In 2021 alone, New Yorkers purchased 7,645 homes with prior flood damages that totaled more than $23.5 million. The state’s current flood disclosure law contains a loophole that “stacks the deck against buyers,” a new report from the Natural Resources Defense Council found.
“The governor and New York State Legislature should begin a process of discarding all property tax abatements that primarily serve the interests of landlords and developers (not tenants), and end the patchwork of other taxes required to make up the subsequent lost revenue from them.”
When COVID-19 hit, policymakers saw an opportunity: The city had interconnected affordable housing and homelessness crises; the city also had hundreds of empty hotels hemorrhaging cash. But a year after the state passed a law funding the conversion of hotels to affordable housing, not a single one has happened. The experience of the Paramount Hotel on West 46th Street illustrates why.
What exactly did state lawmakers do before starting their nearly seven-month break? Here’s a rundown.
“Beyond the emotional toll, I have learned firsthand what people mean when they say, ‘justice delayed is justice denied.’ As time goes on, witnesses move and their memories fade; every day the case is dragged out by motions like qualified immunity, justice becomes more fleeting.”
Preliminary data released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that over 2,500 people in New York City died from overdoses in 2021, up from 2,143 overdose deaths in 2020. The uptick comes as advocates push for the state to authorize the use of Overdose Prevention Centers, which the city opened in 2021.
“It’s pretty dreadful,” one housing advocate said. “The governor decided to-go drinks and a stadium in Buffalo were more important than housing the homeless and marginalized New Yorkers.”
State lawmakers on Friday held a hearing to consider whether to extend mayoral control of city schools for another three years. City Limits takes a look back at our early coverage of the nearly 20-year-old policy, which was intended to provide a “a radical jolt” to faltering NYC public schools at the time, following in the foot steps of cities like Chicago and Boston.
The findings, released by anti-poverty nonprofit Robin Hood and Columbia University’s Center on Poverty & Social Policy, examined the impact of the Early Learning Child Care Act, which would institute a payroll tax to fund child care subsidies for families with children under 3 years old.
A proposal for the new rent subsidy, dubbed the Housing Access Voucher Program (HAVP), may emerge as a bargaining chip amid high-profile legislative battles in Albany. “There is no substitute for the rapid change we could realize by dramatically expanding rental assistance,” said the bill’s sponsor, State Sen. Brian Kavanagh.
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.
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