Of the $19,000 in donations to 14 sitting council members or candidates, $13,900 comes from Taxpayers for an Affordable New York, run by the Real Estate Board of NY. Another $4,600 comes from Rent Stabilization Association’s PAC, and $500 from the Neighborhood Preservation Political Action Fund, which appears to be linked to an RSA staffer.
“You think about a $106 billion budget—we’re asking for $400 million with an M,” Councilmember Carmen De La Rosa said at Thursday’s rally. “NYCHA tenants deserve more and we’re going to continue to stand with you until we see a budget that reflects the dignity that you have long deserved.”
In an unusual twist, the two tenant-aligned members of the Rent Guidelines Board, tenant lawyer Adán Soltren and organizer Genesis Aquino, voted in favor of Wednesday’s increases—3 percent for a one-year lease and a split two-year lease of 2.75 percent in year one and a further 3.2 percent in year two.
“Police, Sanitation, and other government workers have long called Staten Island home, thanks to its affordability when compared to the other boroughs, great schools, and safer neighborhoods. Yet that affordability is now being threatened by a pricing program to fund a system that consistently underinvests in our great borough.”
Bills aimed at helping rent stabilized tenants dig deeper into their rent histories to challenge suspicious increases sailed through the State Assembly, capping off an anticlimactic year for housing policy in Albany. One bill also amends rent regulation rules, limiting how much landlords can charge when they combine, or “frankenstein” apartments.
Officials and environmental advocates want to increase the city’s tree canopy to 30 percent by 2035, up from the current threshold of 22 percent. Hitting the new benchmark may not be so straightforward: questions remain over maintenance, funding, and how to mobilize city dwellers to plant more trees.
If the RGB is meant to protect tenants, its record is mixed at best. But the alternative, a city of free market rentals, would be much worse. How can this be explained? And what can it teach the tenants movement nationwide?
Unmentioned at Friday’s press conference and ceremonial signing is a new work requirement to qualify for a voucher—10 hours per week for adult-only households. Previously, adult households only had to demonstrate they had worked any number of hours per week for the last 30 days in order to qualify for a City Family Homelessness and Eviction Prevention Supplement, or CityFHEPS, voucher.
La administración del alcalde Eric Adams se ha embarcado en una estrategia de descompresión para liberar espacio en los refugios locales de la ciudad enviando inmigrantes a otros condados y ciudades del estado de Nueva York. En Albany, donde más de 230 inmigrantes fueron reubicados en las últimas semanas, las organizaciones comunitarias dicen que ya están al límite.
The state legislature—which officially ended its session last week, though the Assembly is expected to return briefly before the end of the month—has so far failed to pass major legislation that advocates say would have a direct impact on the state’s growing immigrant communities.
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