July 2, 2024 Office of the Mayor News
Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer, Housing, Economic Development and Workforce: Good morning, everyone. My name is Maria Torres-Springer, and I'm the deputy mayor for Housing, Economic Development and Workforce. Thanks to everyone for joining us this morning at the Williamsburg Houses to celebrate a record investment in housing in this city, an additional $2 billion via the budget deal reached last week, making this administration's commitment to housing a historic $26 billion.
We have a lot to celebrate in this budget, funding to make New York City safer, to bolster our economy, increase livability, and much more. While I'll admit that I am biased, I'm particularly excited to be here with all of you today to celebrate and amplify the major infusion of funding into housing.
Now this is far from the first step that this administration has taken to increase housing supply and improve housing quality. Early in the mayor's time in office, we set a bold but necessary moonshot of 500,000 new homes over the course of the next decade. We put our improvements and our attention to NYCHA residents, really made sure that was at the top of our priority list.
We've continued to push this agenda through a number of programs, like our City of Yes for Housing Opportunity, the landmark Albany housing deal, our 24 in 24 public sites going into affordable housing, our five neighborhood plans, record production at HPD and at NYCHA, and so much more, because we know that having a safe, affordable, quality home is the foundation that a family needs to grow and to thrive.
What we are celebrating here today is an investment in the future of New York City homes, communities, and families. We're able to do that because of the leadership of the person I now have the honor of introducing. Some people call him the public safety mayor. Some people call him the jobs mayor. I also think that the record books will reflect that he is the greatest housing mayor of this city, the 110th mayor of New York City, Mayor Eric Adams.
Mayor Eric Adams: Thank you so much. Thank you, DM. No one does it like you. I think behind the scenes in the administration, we're well aware of the work that Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer has done around housing on so many levels.
Under her portfolio is also our job push. More jobs in the history of the city of New York. More small businesses are open now and operating. When you look at the record level of financing, more housing in one year in the history of the city. Transitioning more people out of shelters into permanent housing in the history of the city in one year. More people using our FHEPS vouchers in one year in the history of the program. You see more money, $26 billion being put in place into affordable housing. This is all under her portfolio.
For years, NYCHA has been denied and ignored and abandoned under this administration. We say no to that. That includes a free high-speed broadband to every NYCHA resident, so their children can do remote learning and their family members can have the ability to do telemedicine and utilize the internet. We cannot have two cities where NYCHA is ignored and left out. NYCHA is very much part of our housing initiative.
Passing the land trust, making sure that we can get the land trust done to infuse billions of dollars into our housing initiative. I cannot say enough about a real housing hero. I may be known as a housing mayor, but you are definitely going to be known as a housing deputy mayor for what you have done in this administration.
Last week, Speaker Adams and I passed an unprecedented budget during difficult times, $112.4 billion that we were able to pass. We dealt with the issues of the sunsetting of COVID dollars to keep in place necessary programs, $53 million in our cultural institutions, $58 million in our libraries, able to save some are rising, and others. You know what I love? Seeing these brothers in hard hats. Good to see you. Good to see you. Housing is more than a place to live. It is a job. It's good to see good union-paying jobs in the process.
To fight facing these unprecedented challenges, we were able to forge ahead and push forward. We invested in three primary areas that are important to the residents of this city: housing, child care, and health care. These were huge lifts and sustained how we could continue the trajectory of the success that this city is facing, but we're clear. The popularity must turn into prosperity for every New Yorker. When we reached a budget deal that invested in the future of this city, it was a real win for this city.
Because we made the smart and tough decisions at the beginning of our term in office, that we were able to sustain a $4.9 billion onslaught of the migrant and asylum seekers, we had made the right decision in finding efficiencies. We're protecting public safety, revitalizing our economy, and making this city more livable and affordable for working-class people. Part of that means building more affordable housing and for more people.
Our city and our nation, we're facing a massive housing crisis when you think about it. 1.4 percent vacancy rate, and almost zero when you look at affordable units. If we don't lean into this in a real way, we won't be able to address this crisis. More than half of the renters are rent-burdened. Everywhere you go, you hear the stories of people who are losing their homes or price out of their homes or being left behind. I know what it's like as a child to be on the verge of homelessness, so that's why this is not professional, this is personal. Every day, we're going to fight hard for the people of this city, particularly around housing.
We're saying clearly, with this investment of a historic $2 billion in capital funds to the Department of Housing, Preservation, and Development, and to public housing at NYCHA, we're saying that we are serious. If you didn't hear me, I didn't say $2 million, I said $2 billion in economic.
It was a point to goal that DM Maria Torres-Springer talked about the moonshot goal of 500,000 new homes by 2032, as well as a commitment to transforming NYCHA so every New Yorker has a clean, safe place to call home. This brings our investment in affordable housing, as I indicated, to $26 billion. That's a record level. It has never been done before, and it's just a reinforcement of our commitment.
