Cuomo is Full of It On NYCHA and Has Always Been Full of It On Housing
Governor Cuomo is apparently shocked, shocked that NYCHA is crumbling. He has spent the last couple of weeks visiting a few buildings, surrounding himself with cameras, taking shots at Mayor de Blasio, and touting his resolve to bring in more state money. No doubt this money will help residents who have been suffering greatly this winter and beyond, so it is welcome, but the fact that these trips represent the majority that the Governor has made to a NYCHA property since he took office in 2011 should tell you all you need to know about his commitment to public housing. The truth is, Governor Cuomo has always been a cynical opportunistic when it comes to housing. He’s built his career on it and hopes to carry it all the way to the White House (he won’t.)
Cuomo rode his name to the top of HUD and then abandoned its legacy
It is one of those obvious things that gets lost over time, but Governor Cuomo is Governor Cuomo largely because his father was Governor Cuomo. The son worked on the more popular father’s campaigns and what he lacked in his father’s robust liberal principles, he made up for in sharp insider elbows.
It was housing where Andrew stepped out from his father’s orbit (as much as you would want or need to when your father is a popular governor toying with the presidency) by setting up a non-profit, Housing Enterprise for the Less Privileged (HELP). The organization did good work then and still does today (for the most part) but it’s clear that Cuomo saw housing as a means to score liberal cred while building relationships with powerful developers, a play he has repeated many times since.
This cred led to a position under Mayor Dinkins (where he came into contact with future nemesis Mayor de Blasio) as chair of the Homeless Commission where he backtracked Dinkins housing-first policy goals and claimed that homelessness was a “human” problem not an economic one.
After Dinkins lost re-election, this “tough thinking” led to a position in the Clinton Administration as an assistant secretary at HUD. His father’s legacy as a working class ethnic liberal from the northeast made his son an easy choice for the southern, conservative Democrat. Both were cynical politicians fluent in empty gestures.
Contrary to his father’s robust liberal legacy, Cuomo’s record at HUD is very similar to his later record as governor — lots of big talk, lots of press coverage, some decent ideas, but little follow-through that would challenge powerful interests in finance or politics.
He became HUD Secretary in 1997 (Mayor de Blasio was hired to run HUD in NY-NJ) and served till the end of Clinton’s administration very much in the fashion its neoliberal triangulation that has haunted the Democratic Party ever since.
That triangulation helped lead to the Mortgage Crisis in 2008, which Cuomo played a role in creating. While half-heartedly warning against lowering standards for mortgages and against the rise of pernicious lending practices, he raised the benchmarks for banks and Fannie/Freddie to issue more mortgages to lower-income households that the agencies ultimately couldn’t back when the market tanked. Some have argued that he is more responsible for the crisis than any other single person. That might be a stretch, but he has never accounted for his role in the crisis.
He also did nothing for public housing. This is partly because the Clinton Administration embraced homeownership over rental assistance, which itself was very much a bi-partisan standard given the general dominance of conservative ideology during the era, and also because the Clinton triangulation required the deconstruction of the welfare state. Along those lines, public housing was seen as a place people needed to be moved out of, not into.
There were positive efforts to address extremely distressed public housing during the Clinton Administration, but much of it occurred while Governor Cuomo was assistant-secretary in community development. Those efforts lost steam when he became Secretary, despite his claim otherwise.
For the most part, HUD abandoned the mission of public housing and oversaw the destruction of many public develops and the withering away of funding for remaining ones. Cuomo didn’t cause the current crisis in NYCHA, but he did nothing to stop the squeezing of federal funds that has crippled it. He has also never accounted for this legacy.
The governor has always been a generic product of the political times he exists in and his effort to promote homeownership (a disaster that both parties were guilty of) along side the Clinton Administration’s dismal record on affordable housing, came at the expense of public housing funding and later the nation’s economy.
Then he rode his housing experience at HUD to Albany and abandoned that
His spotty record at HUD didn’t stop Cuomo from running for governor (again) on his housing cred and name, winning in 2011. Given that he ran on that experience, his subsequent disinterest in housing policy is even more egregious.
He could have used that experience, especially the lessons learned from the crisis, to become a major leader in changing national and state housing policy away from subsidizing homeownership and towards funding sustainable affordable housing by supporting NYCHA, rent regulation laws, and alternative housing policies like community land trusts. His campaign narrative could have turned into transformative, highly-experienced governing.
