Peter Harrison, Democrat for Congress, waits for a downtown train. His transit plan would make all public transit free, at a cost of $1.7 trillion over 10 years to the federal government.
The first votes in New York’s 2020 Congressional primaries are four months off: Early voting begins June 13 for the federal and state legislative races that will be decided June 23. That makes it hard to say who among the candidates now in the field will still be there when voters get to have their say.
Already the field in the 12th district, which links the Upper East Side to slices of Western Queens and northern Brooklyn and has been represented since 1993 by Rep. Carolyn Maloney, has shrunk: On February 7, former state legislative aide and anti-sexual-harassment advocate Erica Vladimer withdrew from the race. That leaves the incumbent Rep. Maloney, Suraj Patel (who performed well in the 2018), comedian/activist Lauren Ashcraft and tenant/transit advocate Peter Harrison.
At least when it comes to the dollars and cents, Harrison’s campaign apparatus is dwarfed by all of his rivals’. Patel and Maloney each had more than $320,000 on hand at last count. Ashcraft trailed far behind with $47,000. Harrison had just about $13,000.
What Harrison lacks in money and name recognition he is hoping to make up with bold ideas like cancelling all student debt and reimbursing past debt payments, abolishing ICE and opening the the country to all immigrants, decriminalizing sex work, and building 10 million new homes.
The heart of Harrison’s plan is a $1.7 trillion initiative to make all public transportation free and accessible. On Friday, he spoke with City Limits about the plan in an apropos setting: on an uptown 6 train.
Ashcraft has also called for “nationalizing and upgrading all public transit and making public transit usage free for all,” although Harrison has provided slightly more detail on how to get there. Patel’s platform links to a 2018 post calling for a more modest approach: “a federal program to fund subsidized mass transit nationally, for every individual under the federal poverty line, in every city in this country with mass public transit.”
Maloney was a major voice pushing for the Second Avenue subway for decades. She “has brought billions back to New York’s 12th district,” according to her campaign website. “Her infrastructure projects have transformed not just how we move around New York City, but the entire New York region,” her literature says. “She’ll keep pushing for fully ADA-accessible compliant public transit, adding protected bike lanes, and pushing green infrastructure and jobs training to help New Yorkers get where they need to be.”
Peter Harrison, Democrat for Congress, waits for a downtown train. His transit plan would make all public transit free, at a cost of $1.7 trillion over 10 years to the federal government.
The first votes in New York’s 2020 Congressional primaries are four months off: Early voting begins June 13 for the federal and state legislative races that will be decided June 23. That makes it hard to say who among the candidates now in the field will still be there when voters get to have their say.
Already the field in the 12th district, which links the Upper East Side to slices of Western Queens and northern Brooklyn and has been represented since 1993 by Rep. Carolyn Maloney, has shrunk: On February 7, former state legislative aide and anti-sexual-harassment advocate Erica Vladimer withdrew from the race. That leaves the incumbent Rep. Maloney, Suraj Patel (who performed well in the 2018), comedian/activist Lauren Ashcraft and tenant/transit advocate Peter Harrison.
At least when it comes to the dollars and cents, Harrison’s campaign apparatus is dwarfed by all of his rivals’. Patel and Maloney each had more than $320,000 on hand at last count. Ashcraft trailed far behind with $47,000. Harrison had just about $13,000.
What Harrison lacks in money and name recognition he is hoping to make up with bold ideas like cancelling all student debt and reimbursing past debt payments, abolishing ICE and opening the the country to all immigrants, decriminalizing sex work, and building 10 million new homes.
The heart of Harrison’s plan is a $1.7 trillion initiative to make all public transportation free and accessible. On Friday, he spoke with City Limits about the plan in an apropos setting: on an uptown 6 train.
Ashcraft has also called for “nationalizing and upgrading all public transit and making public transit usage free for all,” although Harrison has provided slightly more detail on how to get there. Patel’s platform links to a 2018 post calling for a more modest approach: “a federal program to fund subsidized mass transit nationally, for every individual under the federal poverty line, in every city in this country with mass public transit.”
Maloney was a major voice pushing for the Second Avenue subway for decades. She “has brought billions back to New York’s 12th district,” according to her campaign website. “Her infrastructure projects have transformed not just how we move around New York City, but the entire New York region,” her literature says. “She’ll keep pushing for fully ADA-accessible compliant public transit, adding protected bike lanes, and pushing green infrastructure and jobs training to help New Yorkers get where they need to be.”
