 

Disparities in education remain as well. On average, Black students of any income are more likely to be in a lower funded school district than even the poorest of white students. Furthermore, school districts with predominantly students of color, irrespective of income, receive $23 billion less in funding than predominantly white districts — approximately $2,200 less per student per year. And, even once attaining similar college degrees, Black students leave more debt-burdened than their white peers and enter a labor market where they are paid significantly less, preventing them from paying off their loans at the same rate. 

Last year, New Yorkers took the unprecedented step of embedding racial justice and equity in local government by voting overwhelmingly for city charter revisions that require the City of New York to continually work at and be held accountable for upholding and actualizing anti-racism and anti-bias as core government responsibilities and functions.  

Undoubtedly it’s an ambitious goal and, if history is our guide, it is a goal that is attainable only if we strive to change not only the law but the attitudes and beliefs, and the individual and collective consciousness of those persons now mandated to uphold it. 

This Thursday, in connection to that goal, the City Council is poised to introduce historic and unprecedented legislation that would require City employees to complete annually anti-racism and anti-bias training. It is, without question, as important as the charter revisions themselves.

Everyday every New Yorker is impacted by the decisions and work of public servants. Supporting them to be equipped and to act with a shared knowledge and common understanding of racism and bias will help them perform their duties without intentionally and unintentionally perpetuating discrimination and harm. 

The accompanying legislation that would require contracted human services providers to also complete anti-racism and anti-bias training is just as critical. This larger system has frequently upheld biased and false narratives about who is deserving and has too often made access to vital, quality services unnecessarily complicated and out of reach for people and communities of color, women, and persons who identify as LGBTQ+. Helping the human services and nonprofit workforce recognize and overcome biases is an imperative.

In addition, racist and biased narratives have also contributed to the devaluing of the human services workforce, which is comprised of 75% people of color and 55% women of color, and makes less than their counterparts in both government and the private sector. Our non-profit frontline and program staff — our youth counselors, day care support staff, case managers, meal deliverers, and others — all deserve fair compensation.

With mandated anti-racism and anti-bias training for City employees and contracted human services agencies, hopefully, New York City will be enlightened to also recognize the importance of ensuring this workforce, that is predominantly made up of people of color, is earning a living wage. With livable wages alongside mandated anti-racism and anti-bias training for City employees and many contractors, hopefully, we will be closer to the equity imagined by our recent charter revisions.

Juneteenth is a day to be celebrated because it embodies the hope of freedom from racism and bias for all. But 158 years later, we need more than hope. We need legislation that can and will help change hearts and minds. These bills, if passed, hold the potential and promise of doing just that for New York City, and even the nation.

***
Jennifer Jones Austin is CEO of FPWA. City Council Members Amanda Farias and Nantasha Williams represent parts of the Bronx and Queens, respectively. On Twitter @JJAatFPWA, @CMAmandaFarias, & @CMNantashaW.

Pushing for tenant protections (photo: Jeff Reed/City Council)

Over the past month, hundreds of tenants have rallied at hearings across the city to send a message: the rents are too high. 

The New York City Rent Guidelines Board, appointed by the Mayor, has sole discretion over how rents will change for 2.4 million rent-stabilized New York City tenants. The Board members’ vote this week risks pushing countless families into overcrowded shelters or the streets. 

The purpose of rent stabilization is to stabilize rents, which are already priced too high. The system was created in 1943 with the explicit aim of countering inflation – a problem we’re all too familiar with 80 years later. The Rent Guidelines Board (RGB) must fulfill its mandate and stand against rent hikes that are driving Black, brown, and low-income families out of the city, to settle for worse housing conditions, or to enter the growing ranks of the city’s homeless population.

At the first RGB hearing at Hostos Community College in the Bronx, we presented testimony that made clear how high the stakes are and how personal.

I, City Council Member Stevens, have a 23-year-old daughter who lives in rent-stabilized housing, and a rent hike would be devastating for her. 

I, Mercedes, started organizing with CASA when my landlord, Emerald Equities, applied to take away rent-stabilization in the building, and was mobilized by the pain and frustration of demanding basic repairs—around heating, leaks, bedbugs, and more—and not having them addressed.  

