How Can City & State Provide Affordable Housing

The Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development (ANHD) has an excellent Blueprint for Affordable Neighborhoods. 

It should become a part of every City Council and  Mayoral candidate debate.  

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Tenants Lost as Sheldon Silver pushed through bad bill

On Jan. 28, 2013, Speaker Silver pushed through A.3354, a bill that saps the City's budget without protecting its residents. *

Tenants lost as Assembly Members felt constrained to vote for tax breaks for condo and coop owners - and therefore also voted (in the same bill) for tax breaks for 5 specified billion-dollar luxury developments, and to renew J-51 tax breaks with no serious protections for tenants.

Now it's up to the Governor.  Given the speed with which the bill was rushed through the Senate and Assembly, optimism is not in order.

Nor will it be as long as big Real Estate has all upstate voters in their pockets.  (Those legislators are not accountable to NYC renters.)

Come to the Real Rent Reform's meeting on Monday, February 25, 2013 to discuss Campaign Finance Reform!     (Time and place to be announced.)

*Click on "read more" for R3's memo in opposition, sent to all the Assembly Members before the lopsided vote (139 to 7). 

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Urgent Action Needed: Stop A.3354

STOP A.3354 / S.2320 - last year's "BIG UGLY" and this year's DISASTER.

Tell your Assembly Member 

• get off the bill, 
• refuse to vote for it, 
• and to sign A.M. Linda Rosenthal's letter in opposition.  (If he or she has already done it, THANK 'em.)

Click here to find out who your Assembly Member is based on your address

And call Assembly Ways & Means Chair Herman Denny Farrell (518-455-5491) and Assembly Housing Committee Chair Keith Wright (518-455-4793) and tell them: 

• Stop the special 421a carveouts to benefit individual buildings!

• The state legislature shouldn't spend hundreds of millions of tax dollars of the city's money without listening to how the city wants to target the benefit.

See State Senate Ruben Diaz presenting tenants' talking points. 

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STOP S.2320 in the NYS ASSEMBLY!

The NY State Senate has just passed S.2320-2013, a bill that gives tax breaks to owners with virtually no protection for tenants.  

Now it goes to the Assembly - where Speaker Sheldon Silver had promised last year there would be 

NO tax breaks for owners without more protections for tenants.  

Let's STOP THIS "BIG UGLY" BILL!

Urge your Assembly Member to sign Assembly Member Linda Rosenthal's letter to separate the tax breaks for condo & co-op owners from the rest of the bill, and protect tenants.  

So far, the letter has been signed by Assembly Members:

Linda Rosenthal (Manhattan) – author of letter

Alec Brook-Krasny (Brooklyn)

Marcos Crespo (Bronx)

Michael DenDekker (Queens)

Jeffrey Dinowitz (Bronx)

Rafael Espinal (Brooklyn)
Dick Gottfried (Manhattan)

Alan Maisel (Brooklyn)

Joan Millman (Brooklyn)

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Gov. Cuomo's State of the State on Affordable Housing 2013

Governor Andrew Cuomo included affordable housing in his State of the State speech   on January 2, 2013.  He proposes to build or preserve 14,000 affordable units to remedy the shortage of 356,000 units just in the downstate area alone.   He supports the 44 developments that remain in the Mitchell-Lama program. He also praises the underfunded "Tenant Protection Unit" at (D)HCR, which agency has yet to promulgate serious regulations to implement the changes tenants won in June 2011.  

Send him a letter thanking him for including housing, and asking for strong regulations to implement the changes tenants have won.  (A sample letter is at the bottom of this article.)

NY RISING

2013 State of the State

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo

EXCERPT on AFFORDABLE HOUSING

Create the $1 Billion House NY Program

Under Governor Cuomo, New York has taken a regional approach to problem-solving and economic growth; a perspective that is essential when it comes to meeting the need for safe and quality affordable housing for all New Yorkers.

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State Sen. Liz Krueger: What we need

From State Senator Liz Krueger's January 2013 community bulletin:

Sen. Liz Krueger, standing up
 for tenants

"In November, New Yorkers elected a Democratic majority with 58 percent of the vote. New Yorkers therefore have a right to expect the 'Independent Democrats' to secure floor votes this session for the progressive agenda they’ve claimed to support, including stronger gun laws, a minimum wage increase, real public campaign finance reform, the Reproductive Health Act, the New York State DREAM Act, stop-and-frisk reform, real rent reform, full funding of education aid to live up to our obligations to New York’s children, and mandate relief for struggling local governments.

 

Sen. Klein, leader of breakaway group
that gives more power to the GOP

Meanwhile, the "Independent Democratic Conference," led by State Senator Jeff Klein, has not indicated its support of real rent reform or other parts of that progressive agenda. 

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Kizzy Cox Video on Affordable Housing in NYC

Affordable housing: Middle-class New Yorkers feel the squeeze

from Kizzy Cox 1 week ago http://vimeo.com/56565925

Through the prism of a family uprooted by Hurricane Sandy, reporter Kizzy Cox interviews tenant advocates and a Manhattan Institute opponent of rent regulation on affordable housing in New York City.  

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