Mayor Eric Adams. Dec. 7, 2023.
Photograph by Lloyd Mitchell
This week, we rejoice the lifetime of one in every of our best American leaders, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. It is a second to honor his accomplishments, but it surely’s additionally a chance to replicate on what he fought for and to hold his legacy ahead. We should discover new power to proceed his work by breaking down boundaries and constructing true equality — right here in New York Metropolis, and all throughout this nation.
Which means combating for truthful housing and constructing a metropolis the place working individuals can afford to remain and thrive. This is likely one of the main points that Dr. King fought for throughout his lifetime and it stays pressing in 2024.
Many neglect that Dr. King known as out discriminatory practices by landlords and realtors who had been conserving Black People out of sure neighborhoods. He additionally advocated for the Honest Housing Act to make these discriminatory practices unlawful. This landmark laws was lastly handed by Congress the week after Dr. King’s assassination.
Right here in New York Metropolis, we have now a lot to be pleased with about our civil rights report. However there’s a darkish facet to our historical past that has but to be reckoned with — a deep legacy of discrimination and segregation that we should dismantle with a view to lastly construct extra housing and create an equitable metropolis.
New Yorkers are nonetheless residing below zoning legal guidelines written greater than 60 years in the past. Many who pushed for these legal guidelines aimed to advertise racial segregation. Because of these legal guidelines, New Yorkers of shade have suffered from a housing disaster for many years. Prices are too excessive, and too many components of our metropolis are “off limits” to housing alternative. It is a direct reason for gentrification and hovering rents, and it’s driving New Yorkers away from household, neighborhood, and jobs. These outdated and unfair zoning legal guidelines have to be modified, they usually have to be modified now.
That’s why our administration has put ahead our “Metropolis of Sure for Housing Alternative” proposal, which is able to promote new housing in each neighborhood. And it’s why we’re calling for motion in Albany this session to ship the housing affordability New Yorkers want.
Our “Metropolis of Sure” plan delivers on the promise of the Honest Housing Act. It calls for each neighborhood to hold its justifiable share of the housing disaster. It is going to pave the way in which to changing unused workplaces into homes; assist households add area for folks, kids, and caregivers; and provides our homes of worship the pliability to make use of their property to construct properties and generate revenue.
After we got here into workplace two years in the past, we had a mission: defend public security, revitalize the economic system, and make this metropolis extra livable for hardworking New Yorkers. Making our metropolis extra livable means constructing extra housing for extra individuals, particularly individuals of shade.
We delivered on that promise by creating the second-highest variety of new reasonably priced properties in a single yr, and the highest quantity of properties for previously homeless New Yorkers. Utilizing CityFHEPS vouchers, we have now related extra New Yorkers than ever earlier than to everlasting housing, made report investments in enhancements at NYCHA developments, and established the NYCHA Belief to unlock billions extra for repairs.
For thus many New Yorkers, that is private. I do know what feels wish to dwell with out the safety of housing. I grew up on the sting of homelessness. My siblings and I needed to take trash luggage full of garments to high school as a result of we didn’t know the place we’d sleep the following evening. That’s no strategy to dwell. You can’t plan for the long run in case you are nervous about as we speak.
We can’t say “no” to our neighbors and our fellow New Yorkers. We have to be a “Metropolis of Sure”: “sure” in my yard, “sure” on my block, “sure” in my metropolis. We should say “sure” to housing alternative, and we should proceed Dr. King’s legacy by way of motion, not simply phrases.
Collectively, we will construct a fairer, extra equitable New York Metropolis.
