Gov. Andrew Cuomo has recently been touting his “progressive” credentials as his reelection in 2018 approaches and rumors swirl about 2020 aspirations. He is afraid of a Zephyr Teachout-like challenge from his left next year, which could torpedo his chances with a national Democratic electorate that is becoming more economically populist than it has been in generations.
But it’s important not to buy into the campaign-hype machine. When it comes to affordable housing, one of the biggest issues facing New Yorkers across the state, Cuomo has been anything but progressive.
Cuomo has regularly fought for housing policies that have led us to the crisis that we are in today, leaving a housing legacy that has benefited the real estate industry, not low- and moderate-income tenants who have spent years rallying and marching for homes they can afford, and certainly not the record number of homeless families who have lost their homes under his watch.
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If Cuomo were a true progressive, he would strengthen and expand rent stabilization across the state—as loopholes have incentivized landlords to evict tenants, exacerbating the homeless crisis. He would ensure the money he promised in a memorandum of understanding for supportive housing is released with no strings attached and stop blaming others for the holdup. And at a time when the state could potentially face massive cuts from the incoming Trump administration, he would refuse to give more tax breaks to wealthy developers at the expense of tenants through a revised 421-a giveaway scheme.
But he is doing the total opposite.
Last month Cuomo announced “Affordable New York,” a proposal to replace the wasteful tax incentive known as 421-a. Unfortunately, the plan is just another reward to the real estate industry for its generous donations. It would give tax exemptions for market-rate housing and increase benefits with meaningless affordability requirements for tenants.
In his 2016 budget address Cuomo vowed to create 20,000 new supportive housing units to help break the cycle of homelessness. That same year, the governor set aside $1.9 billion for the creation of supportive and affordable housing. The funds were to be released through a memorandum of understanding that has yet to be signed because Cuomo has failed to reach an agreement with Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, D-Bronx, and Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan, R-Long Island.
Long Island has seen homelessness numbers rise by 25% since Cuomo was first elected governor in 2010. In New York City the number of individuals sleeping in shelters has grown by a dramatic 60%—to 62,840—in December 2016. Statewide, the numbers in homeless shelters nightly has shot up by 41% between 2011-2015. These figures do not include the thousands of others who live on the streets, in three-quarter houses or doubled- or tripled-up in inadequate apartments.
Even as late as 2015, at the peak of the homeless crisis, Cuomo expressed reluctance to commit more money to housing and rental assistance programs—saying it was “baloney” for advocates to argue that housing is the answer.
There are many reasons why homelessness has increased, but the loss of 35,000 units of rent-stabilized housing in New York City under Cuomo’s watch from 2011 to 2014 (the last year of available data) has certainly contributed. When the rent laws expired in 2011 and 2015, Cuomo failed to enact any significant strengthening amendments, essentially ignoring tenants while siding with Senate Republicans to keep the landlord-friendly loopholes open.
After ProPublica exposed that over 50,000 units of housing that receive state tax abatements were not complying with rent laws, Cuomo vowed to return these units to rent stabilization. His strategy? Mail a letter to landlords who were out of compliance. Unsurprisingly, barely half of the 50,000 promised units are stabilized today.
After developers donated a combined $150,000 to Cuomo’s campaign fund in 2012, the 421-a tax incentive seems to be the one housing policy Cuomo is moving forward. In 2013, Cuomo and the legislature renewed 421-a and included massive tax breaks for developers of five luxury buildings in Manhattan that would be otherwise ineligible.
As the governor tries hard to place himself as a progressive, his failures to act on affordable housing and on programs to house the homeless will prove otherwise and leave many New Yorkers even more vulnerable to homelessness under a Trump administration.
Delsenia Glover is campaign manager at Alliance for Tenant Power. Jeremy Saunders is co-executive director of VOCAL-NY, an organization dedicated to ending homelessness.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo has recently been touting his “progressive” credentials as his reelection in 2018 approaches and rumors swirl about 2020 aspirations. He is afraid of a Zephyr Teachout-like challenge from his left next year, which could torpedo his chances with a national Democratic electorate that is becoming more economically populist than it has been in generations.
But it’s important not to buy into the campaign-hype machine. When it comes to affordable housing, one of the biggest issues facing New Yorkers across the state, Cuomo has been anything but progressive.
Cuomo has regularly fought for housing policies that have led us to the crisis that we are in today, leaving a housing legacy that has benefited the real estate industry, not low- and moderate-income tenants who have spent years rallying and marching for homes they can afford, and certainly not the record number of homeless families who have lost their homes under his watch.
If Cuomo were a true progressive, he would strengthen and expand rent stabilization across the state—as loopholes have incentivized landlords to evict tenants, exacerbating the homeless crisis. He would ensure the money he promised in a memorandum of understanding for supportive housing is released with no strings attached and stop blaming others for the holdup. And at a time when the state could potentially face massive cuts from the incoming Trump administration, he would refuse to give more tax breaks to wealthy developers at the expense of tenants through a revised 421-a giveaway scheme.
But he is doing the total opposite.
Last month Cuomo announced “Affordable New York,” a proposal to replace the wasteful tax incentive known as 421-a. Unfortunately, the plan is just another reward to the real estate industry for its generous donations. It would give tax exemptions for market-rate housing and increase benefits with meaningless affordability requirements for tenants.
In his 2016 budget address Cuomo vowed to create 20,000 new supportive housing units to help break the cycle of homelessness. That same year, the governor set aside $1.9 billion for the creation of supportive and affordable housing. The funds were to be released through a memorandum of understanding that has yet to be signed because Cuomo has failed to reach an agreement with Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, D-Bronx, and Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan, R-Long Island.
Long Island has seen homelessness numbers rise by 25% since Cuomo was first elected governor in 2010. In New York City the number of individuals sleeping in shelters has grown by a dramatic 60%—to 62,840—in December 2016. Statewide, the numbers in homeless shelters nightly has shot up by 41% between 2011-2015. These figures do not include the thousands of others who live on the streets, in three-quarter houses or doubled- or tripled-up in inadequate apartments.
Even as late as 2015, at the peak of the homeless crisis, Cuomo expressed reluctance to commit more money to housing and rental assistance programs—saying it was “baloney” for advocates to argue that housing is the answer.
There are many reasons why homelessness has increased, but the loss of 35,000 units of rent-stabilized housing in New York City under Cuomo’s watch from 2011 to 2014 (the last year of available data) has certainly contributed. When the rent laws expired in 2011 and 2015, Cuomo failed to enact any significant strengthening amendments, essentially ignoring tenants while siding with Senate Republicans to keep the landlord-friendly loopholes open.
After ProPublica exposed that over 50,000 units of housing that receive state tax abatements were not complying with rent laws, Cuomo vowed to return these units to rent stabilization. His strategy? Mail a letter to landlords who were out of compliance. Unsurprisingly, barely half of the 50,000 promised units are stabilized today.
After developers donated a combined $150,000 to Cuomo’s campaign fund in 2012, the 421-a tax incentive seems to be the one housing policy Cuomo is moving forward. In 2013, Cuomo and the legislature renewed 421-a and included massive tax breaks for developers of five luxury buildings in Manhattan that would be otherwise ineligible.
As the governor tries hard to place himself as a progressive, his failures to act on affordable housing and on programs to house the homeless will prove otherwise and leave many New Yorkers even more vulnerable to homelessness under a Trump administration.
Delsenia Glover is campaign manager at Alliance for Tenant Power. Jeremy Saunders is co-executive director of VOCAL-NY, an organization dedicated to ending homelessness.
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