A top de Blasio official has been calling developers of affordable rental buildings about a new regulation that would require them to house homeless families—the administration's latest attempt to stem the city's record-setting shelter population.
Vicki Been, commissioner of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, recently made the calls to a handful of developers who received a now-defunct tax exemption called 421-a, according to sources with knowledge of the calls. The tax exemption requires that at least 20% of a building's units be enrolled in the city's affordable housing program.
"This is the latest reform in our effort to address the homeless crisis we face," said an HPD spokeswoman in a statement. "Addressing homelessness is a moral imperative. These new marketing procedures are another new tool we are using to help reduce the burden for families who are being forced out of their homes."
The city has struggled with a surging homeless population that topped a record 60,000 this month, with families with children making up two-thirds of that total. And earlier this year, domestic violence surpassed eviction to become the No. 1 reason for being admitted to a shelter, according to Crain's.
While it is not unprecedented for the city's top affordable housing official to personally call developers to inform them of a new policy, Been's entreaties are a sign that the administration is serious about getting this one off the ground quickly and is willing to exert more pressure on companies to comply.
12 comments:
This should be good news, but this sudden decision was made because of the people of Maspeth and though still uncredited, this blog for it's diligent thorough reporting of their rotten policy and broken promises to the working poor.
It's going to suck for a lot of people (and me) playing the lottery to get an apartment in these new buildings. As if doesn't suck enough that a lot of these people are coming from other states. Which is going to make this not only frustrating but may create more homeless people if the fucking market rate speculation/fabrication doesn't get curbed somewhat. Legislation has to be made to rescind that law Banks made up 25 years ago. It's too crowded here now and other states have to take responsibility like they're supposed to.
Well if it keeps them out of neighborhood hotels and children have a stable environment why not house them in these properties.
All these solutions are addressing symptoms, not problems. According to this article, domestic violence is the number one reason for homelessness this year. Giving people a new home without providing support and resources to protect them from old attackers, and help them avoid new ones, is not going to solve the problem. It's only shuffling them around. Same with housing mentally ill people without providing support/services.
This initiative is better than warehousing people in hotels, but I hope the administration will also guide these folks to services that will help them.
Ideas so great they must be implemented under the heavy handed forces of an overreaching unaccountable rogue government...
Crappy if you look back I said this 2 years ago.
People aint seen nothing yet..this shit will be coming to private homes if Clinton is elected and installs 3 Obama legacy judges to the supreme court (as promised).
She will flood city's with a million's of Syrian refuges & illegal alien "magabreeding family units" and stick them up our ass at federal gunpoint.
1965 all over again only worse because our Constitution and rights will be reduced to pile of rubble.
-Joe
Let's call it what it really is....good old fashioned....BLOCK BUSTING!
When a building owner cannot make his tent roll because of vacancies...fill those empty apartments with the homeless!
Then he gets the city to pay the rent on a regular basis.
I am against govt overreach as much as anyone, but with all the pernicious lobbying done by REBNY and insider PR firms loitering in City Hall directing policy through Big Slow's CONY pac, this is the chickens coming home to roost for these scumbags. You think with the leverage they supposedly have now, they would demand of these predator developers to donate some of their higher market rate apts or at least lower the percentage of the area median income rate for affordability.
@Joe. It already has gone to private homes. 3 on my block and 4 on my cousins. Lawns not mowed and garbage everywhere.
How will this work? Giving tax breaks in exchange for making some apartments below market rent so the working class can still afford to live in this city is one thing, but do they expect developers and landlords to host alcoholics, junkies, and those with serious mental problems for free, when it will drive all the other tenants away?
>However, developers have long been required to try to fill half the affordable apartments with residents from the local community board, as well as reserve slots for New Yorkers with disabilities. Under the new rules, the city hopes developers can fill half of the local spots with households currently in a shelter, but whose last known address was in the community.
So, poor people in the neighborhood are now going to be tossed aside in favor of homeless people from out of state?
City is already putting homeless in two family homes and they are buying up bank owned homes.
One apartment has mother with five kids and the other has a mother with eight kids.
How they manage in such tight quarters is beyond me but they are doing it.
It is spreading all over the state...right to shelter.
West hamptons to upstate.
if I become homeless because I can't afford the rent in my so called affordable building, then the City will get me another apartment? sounds good to me. but is it realistic? And what if you are not the preferred poverty stricken special interest group?
What a way to destroy a neighborhood.
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