Our stories are not unique, and we’re tired of the political theater that demands that we relive our trauma hearing after hearing, year after year. Because these are the facts: the average family in a rent stabilized apartment pays over 36% of its income in rent, and more than a third hand most of their income over to their landlord every month. 

While rents have been rising, real wages have fallen, forcing families to choose — pay the rent or pay for food or other needs. The risk of displacement is also up. Fifteen percent of tenants say their landlord has threatened to evict them – the highest rate in eleven years. 

Every Rent Guidelines Board member is aware of these facts. We know, because they came directly out of the reports prepared for them by the RGB staff to inform their vote. But the personal and emotional toll on families and children from this level of housing insecurity can’t be captured solely by statistics. We are real people, with real families, and real children.

I, Council Member Stevens, ran for City Council because of my daughter and countless other youth facing housing insecurity. 

Landlords claim they are facing hardship, but among their other advantages, landlords received massive government payments to make up for missed rents from the covid pandemic. The New York City housing market has rebounded and is as profitable as ever – and we promise you, no landlord is going to go broke or become homeless if you don’t raise the rents. 

But tenants could be forced out on the streets. Our lives are the products of our housing situations. When we can’t afford the rent, when disrepair makes our homes uninhabitable, and when we live in fear of eviction, it’s draining. It affects our ability to be caretakers to parents and children, it affects the ability to hold down stable work, it affects our personal health. 

So we turn to organizing and turn our pain into protest and power. Because we know the people closest to the problems are closest to the solutions. We’re asking the Board to listen to our concerns and not raise our rents. 

The New York City rent regulation system was established to help counter inflation and ensure fair rents for New Yorkers. The Rent Guidelines Board has the power to address the affordability crisis strangling the city – or its members can make it much worse. 

We must provide security to our community members. We call on the RGB to uphold its responsibility to protect tenants. Hold true to your mandate and vote against rent hikes that are making the city unlivable. The future of millions of New Yorkers depends on it.

***
New York City Council Member Althea Stevens represents parts of the Bronx. Mercedes Escoto is a CASA Leader. On Twitter @althea4theBX & @CASA_NYC.

Housing on the agenda (photo: Edwin J. Torres/Mayoral Photography Office)

New York City needs a lot more affordable housing, but we also must take care of our existing housing stock. Rent-stabilized buildings provide affordable housing for more than 1 million residents in the city, but those buildings are facing dire circumstances.

For many of these buildings, especially older buildings outside of the Manhattan core, they rely on a single source of income to operate: rent. Those rents are set by the Rent Guidelines Board.

So when the Rent Guidelines Board (RGB) sets adjustments well below increases in operating costs, as it has in many recent years, it is defunding the buildings. Defunded buildings have to defer maintenance and can’t make necessary upgrades. Housing providers typically have to cut back on staffing, so response times to renters’ complaints increase. Over the past few years, violations for rent-stabilized buildings have increased, which is a completely predictable outcome. Tenants’ quality of life is severely diminished when the RGB does not allow reasonable rent adjustments.

Housing providers rely on the RGB to ensure they can cover operating costs, debt service and capital improvements. But they have been disappointed for more than a decade when the RGB has continuously undercut their ability to keep buildings solvent and in good shape for their tenants. And especially since the passage of the 2019 adjustment to state rent laws, known as HSTPA, which eliminated other available tools that allowed for building improvements. 

In this scenario, everyone loses.

This year, the RGB’s data suggested rent-stabilized buildings need an 8.25% increase on a one-year lease and a 16% increase on a two-year lease in order to keep up with rising costs after accounting for inflation. What this really means is that these buildings need rents to increase that much in order to prevent the future deterioration of apartment buildings.

A Special Memo from the RGB details the systemic defunding of rent-stabilized buildings. Net Operating Income (NOI – the amount left over after costs, primarily used for debt service and capital expenditures) declined for highly stabilized buildings (80% or more of units rent stabilized) outside of core Manhattan by 2.5% in 2020 and 3.9% in 2021. 

Despite knowing this, the RGB voted on a preliminary range for rent adjustments of 2% to 5% for one-year leases and 4% to 7% for two-year leases. This is well below the rate of inflation (6.2%), much less the operating costs of these buildings. This also leaves no money for responsible debt service and any capital improvements.

