Mayor Eric Adams unveiled his plan to address the city’s housing and homelessness crises Tuesday but refused to commit to any clear metrics for the number of affordable housing units that should be built or the number of homeless New Yorkers that should be housed under the plan.
While presenting his ‘Housing Our Neighbors: A Blueprint for Housing and Homelessness” plan on the rooftop of 90 Sands St. – a former Jehovah’s Witnesses owned hotel that was acquired by the city and converted into 400 units of supportive housing – Hizzoner said the plan doesn’t have any target number for how many supportive and affordable housing units his administration aims to build and he wouldn’t take any questions on the subject.
“It’s often asked, ‘how many units
you gonna build? How many units you gonna build? how many units you
gonna build?’” the mayor said. “If that is one of the on topic questions
you are going to ask me, don’t, because I’m not answering that. How
many people we gonna put in housing? We need to put people in housing.
That’s the focus that we are on."
When asked by a reporter about what Adams would consider a successful number of people to be placed in supportive housing under the plan, he again refused to give a specific number and only said “as many as possible to get into housing.”
“If you say 30,000 and you have 50,000 that are homeless, then what kind of success is that?” I got 20,000 people that are not,” Adams said. “So, I’m not at this magic number. I’m going to get as many people in my four years to get into housing as possible. And I’m not playing these numbers of ‘what is this number?’ No. Everyone needs to find housing. Those are my goals.”
Adams was joined by the city’s Chief Housing Officer Jessica Katz, city Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) Commissioner Adolfo Carrión Jr., New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) Chair and CEO Gregory Russ and Shams DaBaron – a homeless advocate known as the “Homeless Hero.”
