Housing Justice for NY-12
Key Points:
- Personal Story
- Update Federal Zoning Laws to Affirm Housing is a Right
- Fully Fund Public Housing (end RAD, PACT, Blueprint)
- Re-envisioning our Housing in NYC: Through Desegregation; Affordability; and Increasing the Baseline of Accessible Units for People with Mobility, Visual, and Hearing Disabilities
- Repealing the Faircloth Amendment
- Updating the Fair Housing Act
- Making Affordable Homeownership a Reality
Go to electmaya.com for more information and to donate.
Personal Story
“Two days ago [our landlord] said we had three days to come up with a $1000 or we have to move. Life is not getting any better. We have to move to the storage [unit] if we get kicked out.” — Maya’s Diary, age 10
As a child, sometimes my brothers and I had a bed, sometimes we didn’t. We slept on top of blankets on the floor of a storage facility for a few months. That facility didn’t have a shower or a bath, a stove, a kitchen sink, or a refrigerator, but we felt lucky that there was a toilet and a small sink. The vast majority of my mother’s earned income went to housing and food. When she couldn’t cover the housing in full, she prioritized the food, and that’s why we were evicted a day before Christmas all those years ago.
Unfortunately, this story is not rare in America, and that’s a painful reality. Worse, it doesn’t have to be this way. We just don’t have all of our representatives fighting hard enough to house everyone. Housing should be affordable, accessible, and integrated. Housing is a human right. Not one single person should be unhoused.
Update Federal Zoning Laws to Affirm Housing is a Human Right
“In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all regardless of station, race, or creed. Among these are… the right of every family to a decent home.” — President Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1944 State of the Union address
One way for more people to have access to housing they could afford is paying workers a living wage that keeps pace with inflation. At least 1.3 million people in the five boroughs live at or below the official federal poverty level. As our Congress quibbles about raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, we should focus on expanding federal subsidies for housing (both public and privately owned), increase the amount of subsidies and vouchers, and the reach of the subsidies and vouchers. Right now only 1 in 4 families who need vouchers and subsidies receive them because these programs are underfunded. This is unacceptable. President Biden’s proposal would also expand vouchers “over time.” I would like to see a more expansive housing grants program and deeper investments in the traditional public-housing subsidy over our underfunded voucher program. For now, the government needs to fix what the government has broken, and that is NYCHA.
We need our Federal Government to fully fund NYCHA and its backlog of repairs (see next section). We should not end Section 9 housing and Section 8 tenant-based vouchers. We must keep public housing public.
We must examine additional causality that is preventing so many, particularly BIPOC people, from accessing affordable housing. Let’s start with zoning.
From Redlining to Racial Restrictive Covenants to Exclusionary Zoning, our country has consistently found ways to block Black and other marginalized communities from environmentally safe, integrated neighborhoods as well as wealth building through homeownership. This type of segregation still runs rampant despite Congress enacting the Fair Housing Act of 1968. The Fair Housing Act had to main components to help the most marginalized Americans, “First, it outlawed housing discrimination against African Americans, including racially restrictive covenants, in rental contracts, and through sales in housing. Second, it aimed to racially integrate America’s metropolitan areas — or in fair housing parlance, “affirmatively further” fair housing — especially in suburban majority white communities.”
Presidents from Nixon to Bush weren’t very interested in implementing the second component of the Fair Housing Act. Our cities remain heavily segregated with far too little affordable housing leaving an overwhelming amount of people unhoused. According to Paul Boden is Executive Director of WRAP, “[It became increasingly apparent to housing advocates during the Reagan administration] that the phenomenon of homelessness was not tied to market fluctuation but was predicated on massive, system-wide federal cuts to affordable housing programs at both The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).”
Then there was Newt Gingrich’s “Contract With America” through the Welfare Reform Act. “In addition to a myriad of other horrible “reforms,” this act stipulated that the federal government was no longer responsible for ensuring housing for a majority of Americans… HUD continues to aggressively limit people’s eligibility to apply for the units that remain. Waiting lists for affordable housing have grown so ridiculously long that people are no longer offered even a chance to get on them.”
These racist housing inequalities could be changing. Along with the appointment of Marcia Fudge as the Secretary of HUD, President Biden’s 2.3 trillion dollar infrastructure plan promises to reverse some of the most blatant discriminatory housing policies of the Trump Administration and to create new affordable housing. The latter will have to be done through zoning laws. Currently 70% of residential land is zoned for detached single-family homes in the U.S. According to Romina Ruiz-Goiriena, National Housing and Social Services Reporter, “Current zoning laws that favor single-family homes — known as exclusionary zoning — have disproportionately hurt low-income Americans. Many of them can’t afford to buy a big lot of land, leaving them trapped in crowded neighborhoods earmarked in the past for Black and brown residents, while white families were able to move to single-family areas in the suburbs.”