More than half of U.S. citizens of Latino descent believe that the 2020 Census includes a question about citizenship, a mistaken belief whose apparent popularity deeply troubles advocates and officials.
Since the citizenship question was left out of the 2020 Census, many have questioned what the consequences would be among Latinos. On February 10, the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) released the results of a national survey conducted between October 8 and October 19, 2019, months after the decision not to include the citizenship question in the Census.
Overall, 48 percent of Latinos surveyed expected to see a citizenship question on the census. Latinos who are citizens (naturalized and U.S. born) were more likely to believe the questions was part of the Census, 53 percent. In contrast, only 40 percent of non-citizens believe the question is part of the census.
As Arturo Vargas, Chief Executive Officer of NALEO, pointed out during the press conference, this is “an incongruous finding” because it shows that those who are not citizens are “better informed.” That’s why Vargas asked the English-language media to be as attentive to the problem of Census misconceptions as the Spanish-language media.
It is, however, also worrying that 42 percent of undocumented immigrants still believe the question is part of the Census.
The study also highlighted “high levels of anxiety within Latino community around the 2020 Census.” This is reflected in the fact that while 77 percent of Latinos understand that their community would benefit if they participated in the Census, at the same time, 75 percent of the respondents had major concerns that their personal information would be uses against them by the Trump’s administration
To add to this concern, 78 percent of respondents think the Census website is vulnerable to online interference. Moreover, according to the press release, “there are widespread misconceptions around what will be asked, and what the Census does with the information”.
As Julie Menin, New York City 2020 Census director, explained, the Census is essential for everyone because it allocates “the share of public funds.” For New York, this means millions of dollars for programs such as housing, health, education, transportation, as well as political representation and “more than 300 programs in the city,” says Menin. Due to the undercount in 2010, “we lost millions of dollars,” she says.
In addition to its public importance, the Census has political significance: The results can increase or decrease the number of legislative representatives in the city. New York’s population dropped by an estimated 76,790 people between 2018 and 2019; thus New York could lose two seats in Congress. It can also shift power in Congress, the state Assembly, State Senate and City Council among neighborhoods or between the city and its suburbs.
Additionally, the Census is important for defining the political representation of immigrant and non-White communities, which have been historically underrepresented. According to projections by the Urban Institute, “Black and Hispanic/Latinx-identified individuals in the high-risk scenario could be undercounted nationally by 3.68 percent and 3.57 percent, respectively.” Some 2.2 million Latinos around the United States could be miscounted. Immigrants are among the Census’ definition of hard-to-count populations. On the other hand, White people are the only group projected to be over-counted in certain states.
Surprisingly in New York, the self-response rate in the 2010 census was 77,4, slightly higher than the national rate 76 percent, in Washington Heights, a neighborhood with a large immigrant population. But the concern is that it will slip this year.
Another concern for Latinos is providing specific information about themselves or their family members. In addition, “nearly all shared the view that Latinos who are not citizens will not want to participate once they see the questions being asked,” reads the NALEO report. Also, 73 percent of “non-citizens are concerned that immigration enforcement agencies will use their census information against them or their families”.
This misunderstanding is more prominent among Latinos under 40. Just under half of them believe that the census is used to provide information to track and locate people by “immigration and law enforcement agencies,” while 29 percent of Latinos over 40 believe the same.
The fear among Latinos, and especially among undocumented immigrants, is not baseless. Shortly after the question about citizenship was rejected, President Donald Trump asked federal agencies to find a way to “gain a full, complete and accurate count of the non-citizen population.” As Reveal reported, “even without a citizenship question, the [Census] Bureau now can accurately identify whether a respondent is a citizen at least 90 percent of the time.”
With regards to the response options, Latinos preferred to participate by mail, especially non-citizens and Latinos over 40. In contrast, those Latinos under under 40 preferred online despite the fact that in the focus groups in 2019, most admitted not knowing how the online process worked.
The Census consists of nine simple questions, but one question about citizenship–which is not included–could end up costing several cities billions in aid, under-counting historically marginalized populations, and undermining research.
More than half of U.S. citizens of Latino descent believe that the 2020 Census includes a question about citizenship, a mistaken belief whose apparent popularity deeply troubles advocates and officials.
