The mayor spoke to tenants in the Bronx this week at the latest rental ripoff hearing. He made sure to strike a different tone w/ NYCHA residents who had been critical of the hearings' focus on private landlords. That and more housing news from the week @citylimitsnews.bsky.social buff.ly/TMXSXcJ
Mamdani wants to build Mitchell-Lama style aff hsg at Sunnyside. But the city's existing Mitchell-Lamas are in tough shape, a new report finds. Exactly how its governed is fraught, and tenants often pay the price of poor conditions. In @citylimitsnews.bsky.social
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Housing leaders are previewing city housing plan @thenyhc.bsky.social. It has 4 pillars: preservation, production, NYCHA, and tenant protection.
On the last, HPD boss Dina Levy says small group of bad LL has been torturing tenants “it’s time we put professional slumlords out of business.”
NEW: the state Housing Access Voucher Program launched in NYC this week. But NYC housing is so expensive that the $32.5M from the pilot program will fund just ~1,000 vouchers. Housers want far more. Here's how you can apply if you're in shelter @citylimits.news.bsky.social ->
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Skepticism of Mamdani's street sweeps plan. 7 days of daily outreach seems unlikely to move the needle on getting someone into housing. But the right housing placement might.
Park thinks any compromise on the CityFHEPS expansion needs to be targeted at those most likely to use the city's homeless services---not people at risk of eviction.
The agency placed more people than ever before in permanent housing through the city's housing voucher program - which Park says should primarily be used to reduce the number of people in shelter to be fiscally viable.
Morning read: Had a thoughtful convo with outgoing commish Molly Park abt making the Dept of Social Services into a housing agency, not just a safety net. Plus, her thoughts on new encampment sweeps and a path forward on CityFHEPS. @citylimitsnews.bsky.social
3 interesting things🧵 buff.ly/SA9xzDk
bad news for new yorkers with housing vouchers
Sunnyside yards back from the dead:
“That plan was done in a kind of pre-abundance moment. I think the politics around new housing has shifted a lot in the last few years,” said Vishaan Chakrabarti. “The need has become even more acute.” @CityLimitsNews.bsky.social citylimits.org/the-future-o...
The first rental ripoff hearing in BK felt less like a hearing and more like a resource fair
Tenants had 1on1s with city officials, agencies tabled, & tenants decried bad landlords. Some tenants from NYCHA felt left out
My dispatch @CityLimitsNews w/ Adi Talwar 📸
citylimits.org/tenants-decr...
We have Atlantic Yards at home
I’m heading to Downtown Brooklyn to cover the first ever Rental Ripoffs hearing for @citylimitsnews.bsky.social . If you’re a tenant looking to talk about your housing, find me there! Or my DMs are open
Ultra-rich buyers are consolidating New York townhouse apartments into giant single-family homes. Some are buying two, even three adjacent townhomes to build a franken-house.
Step inside a Manhattan mega-mansion, the latest status symbol in this second Gilded Age:
www.bloomberg.com/graphics/202...
i needed this
Under the radar but important story: NYC is finally making progress on a promise to expand the number of supportive housing beds available to homeless people leaving jail--though its still behind what was promised in the agreement to close Rikers
Good piece on this fairly modest development that will provide 65 senior care units. It’s not clear why anyone who lives in New York City would oppose this other than due to some deep hatred of other people.
citylimits.org/nycs-housing...
NEW: housing-averse CM Vickie Paladino voted to advance this project in Bayside-which she does not otherwise support-under threat of override from the city's new affordable housing appeals board.
1st project demonstrating power of last fall's housing ballot measures. Story TK ⤵️
Between storms, NYC 311 updated their website warming center and homeless outreach pages to direct people to call 911 (not 311) to report someone in a medical emergency.
See the site on Feb 2nd (also a Code Blue) via the wayback machine and the site today.
A rent freeze you say? The Gov. wants to freeze rent for more senior and disabled NYers, and tenants + landlords agree(!)
But why does the program have an abysmal uptake rate where just 40% of those eligible enroll? Enrollment is actually DOWN since '19
@citylimitsnews.bsky.social buff.ly/BEGY0cO
Move over, ULURP. It's faster, younger sibling ELURP is making its debut in the Bronx.
On the ballot last fall, voters gave the city the authority to seek accelerated review for projects like this that dispose of city land for affordable housing. ->
@citylimitsnews.bsky.social
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NEW: @mayor.nyc.gov @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social has his Rent Guidelines Board
Mamdani is naming five new members and reappointing one other, reshaping a panel with the power to fulfill, or upend, his pledge to ‘Freeze the Rent’ for tenants in ~1M regulated apartments
For @gothamist.com @wnyc.org
looks like Mamdani is gonna get his rent freeze this year after all. big news on the housing beat from @smaldo.bsky.social:
This has huge consequences for thousands of low-income Americans:
In 2021, Congress allotted $5B to fund 70K 'Emergency Housing Vouchers'
NYC got 7,500+, the most in the country
Last March, the Trump admin alerted housing agencies that the money was about to expire — 5y earlier than expected...
"Just as one local agency arrived at a solution to plug the aid, another’s plan collapsed– leaving thousands of households in jeopardy...
'NYCHA no longer has the funding required to accomplish this transition',"
important reporting from @davidfbrand.bsky.social
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Late to this @patrickspauster.com @citylimitsnews.bsky.social story, but it's excellent and maddening. Seems like NYC should just fix this with some new law!
"At Bruckner House, residents say the divider between the rich and poor is not a doorperson, but a key fob."
Housing advocates were critical of Mamdani for not moving forward with expanding eligibility for the CityFHEPs housing voucher program, as he promised during the campaign.
That and a more from a busy week in housing w/ @citylimitsnews.bsky.social-> buff.ly/rFHGDiU
my reporting on the record number of calls about heat: buff.ly/zFCCLJN
Wow: Times is reporting that 7 people died from the cold in private residences during the cold snap. That's in addition to 18 that died outside
I reported how the city received a record number of calls about no heat/hot water in apartment buildings last week.
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