These troublesome trends will continue as the RGB continues to set rent adjustments lower than operating costs and inflation, which will ultimately lead to the deterioration of the largest source of affordable housing in New York City, which took decades to restore after the harmful impacts of poor housing policies in the 1970s and 1980s. These are the same policies that have returned under the HSTPA.

There has been an outcry about the potential sharp increase in rents, and we understand that there is an affordability crisis in the city. The answer to this is not to continue to defund buildings during a housing crisis and further diminish a severely needed resource.

If the government wants to help renters, policy-makers need to help reduce operating costs for property owners, not continue to raise their property taxes. They also need to help support renters struggling to pay rent, which is why the Community Housing Improvement Program (CHIP) supports measures like the Housing Voucher Access Program (HVAP). 

Unfortunately, elected officials have failed to do anything to create more affordable housing or preserve the existing affordable rent-stabilized housing stock. Like previous years, they have done nothing and are now focusing all of their efforts into pressuring the Rent Guidelines Board to cover up for their lack of progress. Instead, elected officials should take a look at why insurance rates are so high, pass a statewide insurance program for affordable housing, and fix the broken property tax system, among other measures like HVAP. All of these efforts would help tenants stay in their affordable, well-maintained homes.

The RGB should stop bailing out do-nothing elected officials. The way they do that is to follow the data and stop defunding the very buildings they are tasked with preserving. Hopefully, that will send a message to elected officials that they need to take more responsibility to solve this problem instead of always blaming someone else.  

New York City needs affordable housing. So let’s stop destroying what we already have.

***
Jay Martin is the Executive Director of the Community Housing Improvement Program. On Twitter @JayMartin222 & @NYC_CHIP.

(photo: William Alatriste/NYC Council Media Unit)

Here we go again. On Wednesday, June 21 the New York City Rent Guidelines Board (RGB) will vote on how much landlords can raise rents on people living in rent-stabilized apartments. In its second year of operation under a new pro-landlord mayor, all indications point to another round of unjust rent hikes on our already overburdened tenants — like last year’s 3.25% and 5% for one- and two-year leases.

The sham scenario has already been set up by a public complaint from Mayor Eric Adams that a 7% increase (the upper range of the preliminary proposals adopted by the RGB on May 2) would be “too high,” so tenants are expected to breathe a sigh of relief when the final numbers land in the 3% to 5% range.

Media reports will focus on the theatre, with tenants chanting and holding up protest signs. As they do every year, TV reporters will interview one tenant who will explain they can’t afford another rent increase and one landlord who will explain they are going broke because of rent stabilization.

With rare exceptions the coverage will be superficial — few reporters are familiar with the subject matter, in part because few editors think it is important enough to assign a deep-dive before the vote. This is a shame, as the reports published by the RGB staff are extensive and rich in data that show what’s really happening: landlords are doing quite well and tenants are being hammered by inflation, and less able to survive the rising cost of living than their landlords.

RGB staff research for 2023 shows that:

1. Since 1990 landlords of rent-stabilized apartments have seen their Net Operating Incomes (NOI) increase by 49.9%, after adjusting for inflation. In the 33 years since the RGB began calculating NOI, it has hovered around 40%, meaning that the average landlord spends 60 cents of every dollar of income on all costs of running their buildings, leaving 40 cents for debt service and profit. An astonishing net compared to other industries; and a profitability that belies landlords’ annual cries of near poverty.
   
2. Instead of looking at NOI over time—it goes up a bit in some years, down in others—the RGB members are justifying another round of unaffordable rent hikes based on the slight decline in NOI from 2020 to 2021, which was of course the height of the pandemic when people were giving up their apartments and leaving the city.
   
3. No doubt next year’s Income and Expense Study, which will look at I&E changes from 2021 to 2022, will show that landlords have fully recovered from this temporary covid dip. There is nothing in the law that describes the Board’s job as keeping landlords’ net incomes steady. In fact, according to the Rent Stabilization Law that created the RGB, its statutory charge is to “prevent speculative, unwarranted and abnormal increases in rents” and “forestall profiteering, speculation and other disruptive practices tending to produce threats to the public health, safety and general welfare."
4. The 2023 RGB Mortgage Survey Report demolishes the landlord argument that the 2019 changes to the rent laws, when Albany closed multiple loopholes, have made their buildings less valuable. The opposite has occurred: sales of rent-stabilized properties rose by 14% over last year, and the average sales price went up; it’s now higher than it was in 2016.
   
