editorial
Housing investments to
keep New York affordable
BRONX TIMES REPORTER,12 FEBRUARY 7-13, 2020 BTR
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2440 Boston Road. Photo courtesy of Patrick Rocchio
BY ROBERT POZARYCKI
It’s not only getting harder
for the average New Yorker to
afford to live here; it’s getting
more diffi cult just to keep a
roof over their family’s heads.
The signs of this are palpable
— from the tragic increase
in homelessness across
the fi ve boroughs to the more
than 75,000 New Yorkers who
hit the road for good last year,
based on U.S. Census Bureau
estimates.
Everyone, we believe, is
entitled to a decent home
here. No one should be forced
by economics to leave the
state or live in the streets.
And the simple fact is neither
the state nor the city have
done enough to keep New
Yorkers at home.
The latest appeal for help
came Monday from the Legal
Aid Society. They publicly
called on Governor Cuomo to
do something he ignored in his
latest budget: fund improvements
for public housing, and
other housing reforms.
The Legal Aid Society demanded
that Cuomo commit
to $3 billion for public housing
improvements across
New York State — including
$2 billion solely to provide
emergency repairs at NYCHA
dwellings. They also want at
least $500 million for housing
vouchers to help tenants afford
their rents, and additional
funds to build up to 20,000 affordable
housing units.
It’s the kind of proactive
approach to homelessness
and housing affordability
which City Council Speaker
(and 2021 mayoral candidate)
Corey Johnson championed
last week.
Johnson’s plan would work
to stop homelessness before
it starts by subsidizing housing
for tenants on the brink.
That’s a far cry from the de
Blasio Administration response
to the escalating number
of homelessness from its
beginning — which has often
been decried as reactionary,
poorly organized and tone
deaf.
It’s unfair to suggest that
the proposals Johnson and the
Legal Aid Society offered are
merely “throwing money at
a problem.” The cost of housing
in New York City is so exorbitantly
high that it cannot
afford a massive, sudden drop
of any kind; it would crash the
local economy virtually overnight.
The only remedy at this
point is to improve public
housing and offer rent subsidies
that will ease the massive
fi nancial burden for many living
here. That, more than anything,
would not only address
the homelessness crisis, but
also our city’s affordability
problem.
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