More Affordable Housing, Now
Lowering the cost of living for millions who find their first check goes to their landlord, not their family
Anyone who pays rent in this city knows we have an affordable housing crisis. I’ve seen too many families leave District 39 because they’ve been priced out of our neighborhoods. It doesn’t have to be this way—if, and only if, we’re willing to invest in affordable housing across the city.
I’m not taking any donations from real estate developers because I know that they’ve had too much power in our government. And I pledge that I will never take a dime from developers when I’m in public office. That’s why I’m able to propose real, bold solutions to fund affordable housing.
We have to go big—investing in a massive Municipal Social Housing Trust working across the city, taking a citywide approach that prioritizes planning over a piecemeal approach to zoning, and puts the public interest in the driver's seat instead of for-profit developers. We need to increase the city capital budget support for NYCHA repairs and increase resident involvement in its governance. We need to protect displacement from non-rent-stabilized units, create a massive investment in a new, citywide social housing trust, and accelerate the creation and preservation of affordable housing citywide. And we need to make sure that affordable housing is built in with neighborhood buy-in, and not concentrated in, or forced on, communities of color.
It’s time that we codify in our budgeting priorities that housing is a human right. It’s not time for business as usual—we need massive investment to eliminate the inherent inequities carved into our city’s skyline.
Together, we can do this:
For too long, the city has been at the mercy of for profit developers. We need big, generational thinking that prioritizes public investment in affordable housing.
Together, we can:
Create a new Municipal Social Housing Trust - a non-profit entity that will be able to build and preserve affordable housing for low and moderate income households at a scale the crisis demands
Commit to citywide planning that prioritizes the citywide growth of affordable housing and works with community buy in first—not as an afterthought
Advocate for our fair share of federal and state funding for public housing and Section 8 vouchers
Stop zoning and tax giveaways to wealthy well-connected companies that fail to bring game-changing investments in affordable housing and community programs
Too often, tenants find themselves suffering from a structural imbalance, negotiating with landlords that have more resources and legal firepower than they have access to.
Together, we can:
Support Intro 2050, allowing tenants citywide the right to be represented by a lawyer in housing court
Increase funding for housing maintenance code enforcement and source of income discrimination investigations
Support good cause eviction legislation that eliminates no-fault evictions
We need to start proactively addressing the causes of homelessness rather than reactively addressing its effects.
Together, we can:
Fund non-profit developers to buy bankrupt hotels and turn them into service-enriched supportive housing and permanent affordable housing, as well as convert DHS shelters into facilities that place families into permanent, affordable housing
Champion Intro 146, which increases the value of rental assistance vouchers for families exiting the homeless shelter system, allowing them more choices of where to live and greater options for housing stability
Prioritize budgeting for mental health, services, public health, and job training—as well as supportive services for people in transitional housing like high speed internet