5. An astronomical 39.5% of rent-stabilized households now pay more than 30% of household income on rent, and more than one-third are paying more than half their income. Between 1991 and 2021 median contract rents for stabilized apartments have risen from 28 to 36.2% of household income. Thousands of stabilized tenants have descended into a state of economic chaos, in large part because of actions of this Board.

But these facts are missing from almost all of the daily newspaper reporting and nightly local TV news. Too often in this process, year after year, we simply get short on-the-one-hand, on-the-other-hand narratives.

The mayor appoints all nine members of the Rent Guidelines Board, and unfortunately the mayor does not have to submit his choices to the City Council for vetting and confirmation. The RGB has two tenant representatives, two landlord reps, and five so-called public members including the chair.

This 5-2-2 composition was designed to limit the influence of tenants on decisions of the Board. The annual charade goes like this: the two tenant members vote no because the proposed rent adjustments are too high, the two landlords vote no because they are too low, whereupon the five public members come in somewhere in the middle with “a reasonable compromise,” and the rent hikes are approved 5-4.

In most years, the vote plays out this way, but occasionally the scheme breaks down. Last year one of the public members rebelled and voted against the 3.25% and 5% hikes for one- and two-year leases, forcing the chair to go to one of the landlord members for the fifth vote. All too predictably, Mayor Adams has replaced that public member with a new one who is certain to play by the rules. The fact that a landlord member had to furnish the fifth vote proves what savvy observers already knew: this entire process is rigged in favor of the property-owning class.

Under pro-landlord mayors such as Adams, Ed Koch, Rudy Giuliani, and especially Mike Bloomberg, we have had large rent increases. With pro-tenant mayors like David Dinkins and Bill de Blasio, rent hikes were much more moderate. In four of his eight years as mayor, de Blasio’s board enacted a partial rent freeze, for one-year leases.

Except for Dinkins, all mayors have interfered in the RGB process, while claiming that they maintain a strict hands-off posture. Like his predecessors, Adams claims that he only appoints the Rent Guidelines Board members, that they operate without interference from City Hall. But overt instructions are not even necessary: the public members understand what City Hall expects of them. Three of de Blasio’s public members, who had happily gone along with his rent freezes, followed the change of regime and Adams’ pro-landlord approach by voting for last year’s punishing increases. Before his four-year term is up, Adams will be able to replace all nine RGB members.

Landlords are doing quite well and don’t need another rent hike, whereas most tenants are struggling to make ends meet. Regardless of any short-term trends, a full rent freeze is both warranted and essential to stabilizing neighborhoods and keeping families in their homes. The data even justify a negative rent adjustment, to compensate for past rent hike excesses.

Under this system, designed by the real estate industry itself (the 1969 Rent Stabilization Law was drafted by a committee of three major real estate players and three members of then-Mayor John Lindsay’s administration), the data do not ultimately matter. What matters is who gets appointed to this Board as a public member. Steel yourself for another round of rent hikes.

It is high time that organized tenants and pro-tenant elected officials at every level of government advocate for structural reform of this unfair system.

One vital change would be to transfer the responsibility for choosing RGB members to the City Council, which would conform the law to the system outside the city where local legislative bodies choose the rent board members, with no involvement by the executive. At a minimum, the mayor should be required to submit his appointments to the City Council for a public hearing and vote.

 ***
Michael McKee is treasurer of the Tenants Political Action Committee. He has been involved in the Rent Guidelines Board process since the 1970s. On Twitter @McKeeTenantsPAC & @TenantsPACNY.

Smoke over New York City (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)

As all of us are learning quickly, the world is a small place when it comes to the devastating effects of climate change. The eerie, post-apocalyptic orange smoke that engulfed New York City as a result of wildfires raging in Canada last week is the latest sign we need to be better prepared for the climate crisis already underway. 

Globally we are seeing longer and longer wildfire seasons — a result of rising temperatures and decreased precipitation. With climate change, wildfire frequencies are projected to continue rising, suggesting that New York City is likely to experience similar air quality events in greater numbers in future years. 

