Dear John,
Amidst the public health and economic crises of COVID-19, and the crisis of systemic racism wrenching our country, comes rent day. June rent is due today, a sharp reminder of our affordable housing crisis, and of the ways housing is inextricably tied to public health, economic opportunity, and racial justice.
An estimated 25 percent [[link removed]] of New Yorkers could not pay their rent in May. More than 800,000 New Yorkers [[link removed]] are out of work because of the pandemic. Many don’t have the savings to make rent without income. Hundreds of thousands of immigrant families have been excluded from pandemic unemployment assistance and federal stimulus payments.
Of course, New York City was already in the middle of a housing crisis before the pandemic struck. Skyrocketing rents left many New Yorkers doubling up with family in crowded apartments and many more struggling to make rent on their own. Nearly half of New Yorkers paid more than 30% of their income in rent each month, leaving little for other expenses, much less savings for a time of crisis. Residential segregation has long meant that Black and Latino families are far more likely to live in neighborhoods with high asthma rates and struggling, underfunded schools.
Since the pandemic abruptly cut off incomes, renters are suffering, and mobilizing. A movement to #CancelRent has burst forward, and advocates are pushing for relief. The Governor issued a moratorium on evictions through June, and extended protections for some tenants to August. The State legislature passed a bill to spend federal funds on rental vouchers for a very limited subset of tenants that would cover part of their rent. A separate framework for mortgage relief for homeowners hit by the COVID-19 crisis is also moving forward.
But what the State legislature passed is nowhere near enough [[link removed]] (even according to its lead sponsor) to rescue the millions of tenants who can’t pay, or to support small landlords in making mortgage payments without their rental income. The HEROES Act recently passed by the House of Representatives includes $100 billion in rental assistance, but Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell is holding hostage the rent relief that millions of tenants urgently need today.
At the local level, we are also fighting to save affordable housing. Mayor de Blasio’s executive budget proposes to cut the City’s capital budget for affordable housing by 40% this year and next. The New York Housing Conference (NYHC) estimates that this would lead to a loss of 20,000 new and preserved affordable units over the next few years. NYHC is organizing a letter to the de Blasio administration from elected officials and a wide coalition of over 160 organizations to tell the Mayor to reverse these cuts. Add your name to support the call to preserve the City’s investment in affordable housing. [[link removed]]
Cutting the City’s capital budget brings no real fiscal relief, but it does very real damage to our city’s economic and social recovery. Today, along with Council Member Vanessa Gibson, I released a white paper [[link removed]] demonstrating how these cuts won’t provide any help in addressing the City’s revenue shortfall -- but will eliminate 20,000 affordable housing units, as many as 15,000 jobs, hundreds of millions of dollars in opportunities for minority- and women-owned businesses (M/WBEs), and delay critical infrastructure projects. Long-term capital investments are one of the City’s few counter-cyclical strategies to create jobs and stimulate the economy in the coming months, and to strengthen our city for the long term. Eliminating affordable housing means more New Yorkers facing eviction and homelessness. Losing jobs means more New Yorkers unemployed. Delaying infrastructure repairs means higher costs in the future.
Join our call to preserve the affordable housing, jobs, and economic development that we need for NYC’s recovery. [[link removed]]
We are forced by this crisis to make hard choices in order to balance the City’s operating budget. So I’ll be supporting cuts to programs that it pains me to lose, from curbside composting to the City Council’s own budget. And I’ll keep pushing for cuts to the NYPD’s budget, where the Mayor has proposed almost none so far. But short-sighted cuts to affordable housing and capital budget investments won’t help us balance the budget in the short-term. And they’ll do real damage in the long-term.
Affordable housing is a public health issue. You can’t follow stay at home public health orders without a safe home to stay in. We saw this more clearly than ever as COVID-19 spread rapidly in shelters.
Affordable housing is a racial justice issue. Due to a legacy of discrimination in the housing market, African-Americans and Latinos do not enjoy the same opportunities when seeking an affordable place to live. Because of historical policies and practices, white families typically have much higher net wealth and incomes than families of color. As a result, white families can disproportionately afford to live in more expensive neighborhoods of opportunity, with good schools, a healthy environment, and a strong local economy.
If we are going to have any chance to help New York City recover from this pandemic in a way that prioritizes public health and racial equity, affordable housing is going to have to be at the center of our response.
For a deeper dive into the state of affordable housing in New York City, join me and many of our city’s affordable housing leaders for a discussion and fundraiser for my campaign on June 11 [[link removed]] . We’ll talk about how we got here, about the crisis we’re facing now, and about what we can do about it for the short, medium, and long term.
In this email:
City and State Updates
City and State Updates
Latest Impacts: In NYC, 16,848 people have been killed by the virus, with another 4,721 presumed to have died from it. Daily deaths are down to an average of 74 per day, from a high of nearly 800 in April, but every single one leaves a family hurting. 52,214 people have been hospitalized and more than 200,547 cases have been positively identified.
Reopening Progress: The City is slated to begin Phase 1 of reopening on June 8. An estimated 400,000 New Yorkers could head back to work, in manufacturing, construction, curbside retail and other industries. The Mayor and the MTA have yet to offer a plan for managing the transportation of many more people with safe social distancing (here are some ideas). The City has promised to provide 2 million facemasks for businesses as reopening begins. Five upstate regions are moving to Phase 2 of reopening, which will allow hair stylists, barbers, real estate agents and most retail stores to get back to business.
New Testing Sites: NYC will get 10 more testing sites in hotspot areas where infections remain high. Six of the testing sites will be located in the Bronx, three in Brooklyn and one in Queens. You can find testing sites here.
Dentists Open Today: Across the state dentist offices are reopening, one of the final health care services to come off their pause due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Reusable Bags: Thanks to everyone who donated their reusable Fresh Direct bags. We delivered them to the fantastic volunteers with the South Brooklyn Mutual Aid, who are feeding several hundred families each week, for their food delivery efforts. We’ll still take your bags at the following locations and times.
Park Slope: 256 13th St, M-F, 9 AM to 6 PM
Carroll Gardens: 71 3rd Pl, M-F, 8 AM to 6 PM
Cobble Hill: 359 Henry St, Mon-Wed, 9 AM to 6 PM
Kensington: 3 Avenue C, Saturdays at 4 PM
Upcoming Events:
Today at 4:30 PM: Youth Activists Resist the Budget: A Youth-led Theatrical Press Conference
Join youth leaders on Monday, June 1st at 4:30pm for a Theatrical Press Conference on the New York City Budget! Characters include Mayor Bill de Blasio, NYPD Police Commissioner Shea and several members of the New York City Council. Mayor Bill de Blasio's proposed budget will cut $641 Million from the department of education next year. This harmful cut is especially egregious when compared to the less than 1% budget cut being proposed to the NYPD. Register here [[link removed]] for the Zoom info.
Protests are continuing around NYC against police brutality , and a few of you have asked me how to find them. The website nycprotests.info [[link removed]] has started aggregating protest times and locations. I’m not going to begin to try to recommend right now how you ought to think about the public health issues, or what to tell your teenagers when they ask to go. So I’ll just say this: if you are out in the streets, please wear a mask and bring a buddy.
Stay safe and support each other,
Brad
Lander for NYC
456 Fifth Avenue, 3rd Floor, Suite 2
Brooklyn, NY 11215
[email protected]
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