“Fear aside, will our city recognize health care as a human right? If these sick people can’t be placed in a hospital campus, then where else can they go?”
City Limits rounds up the latest housing and land use-related events, public hearings and upcoming affordable housing lotteries that are ending soon.
Riis residents who have spoken with City Limits since the Sept. 2 incident, in which they were incorrectly told their taps may be contaminated, have described spending hundreds of dollars on prepared food and using food stamps to purchase packaged water. Several said they visited their doctors to undergo blood testing, while parents said they have continued to use bottled water to bathe their babies and young children.
The city’s affordable housing lotteries are notoriously competitive, but new data shows some progress: in the most recent fiscal year that ended in June, 6,173 applicants were approved for a unit through the lottery system, up nearly 24 percent from the fiscal year prior. But the approval process took longer for applicants than the year before, and the odds remain tough.
Innovation QNS has emerged as the latest flashpoint in a debate over housing production, with supporters saying the plan will provide much-needed units for New Yorkers of all income levels, while opponents say it includes too few income-restricted units for low- and middle-income residents.
City Limits rounds up the latest housing and land use-related events, public hearings and upcoming affordable housing lotteries that are ending soon.
The new, formalized procedure essentially codifies what has become a de facto sweeps policy under Mayor Eric Adams, and replaces a 2020 directive that removed the NYPD from most street homeless outreach and clean-ups in the wake of an uprising for police accountability and reform spurred by the murder of George Floyd.
Dirty bath water and a slew of apartment rejections test the faith of three single moms trying to get out of the city’s homeless shelter system. After 14 months, Johanna Garcia finally found an apartment for her and her children—but the journey wasn’t easy, and the average length of stay in shelter for families like hers is only getting longer, new data shows.
The city’s ‘right to shelter’ provides a basic safety net not seen anywhere else in the country, allowing anyone who wants a shelter bed to get one (at least temporarily). But that right appears to be under siege as the city struggles to meet shelter demand amid a surge in homelessness.
Supporters of the legislation, which would require the city to fund the placement of mental health professionals on-site at all homeless shelters with children, say it would increase access to care for families experiencing the crisis of housing insecurity. But some advocates worry it could inadvertently ensnare more low-income families in the child welfare system.
City Limits uses investigative journalism through the prism of New York City to identify urban problems, examine their causes, explore solutions, and equip communities to take action.
Founded in 1976 in the midst of New York’s fiscal crisis, City Limits exists to inform democracy and equip citizens to create a more just city. The organization is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit funded by foundation support, ad sponsorship and donations from readers.
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Support local, investigative journalism that has informed and empowered New Yorkers for 45 years.