Zoning laws are usually left to cities and states. However, through Biden’s American Jobs Act, grants and tax credits would be awarded to incentivize cities and states to change their zoning laws to multifamily zoning. While single-family zoning is overwhelmingly exclusionary, “multifamily zoning is key to combating climate change, racial injustice, and the nation’s growing affordable housing crisis.”
My worry is that these tax credits and grants will not be enough to encourage many states to rescind single-family zoning in majority white neighborhoods and cities. Denver Mayor Michael Hancock said in an interview that adding green spaces was more important than multifamily zoning, “This is quality of life infrastructure that helps build communities, not just buildings… It wasn’t about eliminating single-family zoning — which our update did not do — it was about promoting assets every community needed to have a good quality of life.”
In New York City, we have mandatory inclusionary zones which “require affordable units in all new development.” To clarify — it’s all new housing under private rezoning [single building] or neighborhood rezoning, not all new housing that is built. One of our zoning challenges lie in whether to upzone or not to upzone? Where to upzone and not to upzone? Those are the questions.
Those questions seem simple, they are not. Zoning (and rezoning) laws in NYC are emotionally loaded. In NYC, housing (affordable, accessible, and integrated) is a very sensitive subject for good reasons, and for not so good reasons. While I recognize the passion all New Yorkers feel about their housing and are territorial about their neighborhoods, I am always going to center the needs of those dealing with poverty and housing insecurity over the wealthy and the comfortably housed. I am always going to fall on the side of the government creating more subsidies and housing vouchers and not incentivizing private developers who tend to make a profit off of poverty. With that said, we still must address the reality that is NYC — there is just not enough affordable housing stock, so what can we do to alleviate that crisis?
I’m heartened to see the New York City Council has approved a racial impact study of new development before rezoning. BIPOC New Yorkers have for too long been disproportionately negatively impacted by our past and current zoning laws. It most likely won’t be a perfect study, but it’s a very good start and needed.
Outgoing Mayor DeBlasio has seemingly made no one happy with his zoning plans. DeBlasio first tried to upzone less dense outer borough areas where mostly BIPOC live while simultaneously rejecting what the community wanted when they presented their own plans. Now DeBlasio’s angered those in wealthier parts of Manhattan that have zero interest in being rezoned.
Once again I fall on the side of YIMBYs (yes in my backyard) over NIMBYs (not in my back yard), as long as those YIMBY’s are centering those who have been historically disenfranchised.
There are (at least) three other candidates running to represent Congressional District-12 who expressed their opinions on zoning, specifically upzoing.
The incumbent Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney stated, “I have been opposing upzoning since I was a Councilwoman in East Harlem. I’m on my way to a rally at the Blood Center to oppose the 334 foot tower that is being proposed. It will set a dangerous precedent for the neighborhood & add to already one of the most dense areas in NYC.”
Suraj Patel who will be challenging Rep. Maloney for the third time stated, “NIMBYism [Not In My Back Yard] is the scourge of NYC machine politics. No wonder we have an affordability crisis while pushing black and brown communities (sic.) get gentrified. Oh yeah, and this is a cutting edge vaccine research center being opposed by a Congressperson with a tortured anti-vax history…”
Rana Abdelhamid stated, “Opposing upzoning across the board is an extreme and radical policy that hurts working and middle class communities, especially communities of color. Opposing upzoning does nothing to solve our homelessness crisis where 92,000 New Yorkers are unhoused.”
Here’s my issue with these opinions: Maloney is wrong, and Rana and Suraj have oversimplified the issue:
Upzoning is defined as changing the zoning code to allow for taller and/or denser buildings. It’s one way to add more affordable units in NYC. Rep. Maloney opposing upzoning while at least 250,000+ people are on housing waiting lists in NYC is a short-sighted policy decision. According to the National Multifamily Housing Council, “the U.S. must add an average of 328,000 units every year by 2030 to meet the demand of a growing population.” Our country has accomplished adding this many units less than four times since 1989. Eliminating upzoning isn’t the answer, but upzoning in itself will not create the amount of anti-racist, accessible, and affordable housing that we need.
What are the other “upsides” of upzoning? Upzoning can also be great for the environment because these buildings tend to be built by mass transit or in more walkable cities meaning less car pollution. The suburban single family home tends to use more energy and is less efficient than multifamily housing. The University of California at Berkeley found in their 2014 study that suburban households negatively impact the environment four times more than homes in dense urban areas.
