De Blasio's Housing Plan Won't Fix Homelessness Crisis: Advocates

NEW YORK — Mayor Bill de Blasio's affordable housing initiative is failing to fix New York City's homelessness crisis as he stumbles along the presidential campaign trail, advocates say.

The Democratic mayor's "Housing New York 2.0" plan is flooding the housing market with "a glut of high rent units," leaving a shortage of homes for New Yorkers who need them most, according to a report the Coalition for the Homeless released Tuesday.

Advocates demanded the mayor step away from his quixotic White House bid and double the number of apartments his plan sets aside for the city's growing homeless population.

"We call on you on you, Mr. Mayor, to give up this pipe dream of a presidential election and come home now to New York City and join us to solve the worst crisis of homelessness that this city has ever seen," Andrew Coamey, the senior vice president of housing at Housing Works, said at a Tuesday rally outside City Hall.

De Blasio's housing intiative aims to build or preserve 300,000 affordable homes by 2026. The city is about halfway toward that goal — 43,930 homes had been built and 91,507 had been preserved through the end of the last fiscal year for a total of 135,437 units, the mayor's office said last month.

But the plan has not added enough low-rent units for very poor or homeless New Yorkers as the number of expensive apartments across the city has surged, according to the Coalition for the Homeless report, titled "The Tale of Two Housing Markets."

Just 1.15 percent of homes renting for less than $800 were vacant last year, well below the citywide vacancy rate of 3.63 percent, the report says. But more than 7 percent of homes going for more than $2,000 were vacant, a rate above the 5 percent threshold that the state considers a housing emergency, according to the report.

More than half the new apartments built through the de Blasio's plan rent for $750 to $1,500, according to an Indpendent Budget Office report published last week. But some 60,000, or 20 percent, of the units the plan will build or preserve will have monthly rents higher than $1,700 — quadruple the 15,000 currently set aside for homeless households, the coalition's report says.

"The mayor has failed on his promise to address the tale of two cities," said Giselle Routhier, the policy director at Coalition for the Homeless who authored the report. "He can only begin to start making it right by focusing on housing homeless New Yorkers."

Advocates argue building more homes for the poorest New Yorkers is the only meaningful way to address the crisis, as the city has been slow to get homeless people in permanent housing. They want the city to build 24,000 new apartments set aside for the homeless and preserve 6,000 more.

City agencies have placed an average of just 478 homeless households in permanent homes annually over the last five years while the number of households staying in shelters climbed to 31,640 in 2018, according to the coalition's report.

Homeless people also face discrimination when looking for apartments with city-backed vouchers to help them pay rent, advocates say.

Charisma White said she spent three years searching for a home with a voucher from the city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development before she found an apartment in Sunset Park a few months ago.

The landlord was forced to accept White's voucher, she said, but she has still had to deal with a broken ceiling and a busted pipe in the home. Her search likely would have been easier if more affordable apartments were available, she said.

"I don't know that it should be that hard," White said. "A lot of luxury buildings, I went and looked at the apartments smaller than the apartment I have and I still couldn't get into them."

A spokesperson for de Blasio did not respond to requests for comment. But the mayor's office said last month that it produced more permanent housing for formerly homeless people last fiscal year than any other year on record.

De Blasio's affordable housing program has faced persistent criticism that it has not built enough homes for the New Yorkers who need them most.

City Comptroller Scott Stringer released a report last November showing a large gap between the number of very poor families in the city and the number of homes being provided for them. And City Council Member Rafael Salamanca introduced a bill to set aside more apartments for homeless people in housing developments after de Blasio shrugged off a homeless activist who confronted him at his Brooklyn gym.

"This is a travesty, and we know it, and it's time to stop the lying and confront the truth," that activist, Nathylin Flowers Adesegun, said Tuesday.