This could have critical public health impacts. The city’s public hospital system saw an uptick in patients with respiratory symptoms in some of its emergency departments last week, with lower-income Black and Hispanic communities experiencing a disproportionate share of asthma-related emergencies. 

Short-term exposure to wildfire smoke pollutants like particulate matter can cause immediate issues including premature death, bronchitis, asthma attacks, and other heart or breathing issues. Long-term exposure can result in reduced lung function and premature death, particularly in people with pre-existing conditions. Seniors, children, and residents of environmental justice neighborhoods that are historically underserved are also particularly at risk.

While last week’s smoke-filled skies seemed to catch our city off guard, we can and must be prepared to take swift action in the face of air quality threats to safeguard the health and welfare of all New Yorkers — especially our most vulnerable residents. Cities and regions across the world have been dealing with poor air quality for years now, and New York City can learn from their lessons to prevent additional air pollution, reduce New Yorkers’ exposure to harmful air pollutants, and advance outreach, education, and preparedness.

To begin with, during poor air quality days like the ones we just experienced, New York City should limit the emissions of additional air pollution from sources within the city. This could include reducing vehicular traffic, which generates over a tenth of the fine particulate pollution in the air in New York City every year. Mexico City and Delhi have taken similar measures, reducing the number of cars traversing their roads during bad air days through license plate and vehicle restrictions. To both help minimize additional air pollution sources and protect outdoor workers, the city could also pause construction of non-critical public projects, as Delhi does, or garbage collection, as Philadelphia did last week.  

Second, the city should proactively take measures to reduce New Yorkers’ exposure to harmful air pollutants. This includes handing out appropriate masks, a strategy the city now has years of experience effectively doing, along with distributing guidance on appropriate mask use. The city should also establish Clean Air Centers in public facilities with effective air filtration systems – similar to its existing cooling centers that provide temperature relief on sweltering days – to provide New Yorkers with safe havens during periods of poor air quality. Across the west coast, cities like San Francisco and Seattle have rolled out these centers to protect residents during wildfire season.

To further reduce exposure, City Hall should make sure our most vulnerable residents are taken care of by removing barriers to shelter and conducting direct outreach to New Yorkers experiencing homelessness, as it does during extreme heat and freezing cold events. Offering remote work options to eligible public employees and remote school options to students are simple but crucial steps the city could take to limit exposure to outdoor pollution and set an example for private businesses.

One final essential element to a robust air quality strategy is providing clear and up-to-date communications to all residents on the best practices to adopt during poor air quality days and how to be prepared. Although the city released an advisory alert in advance of the poor air quality, only New Yorkers who had signed up for city communications like NotifyNYC were notified. In future events, the city should be more proactive in utilizing tools like LinkNYC announcements sooner or sending out wireless emergency alert messages to New York City-area mobile devices – similar to AMBER alerts – with guidance on seeking shelter and protecting themselves. 

This also includes ensuring the preparedness of outdoor employers and workers through comprehensive safety guidelines and specific measures and protocols to be followed during poor air quality events. Improving the public’s preparedness for these events by incorporating air quality into the city’s existing emergency management training programs and disseminating up-to-date guidance to leaders in community groups and faith-based organizations could further bolster the city's response to poor air quality events.

It is time for New York City to establish new policies to protect New Yorkers from poor air quality. With a warming climate and increasing climate threats — we must act now to prepare our city and all New Yorkers.

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Grace Rauh is the Executive Director of the 5BORO Institute, a nonpartisan public policy think tank advancing creative solutions to NYC’s most challenging problems. Read 5BORO’s air quality recommendations for NYC government here. On Twitter @GraceRauh & @5BoroInstitute.

Note: this column has been updated to clarify that while LinkNYC kiosks did post notices about the air quality warning the city administration should look to utilize them sooner in the future.

Governor Hochul talks housing affordability (photo: Governor's Office)

For much of the 10-year Reign of Terror that was the governorship of Andrew Cuomo, New York’s State Senate and Assembly were subservient to his will (the strengthening of rent regulation in 2019 was the most notable policy exception). Kathy Hochul, New York’s current Governor, has had a quite different experience: in the first six months of her first full term, the Legislature flexed its muscles by rejecting Hochul’s initial nominee to become Chief Judge of the state’s highest court, and then went on to toss her signature proposal to deal with New York’s housing shortage – a production-focused “Housing Compact” – into the garbage.