Does upzoning have downsides? Sure. Because like all policies, it’s complicated, but it doesn’t mean we should dismiss it because though upzoning doesn’t generate enough housing for those who need it the most — the unhoused, those living in deep poverty, low-income renters –it will most likely help the lower and middle class people who need affordable housing too.
Upzoning alone doesn’t create all of the units we need, but it should be in our toolbox to create more housing. As California’s YIMBY’s [Yes In My BackYard] Brian Hanlon states, “Upzoning by itself is not enough…It’s not going to solve [the affordability crisis] for everyone and not on a timescale that will help everyone…We need…housing production, through legislation that makes it easier to add housing supply; preservation of affordable housing, like rent stabilization laws; and protection for people who are already in affordable housing, like right to counsel laws for people facing eviction, which New York City is experimenting with.”
Attorney Ray Dubicki adds, “Upzoning without the accompaniment of deeper reforms reinforces the underlying failures of zoning.”
Author Sylvia Morse concurs, “Zoning on its own is not going to be able to address those deep questions of ownership, control, resources, intergenerational wealth, all of those things that are tied into the places where people live.”
I agree. Zoning should be in the tool box but it’s not the only tool we should use to create affordable, accessible integrated housing (e.g. expanding housing vouchers and housing subsidies). As Sylvia Morse continues, “[All zoning] is too blunt a tool [to address affordability] without being paired with public land commitment, without some forms of cooperative governance, without a reparative framework, we’re not going to be able to address the actual underlying housing crisis.”
Finally, we must do what Rep. Barabra Lee has proposed for many years, affirm that housing is a basic human right. As Jackie Fielder says, we need to reposition “housing a human right rather than a commodity.” By doing so, we can develop more creative, inclusive housing laws that center those most marginalized.
Fully Fund Public Housing (end RAD, PACT, Blueprint)
Public housing should remain in the hands of the public and not in the hands of privatizers. This January, Rep. Nydia Velázquez introduced H.R.235 the Public Housing Emergency Response Act. H.R.245. The bill would divert $70 billion from the latest stimulus bill and reinvest it in public housing on a national scale. $40 billion would be allocated to NYCHA enabling the housing authority to remain public.
Louis Flores heads up the tenant advocacy group Fight For NYCHA. He advises that this moment is “a once in a century opportunity…. because 400,000 people — probably more — live in those apartments. Over 50 percent of them have jobs, and the others have fixed incomes. There is no housing provider in New York City big enough to absorb this amount of people, who will cap rents at 30 percent of their income. There will be nowhere else for them to go… Forgiving people for late rents isn’t leniency, it’s humanity.”
I agree. These other “fixes”to “raise capital” like enter into long-term contracts with private companies (e.g. RAD), or creating “partnerships” with private and non-profit developers (e.g. PACT), or re-designating NYCHA from Section 9 public housing to Section 8 voucher system (e.g. Blueprint) moves NYCHA and its residences further towards privatization and threatens the housing security of those currently living in public housing.
Before the Fair Housing Act of 1968, NYCHA’s residents were mostly white. The buildings were well funded and maintained by the government. After 1968 when NYCHA became more integrated with Black and Latinx families, the government slowly began to divest from Public Housing and the upkeep fell by the wayside. NYCHA, like public housing around the rest of the country, has been badly underfunded and fallen into disrepair — a deterioration that was not caused by its residents. This divestment from Public Housing is a promise broken by our government. It’s time to fully fund Public Housing and keep it public. We can start by passing H.R. 235. Fully funding Public Housing is a Racial Justice, Climate Justice, and Economic Justice Issue.
Re-envisioning our Housing in NYC: Through Desegregation; Affordability; and Doubling the Baseline of Accessible Units for People with Mobility, Visual, and Hearing Disabilities
No one should be unhoused in America. No one should be faced with housing insecurity. And there should be more than enough affordable, accessible, and inclusive housing for seniors and the disability community.
We have a housing crisis in New York City made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic. We have to think about what we want our housing recovery to look like because it can’t go back to where it was before the pandemic. To move into the realm of Housing Justice,we must end residential segregation and recognize the racist history of our zoning laws and housing access. We must press the federal government not only to recognize their role in perpetuating that racist history, but to repair the damage by making large investments in communities that have been the most harmed by racist, inequitable policies. Prioritizing housing for everyone is important, but we must center the unhoused, low-income people of color, seniors, and the disability community.
Right now the Accessibility Requirements for Federally Assisted Housing do not meet functional standards of accessibility. “All Federally assisted new construction housing developments with 5 or more units must design and construct 5 percent of the dwelling units, or at least one unit, whichever is greater, to be accessible for persons with mobility disabilities. These units must be constructed in accordance with the Uniform Federal Accessibility Standards (UFAS) or a standard that is equivalent or stricter. An additional 2 percent of the dwelling units, or at least one unit, whichever is greater, must be accessible for persons with hearing or visual disabilities. For more information on the accessibility requirements for Federally assisted new construction and substantial alterations of existing Federally assisted housing, see Section 504: Disability Rights in HUD Programs.”