Since the citizenship question was left out of the 2020 Census, many have questioned what the consequences would be among Latinos. On February 10, the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) released the results of a national survey conducted between October 8 and October 19, 2019, months after the decision not to include the citizenship question in the Census.
Overall, 48 percent of Latinos surveyed expected to see a citizenship question on the census. Latinos who are citizens (naturalized and U.S. born) were more likely to believe the questions was part of the Census, 53 percent. In contrast, only 40 percent of non-citizens believe the question is part of the census.
As Arturo Vargas, Chief Executive Officer of NALEO, pointed out during the press conference, this is “an incongruous finding” because it shows that those who are not citizens are “better informed.” That’s why Vargas asked the English-language media to be as attentive to the problem of Census misconceptions as the Spanish-language media.
It is, however, also worrying that 42 percent of undocumented immigrants still believe the question is part of the Census.
The study also highlighted “high levels of anxiety within Latino community around the 2020 Census.” This is reflected in the fact that while 77 percent of Latinos understand that their community would benefit if they participated in the Census, at the same time, 75 percent of the respondents had major concerns that their personal information would be uses against them by the Trump’s administration
To add to this concern, 78 percent of respondents think the Census website is vulnerable to online interference. Moreover, according to the press release, “there are widespread misconceptions around what will be asked, and what the Census does with the information”.
As Julie Menin, New York City Census Bureau director, explained, the Census is essential for everyone because it allocates “the share of public funds.” For New York, this means millions of dollars for programs such as housing, health, education, transportation, as well as political representation and “more than 300 programs in the city,” says Menin. Due to the undercount in 2010, “we lost millions of dollars,” she says.
In addition to its public importance, the Census has political significance: The results can increase or decrease the number of legislative representatives in the city. New York’s population dropped by an estimated 76,790 people between 2018 and 2019; thus New York could lose two seats in Congress. It can also shift power in Congress, the state Assembly, State Senate and City Council among neighborhoods or between the city and its suburbs.
Additionally, the Census is important for defining the political representation of immigrant and non-White communities, which have been historically underrepresented. According to projections by the Urban Institute, “Black and Hispanic/Latinx-identified individuals in the high-risk scenario could be undercounted nationally by 3.68 percent and 3.57 percent, respectively.” Some 2.2 million Latinos around the United States could be miscounted. Immigrants are among the Census’ definition of hard-to-count populations. On the other hand, White people are the only group projected to be over-counted in certain states.
Surprisingly in New York, the self-response rate in the 2010 census was 77,4, slightly higher than the national rate 76 percent, in Washington Heights, a neighborhood with a large immigrant population. But the concern is that it will slip this year.
Another concern for Latinos is providing specific information about themselves or their family members. In addition, “nearly all shared the view that Latinos who are not citizens will not want to participate once they see the questions being asked,” reads the NALEO report. Also, 73 percent of “non-citizens are concerned that immigration enforcement agencies will use their census information against them or their families”.
This misunderstanding is more prominent among Latinos under 40. Just under half of them believe that the census is used to provide information to track and locate people by “immigration and law enforcement agencies,” while 29 percent of Latinos over 40 believe the same.
The fear among Latinos, and especially among undocumented immigrants, is not baseless. Shortly after the question about citizenship was rejected, President Donald Trump asked federal agencies to find a way to “gain a full, complete and accurate count of the non-citizen population.” As Reveal reported, “even without a citizenship question, the [Census] Bureau now can accurately identify whether a respondent is a citizen at least 90 percent of the time.”
With regards to the response options, Latinos preferred to participate by mail, especially non-citizens and Latinos over 40. In contrast, those Latinos under under 40 preferred online despite the fact that in the focus groups in 2019, most admitted not knowing how the online process worked.
The Census consists of nine simple questions, but one question about citizenship–which is not included–could end up costing several cities billions in aid, under-counting historically marginalized populations, and undermining research.
More than half of U.S. citizens of Latino descent believe that the 2020 Census includes a question about citizenship, a mistaken belief whose apparent popularity deeply troubles advocates and officials.
Since the citizenship question was left out of the 2020 Census, many have questioned what the consequences would be among Latinos. On February 10, the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) released the results of a national survey conducted between October 8 and October 19, 2019, months after the decision not to include the citizenship question in the Census.
