Press Release
Statement: Housing Plan Falls Short of What Tenants and Homeless New Yorkers Need
Yesterday, Governor Hochul announced the “outlines of a state budget agreement” that featured various incentives and tax breaks for housing development, the greenlighting of office-to-housing conversions and a pilot program for basement apartments. After failing to reach a deal with the legislative branch last year on a comprehensive housing package, expectations were high that Albany would seize the opportunity to address New York’s dire need for affordable housing and strengthen protections for tenants promulgated in the historic 2019 Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act (HSTPA).
While we are still awaiting details, based on an initial analysis of the housing plan, it provides almost none of what tenants and homeless New Yorkers need. There is no pathway for homeless New Yorkers to find permanent housing, or for low-income tenants to avoid evictions. The “Good Cause” compromise that was forecasted in press reports leading up to yesterday’s announcement looks nothing like the bill CSS and hundreds of other tenant organizations supported, and instead props up the weakest form of Good Cause anywhere in the country. Its many loopholes are big enough for millions of tenants to fall through.
Rather than strengthen rent stabilization, this budget instead reopened the HSTPA to offer new incentives for landlords to turn over apartments, rather than retain long-term tenants. Our modeling suggests that over the next five years, tenants will pay landlords an extra $1.5 billion as a result of this one change – and quite possibly far more. The budget offers no capital funding for public housing, something both houses of the legislature had included in their one-house budget proposals. In our Unheard Third survey, low-income tenants overwhelmingly identified housing affordability as the top issue keeping them from getting ahead economically. This budget certainly will not help them along that path.
More than ever, homelessness and rising rent burdens are creating a housing crisis for vulnerable New Yorkers. Before the state budget is finalized, we strongly urge the Governor and State Legislature to re-negotiate this housing plan.