The building I live in is not accessible at all. The seniors that live in my building struggle to walk up the flights of stairs to get into their apartment. I couldn’t have friends over who are wheelchair users because there are no ramps at any of the entrances. This is not unusual in NYC. This means New Yorkers are dealing with expensive and inaccessible housing. Worst, most housing in NYC are small spaces that don’t have large enough doors to accommodate wheelchair users. It doesn’t have to be this way. As my friend Cheyenne Leonard wrote “Other major cities, like Philadelphia, can also serve as models for improvement. This city provides a grant available to businesses to cover up to 50% of the costs for accessibility renovations.” The federal government should make this a priority as well. We’re not building housing quickly enough, but we could subsidize already built housing to become accessible.
The Disability Community makes up 25% of the population in America as well as New York City. Yet the baseline of units that are supposed to be accessible for people with mobility disabilities is currently 5% and for visual and hearing disabilities 2%. These Accessibility Requirements are not enough and need to be doubled — at the very least, that would be a start.
Repealing the Faircloth Amendment
The Faircloth Amendment states, “a public housing agency may not use any of the amounts allocated for the agency from the Capital Fund or Operating Fund for the purpose of constructing any public housing unit, if such construction would result in a net increase from the number of public housing units owned, assisted, or operated by the public housing agency on October 1, 1999, including any public housing units demolished as part of any revitalization effort.”
Basically, the Faircloth Amendment put a cap on the number of public housing units that could be built after 1999 (e.g. the amount of public housing units in 1999 is the amount of units we can have in 2021).
Not to mince words but the Clinton Administration sided with Republicans like Bob Dole to say that too many Americans (BIPOC Americans) were dependent on public housing and social safety needs. All evidence to the contrary. The Clinton Administration ignored and sidelined allies like Marian Wright Edleman, and her organization, The Children’s Defense Fund, who presented mountains of evidence of the systemic issues that kept children in poverty and unhoused America. Since 1999 there has been an explosion of unhoused people and families in the United States. Clearly the solution was not to throw people out of public housing, decrease the social safety net, and stop creating more public housing.
While we should not have a cap on public housing we must fully fund the public housing we have now. The poor housing conditions NYCHA residences are living under are affecting their physical and mental health. As I have said many times, and I will say it again, poverty is traumatizing. Poverty is violence. It does not have to be this way. The Clinton Administration was wrong to cap public housing. We can both praise Biden for attempting to reverse some of that damage while we chart a path forward to do more.
Updating the Fair Housing Act
We need to center those most at risk for experiencing homelessness: members of the transgender and gender non-conforming community, veterans, low-income youth and those leaving of foster care, reentering citizens, those experiencing interpersonal violence, members of the disability community, and an intersection of all. We must make sure these groups are protected from housing discrimination. Right now, the Fair Housing Acts language of protection needs updating.
Members of the transgender and gender non-conforming community face housing discrimination, low wages, and threats of violence. At the state level over 400 laws have been introduced to pull away rights from Transgender adults and children. I would support and/or introduce a version of H.R. 4286 the Fair and Equal Housing Act of 2021 which would update the Fair Housing Act to include the terms, “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” to ensure transgender and gender non-conforming persons are protected by law against housing discrimination.
The term “handicap” to “disabled” and the resulting language thereafter must be updated in the Fair Housing Act to mirror the language of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
Making Affordable Homeownership a Reality
My husband and I and own a small studio apartment in NYC. We would’ve never had that opportunity if it wasn’t for a program called Housing Development Fund Corporation cooperatives. These are income-restricted co-ops better known as HDFCs. They are below market price apartments requiring potential buyers to meet the set income cap of the building they are seeking to live in. HDFCs prevent wealthy people from attaining ownership of these properties. I want to make sure that everyone has the same opportunity to purchase a home. I want everyone to have access to homeownership, if they choose to. I want to make sure there solid protections for those who rent or buy when economic downturns occur. I will make that a priority in Congress.
We need to center people who have been historically excluded from opportunities in our economy to have access to asset building. I will do this through a massive expansion of HUD’s FHA low-interest federal loan program for first-time home buyers.
Maya Contreras is a Democratic candidate for Congress to represent #NY12. Voting Rights Advocate. Policy Educator. Public Health is Public Safety. No Policy About You, Without You. NYU Alumni. Big Auntie Energy. Go to electmaya.com for more information and to donate.
