BROOKLYN MEDIA GROUP JUNE 23 – JUNE 29, 2017 13
HOUSING AFFORDABILITY GIMMICKS
FAILING TENANTS MOST IN NEED
Mayor Bill de Blasio’s housing
policies have been more about
politics than substance.
His a ordable housing
plan is illed with
politically driven
re-election gimmicks
that are failing tenants
most in need.
Consider that
168,000 wealthy
tenants with annual
incomes of $100,000-plus occupy
nearly 20 percent of all rent-regulated
apartments – while 172,000
poor households with annual incomes
of less than $25,000 can’t get
the a ordable housing they need.
Even the Metropolitan Council
on Housing says that de Blasio’s
housing program will yield a grossly
inadequate amount of housing
for the people who need it most.
The mayor claims that keeping
New Yorkers in their homes has
been his top priority, and that his
rent freeze program accomplishes
that. The numbers tell a di erent
story.
De Blasio’s rent freeze program
and policies have produced the
highest homeless levels in New
York City since the Great Depression
– with 61,935 New Yorkers, of
which 23,445 are children, currently
in the city’s shelter system.
A ordability for All, a coalition
of tenant groups, says at a time of
record homelessness, de Blasio’s
self-congratulatory victory lap on
a ordable housing is o ensive and
wrong.
De Blasio and other politicians
like State Assembly Speaker Carl
Heastie say that rents need to be
kept a ordable or families will be
pushed out of their homes. Some in
government recognize the issue is
low income, not high rents.
The subsidy program, “Home
Stability Support,” proposed by
Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi
and State Senator Je rey Klein,
would address the city’s record
homelessness by providing a federal
and state-funded rent subsidy
for tenants who are facing homelessness
or eviction – a real rent
relief program that would keep
the poorest families in their homes.
Another proposal, the
“Tenant Rent Increase
Exemption” (TRIE)
program, which has
passed unanimously
twice in the State Senate,
would provide a
permanent rent subsidy
to all tenants (not just
senior citizens and the
disabled) with annual
incomes of $50,000 or less who pay
half their income toward rent.
Why aren’t de Blasio, Heastie
and the City Council supporting
these sound Albany proposals that
would keep income-challenged tenants
in their homes, and provide
rent relief as well as real solutions
to the homeless crisis?
Perhaps the greatest hypocrisy
of all is the de Blasio mantra of
affordable housing and income
equality for all New Yorkers. The
caveat: as long as it doesn’t a ect
his bank account.
As mayor, de Blasio directed the
Rent Guidelines Board – which is
supposed to operate independently
of City Hall infl uence – to vote for
rent freezes in 2015 and 2016. But
landlord de Blasio has continued
to raise rents of his tenants in two
homes he owns in Park Slope to
cover operating and repair costs.
Denying fair rent increases
to the landlords of one million
rent-stabilized apartments prevents
the largest providers of
a ordable housing in the fi ve boroughs
from repairing, improving
and maintaining their buildings.
Besides re-investing in their
buildings, nearly 40 percent of
rent revenue goes directly to the
city for property taxes and water
rates – and that revenue, in turn,
pays for education, fi re, police and
other city services.
This recurring theme of de
Blasio’s housing a ordability plan
being trumped by politics and hypocrisy
will push more tenants out
of their homes, destroy the largest
segment of a ordable housing, and
negatively impact city services.
Joseph Strasburg is president of
the Rent Stabilization Association.
BK SNAP S
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GUEST OPED
THE HOT TOPIC
STORY: New program allows for bike, surrey rentals along Shore
Road Promenade
SUMMARY: Just in time for summer, the city’s Parks Department has
partnered with pedal pushers Wheels Fun Rentals to bring rentable cruisers,
bikes and even surreys to the Shore Road Promenade. The program – which
launched late last month – allows Brooklynites and tourists alike to rent the
units by the hour, for a half-day or for a full day. Our readers were quick to
react.
REACH: 12,642 (as of 6/16/17)
BY JOSEPH STRASBURG