Housing that heals
Health and housing are linked. Residents who do not have stable or quality housing are less healthy. Safe, secure, affordable housing is a basic human right.
In the last decade, we added 500,000 New Yorkers but only 100,000 units of new housing.
We’re falling deeper into a housing and affordability crisis that was badly exacerbated by COVID19, and we face a looming eviction cliff.
Kathryn served as the interim Chair of NYCHA–the largest public housing authority in the country. She is the only candidate in the race with hands-on housing management experience. Kathryn will focus the City’s housing agenda on outcomes. Rather than fixating on units, we will focus on reducing the number of people who are sleeping on the street, who are rent burdened and who are in shelters.
Kathryn will address street homelessness with urgency and compassion. We spend $3 billion annually on shelters and renting hotel rooms that fail to adequately serve NYC neighborhoods and families. Instead, we will move away from shelter strategy to a housing strategy.
We cannot reduce housing prices without increasing supply. Kathryn’s plan will accelerate much needed construction of new housing for New Yorkers today and tomorrow.
As New York City recovers, we need housing that heals.
- Create 50,000 units of deeply affordable housing
- Make it fast, easy and legal for private partners to build more housing
- End apartment bans and discriminatory zoning
- Execute NYCHA's Blueprint for Change and get apartments fixed
- Build 10,000 units of supportive housing for people experiencing homelessness
- Open 10 drop-in centers to provide 24 hour bathrooms and critical services
- Accelerate approvals for new housing construction and streamline ULURP
Create truly affordable housing for those who need it most
- We will focus City investment where it’s needed most and create 50,000 units of deeply affordable housing (<50% AMI)
Make it fast, easy and legal for private partners to build more housing
- We will comprehensively zone for more affordable housing citywide, focusing on neighborhoods rich in transit, jobs, and schools.
- End apartment bans. End discriminatory zoning. Allow duplexes and triplexes to create more options for families.
- Legalize basement apartments, accessory dwelling units, and single-room occupancy (SRO) apartments as a safe, sustainable and efficient means of providing housing to single-adult households--approximately one-third of households in New York City.
- Accelerate approvals for new housing construction, streamline the ULURP and environmental review process as well as permit applications and inspections at the Buildings Department and sister agencies.
Focus on executing badly needed repairs at NYCHA
- NYCHA doesn’t need another plan - residents have seen plan after plan after plan, including 3 plans under the de Blasio administration. Waiting around amounts to demolition by neglect.
- We know what needs to be done -- install new boilers, hire more plumbers, fix broken elevators, eliminate mold -- and our focus will be on executing the plan.
- We will leverage substantial federal money available in Section 8, RAD and other programs to fix units so NYCHA residents can be proud of their homes.
Shift from a shelter strategy to a permanent housing strategy
- Address street homelessness as a housing issue, with urgency and compassion, and the right solutions for families, single individuals and people living with mental illness
- Build 10,000 units of supportive housing to provide permanent shelter, services and support for people experiencing street homelessness and those most at risk -- including buying empty or underused private properties for conversion.
- For families, women and children, ensure wraparound services in shelters, including education, health, and job readiness.
- Open 10 drop-in centers in key neighborhoods to provide bathrooms and critical services 24 hours a day and begin the engagement process to get homeless New Yorkers into shelter.
- Ensure that homeless services and economic development and housing all report into the same deputy mayor, who will be held accountable to treating housing issues with one comprehensive approach.
Protect New Yorkers from the looming COVID-19 eviction crisis
- Identify New Yorkers who are most at-risk for eviction and partner with the State and Federal government to design and deliver relief to prevent evictions.
- Offer targeted property tax forgiveness to landlords who forgive rent owed by tenants and commit to not pursue eviction.
Housing x Climate
- 40% of all city carbon emissions come from burning fossil fuels for heat and hot water in buildings--we will incentivize electrifying those systems to transform oil and gas to highly efficient heat pump technologies.
- Implement Local Law 97 aggressively and emphasize carbon savings, not fines. Explore a first of its kind carbon trading program for buildings and incentivize smaller buildings that aren’t covered to upgrade with transparency requirements.
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Implement the Green New Deal for NYCHA. Decarbonize buildings with every major capital project. Install efficient and reliable electric heat pumps and geothermal systems instead of dirty fossil fuel boilers. Install solar panels on more than half of NYCHA buildings within five years. Creating distributed battery infrastructure where it’s needed most.
- Expand job training and readiness programs for NYCHA residents that lead directly to employment in renewable energy, including more funding for successful programs like Green City Force.
- Learn more about our climate platform here.
Media Coverage
SPECTRUM NEWS
“Rather than have a shelter plan, we need to have a permanent home plan...We have to approach housing as a crisis. We’ve been talking about the challenges of housing in New York City since the end of World War II, without"
GOTHAM GAZETTE
“You can’t deficit-spend for operating money. You can absolutely deficit-spend for construction… We should be maximizing a 0% interest rate environment, one because it’ll be cheaper for the city, but two: you want to be countercyclical. You want to be building when the private sector isn’t to get people back to work.”