Instead, Governor Cuomo ignored housing issues. When he did have to address them, he was lukewarm on protecting let alone extending rent regulation laws and unquestionably friendly to subsidizing big developers. His big public talk always resorted back to closed-room deals with private interests. Not surprisingly, that’s why it costs taxpayers $400k–$600k per unit under the Governor’s affordable housing plan.
Governor Cuomo has also completely ignored NYCHA for 7 years. While threatening to declare a state of emergency for the housing authority (which would put its 178,000 homes under state control, bypassing the existing leadership in the agency and the city) and touting an additional $250m for the agency, he keeps reminding us all that the state has no obligation to fund NYCHA. Aside from the obvious shot at Mayor de Blasio, this statement shows on some level the Governor knows his lack of support looks bad. Because it is bad.
It also looks bad that the state had already approved $200 million for NYCHA but hasn’t allocated it. He had previously committed $300m in 2015 that hasn’t materialized yet either. This pattern of promising lots of resources for housing but failing to deliver them is a long-established habit. We should be extremely skeptical that these announcements will turn into funding that helps residents any time soon.
We should also be concerned that these funds will come with strings attached. He has also already entertained the idea of bringing in private developers if he does declare an emergency. This would only reinforce the perception that for all his talk, he is interested in helping his powerful developer-backers first. Any help for NYCHA residents is welcome, overdue, and deserved, but the fact that we are left to wonder if, when, and to whom it will materialize is a scandal.
NYCHA faces a truly daunting list of challenges, some of which are entirely self-inflicted. But it is short $20 billion dollars in maintenance and capital costs. The Governor’s pledge, especially as the former head of HUD, is a sick joke compared to that.
And now he wants a promotion
Many people have noted that the timing of the Governor’s new found interest in NYCHA comes as he is preparing for re-election and a potential run for the Democratic nomination in 2020 thereafter. He knows Mayor de Blasio is unpopular in many circles (for some self-inflicted reasons, much like NYCHA) and hopes folks that haven’t paid attention to his own indifference for years will see his efforts now and line up to support him. It is an insult to New York voters, but it has worked in the past.
But it’s not clear that Cuomo will get much traction or credit for his intervention in NYCHA now (or how sincere he will even be in the long run). Residents know that as rough as they’ve had it under Mayor de Blasio, they haven’t gotten help from Cuomo. It won’t take much to remind them that Cuomo ignored them at two different jobs.
It will also be fascinating to see what the governor says about rent regulation laws which are up for renewal in Albany again next year. The annual Rent Guidelines Board meetings will be taking place over the next few months and we can expect many advocates to press the Governor on his position now.
His record, as I’ve already stated, has been dismal. Expect him to tout his support for the laws and to mention his $20 billion five year plan for housing in the state but to angle for concessions to developers as he tried to get during the 421a renewal last year. It could blow up in his face this time.
This is because, after all these years of triangulation, the Governor is in trouble. He had a taste of this last year during the budget shutdown. Whatever he decides to do with NYCHA and rent regulations, he will alienate a key element of his re-election strategy. He needs Democrats, especially progressives, to back him (or at least remain divided), but he also needs his usual wealthy backers. There are few plausible scenarios where he can secure both.
The Governor has never had a strong constituency or political base either in NYC or outside of the city. He has relied on New York’s horrendous voter apathy and deep-pocketed developers to aid his re-election before. Now, however, in the Trump Age, progressives have woken to enemies within both parties and many are gunning for him on the left (even before former-actress, qualified lesbian Cynthia Nixon announced her primary challenge.) Even if he continues his cynical lurch left, very few progressives will buy it and many more voters will be paying closer attention for the first time.
Governor Cuomo’s record on affordable housing is clear. He has been at best indifferent and at worst hostile to policies that don’t include massive subsidies to private developers. Under his administration, help for public housing, rent regulation laws, and alternative housing models like community land trusts has been largely ignored, slow-walked, or superficially supported.
That hasn’t stopped others from acting in his absence, but the lack of leadership has been glaring given that his entire career is based on his alleged housing expertise. Trying to make up for years of indifference now might get him some press, but it won’t erase a career of opportunism around housing. That isn’t the only reason will never be president let alone the nominee in 2020, but it might very well jeopardize him even in 2018.
Pete Harrison is the CEO/Co-founder of homeBody. @peteharrisonnyc