This is the most pro-housing zoning proposal in our City of Yes, which is part of this initiative. The City of Yes is the perfect match for this. All over the city, we have great places where we have access to healthy food, access to good schools, access to good healthcare, access to good quality transportation, yet we're not building the housing in those communities. 59 community boards, 10 are building more housing in one year than the 49 combined. That's wrong. That needs to stop.
The things that we have in the city belongs to all New Yorkers, and so we need everyone to say yes, building in my backyard, yes on my block, and yes to a little more housing in every neighborhood across the city. Even the faith community is joining us and saying yes in God's backyard of building more housing.
We must open the doors to new solutions and to new housing in our city. When we build housing for working class people, families, immigrants, and young people, we allow everyone to have the opportunity to pursue the American Dream. I'm really pleased [that] together we can build a city that is more affordable and that provides opportunity and security for all. Job well done. I want to thank the entire team here.
As always, we're joined by our assemblywomen who also know how important this is. Albany has been extremely helpful to us around our housing initiative. We got every housing request that we needed up in Albany, and again, we want to thank our partners in Albany as well as in the City Council. Thank you.
Deputy Mayor Torres-Springer: Thank you so much, mayor, for your leadership. I just wanted to add a couple of small details, but important details about how the $2 billion will be invested.
Because of this additional funding for HPD and for NYCHA, we will be able to build and preserve more deeply affordable housing for low-income New Yorkers through our critical programs like ELLA and Neighborhood Pillars. We will add opportunities for New Yorkers to become homeowners, fostering wealth across generations through programs like Open Door. We will build new supportive housing units, which will offer care and stability to New Yorkers who are beginning a new phase in their lives.
Of course, we will preserve thousands of additional NYCHA units through PACT and the Public Housing Preservation Trust programs over the course of the next couple of fiscal years, improving conditions for NYCHA residents, like all of the terrific work that has been done through the PACT program right here at Williamsburg Houses.
Now, this major investment, the records that the mayor discussed, and the work ahead, we certainly cannot do alone. I'd like to thank the Speaker of the City Council and all of her colleagues for the tremendous partnership in getting a budget deal and a focus on housing. Of course, Assemblymember Rajkumar for her amazing advocacy in Albany with the housing package.
I want to thank our government partners who are here today, our HPD Commissioner Adolfo Carrión and his amazing team, Eric Enderlin at the Housing Development Corporation, Lisa Bova-Hiatt at NYCHA, and I know her team members are here, Leila Bozorg, who's the city's Executive Director for Housing, and finally, the incredible constellation of advocates and housing developers and partners on this mission that we have as a city to finally tackle our housing crisis.
There are so many who have been relentless advocates over the course of the last generation, really, making sure that the right attention was paid by a mayoral administration to NYCHA and to affordable housing. Our next speaker is just one of those leaders in the housing world, and I'd like to call up the Executive Director of the New York Housing Conference, Rachel Fee.
Rachel Fee, Executive Director, New York Housing Conference: Thank you so much. Good morning, everybody. My name is Rachel Fee. I'm Executive Director of the New York Housing Conference and proud to be called a relentless advocate for affordable housing by the deputy mayor.
As Mayor Adams said, we're in the midst of an affordable housing crisis. The problem is simple. We're just not building enough affordable housing. It's getting harder and harder. As construction and operating costs rise, it costs more to build each and every unit. That's why this spring, we called on this mayor and this Council to add a billion dollars to make sure that we continue to produce new affordable housing, and this mayor and this Council has delivered.
We are so thrilled to be here today to celebrate this historic investment of an additional billion dollars in capital funding for affordable housing and public housing this fiscal year and next. We can't stop there. We know that budget alone isn't going to solve our housing crisis, and that's why New York Housing Conference has formed the Yes to Housing Coalition. We have more than 130 organizations that support zoning reforms to make sure that each and every neighborhood across New York City will build affordable housing for New Yorkers.
Last year, this city built more than 14,000 units of affordable housing. We want to hold that record and break it this year, Mr. Mayor. This investment is really going to help get us there. Again, I want to thank Mayor Adams, Deputy Mayor Torres-Springer, and the New York City Council for this historic investment. Thank you.
Deputy Mayor Torres-Springer: Thank you so much, Rachel. I want to acknowledge our dear friend Shams, who is always with us, and an important, really, sea change in how this administration thinks about housing, that it's not just government bureaucrats or advocates or developers, it's really impacted individuals who really can speak firsthand to the needs of the city. Thank you for all of your leadership.
Also, I want to acknowledge the development team for all of the work that has happened here at Williamsburg Houses, RDC Development, which is a joint venture of MDG Design and Wavecrest. Also, so many other partners like the St. Nick's Alliance, Grand Street Settlement, Our Brothers Guardian, and of course, the Williamsburg Houses Tenants Association for hosting us this morning.
Okay, so as the mayor said, he, with the speaker of the City Council, landed the plane, an incredible budget, lots of investments on so many things that New Yorkers care about, and first and foremost, $2 billion additional in housing, creating a $26 billion investment in the lives and well-being and future of New Yorkers. Thanks to all of you for being here. Thanks so much.
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