If Hochul expects to achieve better results – particularly but not exclusively in the sphere of housing – she needs to make the Senate and Assembly understand something very basic: “I’m the Governor – It would have been in your interest to work with me and take my Housing Compact proposal seriously. Maybe you’ll realize that now.”

Legislative Failure on Housing
As the legislative session ends this month (those not familiar with Albany politics are often surprised that the Legislature of the fourth largest state only meets for half the year), little has been accomplished to address New York’s housing crisis. This despite near-universal agreement that extensive action was needed urgently.

The leaders of the Senate and the Assembly put out a bulleted list of broad housing policies on which there was apparently legislative agreement in principle. But neither house voted on a bill (whether because it was known that there were not the votes to overcome a Hochul veto or for other reasons is not clear), and, it turns out, there wasn’t really anything to vote on: detailed legislative text had yet to be finalized.

There is a lot of finger-pointing going on now, but the legislative treatment of Hochul’s Housing Compact is quite striking. The proposal was designed to get every locality to begin pulling its weight in terms of housing production. After 50 years of seeing that the exhortation method had no impact on resistant municipalities, Hochul’s proposal had some teeth. 

But the Senate and Assembly did not negotiate with Hochul on those mandates, nor did they address some of the weaknesses of the proposal, including inadequate requirements for affordability. Instead they rejected the fundamental idea of mandated growth altogether, ignoring history, pretending that there isn’t a problem with inadequate housing supply, and treating the interlinked crises of residential segregation and exclusionary zoning as unimportant.

They did this first during the budget negotiations, and got away with it. Then, in the race-to-adjourn they did it again: there was to be horse-trading on some housing policies, in the Legislature’s view, but Hochul was expected to proceed with the torpedoing of her central initiative taken as a given.

Notably, while the rejectionist stand on mandates from New York’s Democratic supermajorities was attributed to suburban Senators and Assembly members (joining with rock-solid defense of exclusionary zoning from their GOP colleagues), there was very little support for the Housing Compact heard from legislators based in New York City, either.

Avoiding Lame-Duck Status
Hochul has three-and-a-half years left in her first full term. If she doesn’t want to be in the sorry position of a very premature lame duck – not with the power of a newly ascendant governor, but with the limited power associated with being at the end of one’s tenure – she needs to force the Legislature back to the negotiating table on her terms.

Her spokesperson said last week that the governor “will continue fighting to address our housing crisis, including through Executive Action in the weeks ahead.” If the Governor is serious, though, the executive actions can’t be modest, she can’t fiddle at the margins. Hochul needs to roll out initiatives that are more aggressive than the original Housing Compact.

At the foundation are two facts. First, the federal Fair Housing Act does actually apply in New York State and does continue to prohibit exclusionary zoning (and other local government maneuvers) that either perpetuate segregation or cause racially disparate impacts.

Second, longstanding New York State case law (what is called the “County of Monroe” doctrine) already allows a superior interest of the state to override local zoning restrictions. It is not conceivable that a desperate statewide need for more affordable housing would not be seen as the superior interest.

The Program
Step 1: Solicit expressions of interest from for-profit and not-for-profit developers who would be prepared to build mixed-income housing in localities that: (a) have resisted affordable housing construction; (b) have median household income in the top 25 percent in the state; and (c) are characterized by sharp residential segregation.

One key here is the “mixed-income” part. The original Hochul plan was profoundly deficient in its failure to specify affordability requirements, including a portion of deeply affordable units, in all projects.

Step 2: Retool the large pool of federal housing assistance that comes to New York State to be used directly or passed along to municipalities. Make funds available to help subsidize the affordable units that are part of this “bust exclusion” project.

Step 3: Establish a process where developers would act as the agent of New York (so County of Monroe would be clearly applicable) and provide funding for litigation challenges that wind up having to be made to exclusionary local rules. Unlike the Housing Compact, there would not be a multi-year “safe harbor” before projects could begin – there would be no safe harbor for localities who had not in the last three years met the modest but important annual targets like those in the Housing Compact.

Step 4: Establish November 1, 2023, as the commencement date for the actions described.

Step 5: Call a special session of the Legislature for the first Monday in October and see if the Legislature has begun to see the light.

(I would also suggest that the Governor, legislators, and others review the very useful recent piece by James Lloyd, director of policy for the New York State Association for Affordable Housing, on executive actions Hochul should take on housing.)

The Other Side of the Equation
Just as the Legislature needs to recognize the Governor as a co-equal negotiating partner, so the Governor must do the same. Part of that is not playing the retrograde Albany game of holding cards close to the vest, but rather letting the public know what you are prepared to do to meet the priorities of others (or at least most of what you are prepared to do).

Significantly increasing the number of housing vouchers should be an easy one given the extreme scope of need.

Recognizing that the 421-a developer tax break for some affordable housing was too much of a giveaway as it had existed should also not be too much of a lift.

It is finally widely recognized that the way out of the affordable housing crisis and the residential segregation crisis is building new housing where you haven’t been building (while rehabilitating housing and making non-housing community investments in areas of poverty).

This is at the heart of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s proposed new “affirmatively furthering fair housing” regulation. Thus, new affordable housing construction needs to happen in wealthier communities and neighborhoods. Those are areas where market-rate units will be able to generate more cross-subsidy to support affordable housing than those units do when located in less wealthy areas. That gives plenty of room for some combination of less of a windfall for developers and/or deeper affordability for some units.

The Governor should drop her resistance to enacting new protections against eviction and limitless rent increases for the huge number of tenants who are currently not already protected by rent regulation. (I first wrote about the disastrous false premises of deregulation nearly 20 years ago.) Accepting “good cause” should not be a matter of “giving up” something. But the reality is that: (a) agreeing to a version of good-cause is a “give up” from Hochul’s perspective; and (b) neither the Senate nor the Assembly would appear to have the two-thirds majority necessary to pass such legislation over a Hochul veto.

A short-term compromise that should be acceptable to Hochul, and one she should propose, is fully funded statewide right-to-counsel in lieu of good-cause: providing attorneys for tenants threatened with eviction. This certainly does not do the job that good-cause would, but it would help very substantial numbers of tenants. (That right-to-counsel is a powerful way to bring evictions down has been demonstrated in New York City under its landmark – but nowhere-close-to-fully-funded right-to-counsel law.)

All parties, including advocates, should be aware that it is more likely than not that the Supreme Court will, unless its composition changes dramatically, strike down rent regulation in its entirety. The real estate industry and its allies, in fact, are trying right now to have the Supreme Court take on the cases to act as such a vehicle. (The June 9, 2023 amicus brief in support of the petitions for certiorari filed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is here. These may not turn out to be the cases that the Supreme Court takes, but it is dangerous and naïve not to believe that the risk is real and that planning for that eventuality needs to happen now. Presumably, that would take two forms: first, rent regulation as a condition of government tax-break or other subsidy; two, a substantially higher default tax rate that would be lowered for those landlords opting in to a rent regulation system.)

In other words, there may have to be a wholesale revision of the way to retain and expand rent regulation, and it may be the case that the best course right now is a combination of expansive right-to-counsel and planning for an alternative rent-regulation system. The contours of that new system – including the extent to which it would cover some or all of those who would be covered by good-cause – would be the subject of intense debate and need the kind of advocacy that won the day for tenants in 2019. 

Time to Act Boldly
The affordable housing crisis is not going away. The segregation crisis is not going away. As the recent New York State draft fair housing report states (p. 156):

Exclusionary zoning was widely described as the factor that precludes the development of affordable housing in areas of opportunity, limiting opportunities for protected classes, particularly people of color and families with children, to move to these areas. Well-resourced areas, including suburban areas, often have zoning regulations in place that limit possibilities to build affordable multifamily housing. Allocating affordable housing in a more equitable way through zoning would increase opportunities for low-income families and families of color. 

Failing to push a bold approach would be a disaster for New York State, would violate New York’s own affirmatively furthering fair housing law,  and would signal to the legislature that it can continue to ignore the Housing Compact that, for Hochul, would be a historic achievement. 

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Craig Gurian is executive director of the Anti-Discrimination Center. On Twitter @pursuethefacts.