Overall, 48 percent of Latinos surveyed expected to see a citizenship question on the census. Latinos who are citizens (naturalized and U.S. born) were more likely to believe the questions was part of the Census, 53 percent. In contrast, only 40 percent of non-citizens believe the question is part of the census.
As Arturo Vargas, Chief Executive Officer of NALEO, pointed out during the press conference, this is “an incongruous finding” because it shows that those who are not citizens are “better informed.” That’s why Vargas asked the English-language media to be as attentive to the problem of Census misconceptions as the Spanish-language media.
It is, however, also worrying that 42 percent of undocumented immigrants still believe the question is part of the Census.
The study also highlighted “high levels of anxiety within Latino community around the 2020 Census.” This is reflected in the fact that while 77 percent of Latinos understand that their community would benefit if they participated in the Census, at the same time, 75 percent of the respondents had major concerns that their personal information would be uses against them by the Trump’s administration
To add to this concern, 78 percent of respondents think the Census website is vulnerable to online interference. Moreover, according to the press release, “there are widespread misconceptions around what will be asked, and what the Census does with the information”.
As Julie Menin, New York City 2020 Census director, explained, the Census is essential for everyone because it allocates “the share of public funds.” For New York, this means millions of dollars for programs such as housing, health, education, transportation, as well as political representation and “more than 300 programs in the city,” says Menin. Due to the undercount in 2010, “we lost millions of dollars,” she says.
In addition to its public importance, the Census has political significance: The results can increase or decrease the number of legislative representatives in the city. New York’s population dropped by an estimated 76,790 people between 2018 and 2019; thus New York could lose two seats in Congress. It can also shift power in Congress, the state Assembly, State Senate and City Council among neighborhoods or between the city and its suburbs.
Additionally, the Census is important for defining the political representation of immigrant and non-White communities, which have been historically underrepresented. According to projections by the Urban Institute, “Black and Hispanic/Latinx-identified individuals in the high-risk scenario could be undercounted nationally by 3.68 percent and 3.57 percent, respectively.” Some 2.2 million Latinos around the United States could be miscounted. Immigrants are among the Census’ definition of hard-to-count populations. On the other hand, White people are the only group projected to be over-counted in certain states.
Surprisingly in New York, the self-response rate in the 2010 census was 77,4, slightly higher than the national rate 76 percent, in Washington Heights, a neighborhood with a large immigrant population. But the concern is that it will slip this year.
Another concern for Latinos is providing specific information about themselves or their family members. In addition, “nearly all shared the view that Latinos who are not citizens will not want to participate once they see the questions being asked,” reads the NALEO report. Also, 73 percent of “non-citizens are concerned that immigration enforcement agencies will use their census information against them or their families”.
This misunderstanding is more prominent among Latinos under 40. Just under half of them believe that the census is used to provide information to track and locate people by “immigration and law enforcement agencies,” while 29 percent of Latinos over 40 believe the same.
The fear among Latinos, and especially among undocumented immigrants, is not baseless. Shortly after the question about citizenship was rejected, President Donald Trump asked federal agencies to find a way to “gain a full, complete and accurate count of the non-citizen population.” As Reveal reported, “even without a citizenship question, the [Census] Bureau now can accurately identify whether a respondent is a citizen at least 90 percent of the time.”
With regards to the response options, Latinos preferred to participate by mail, especially non-citizens and Latinos over 40. In contrast, those Latinos under under 40 preferred online despite the fact that in the focus groups in 2019, most admitted not knowing how the online process worked.
The Census consists of nine simple questions, but one question about citizenship–which is not included–could end up costing several cities billions in aid, under-counting historically marginalized populations, and undermining research.
More than half of U.S. citizens of Latino descent believe that the 2020 Census includes a question about citizenship, a mistaken belief whose apparent popularity deeply troubles advocates and officials.
Since the citizenship question was left out of the 2020 Census, many have questioned what the consequences would be among Latinos. On February 10, the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) released the results of a national survey conducted between October 8 and October 19, 2019, months after the decision not to include the citizenship question in the Census.
Overall, 48 percent of Latinos surveyed expected to see a citizenship question on the census. Latinos who are citizens (naturalized and U.S. born) were more likely to believe the questions was part of the Census, 53 percent. In contrast, only 40 percent of non-citizens believe the question is part of the census.
As Arturo Vargas, Chief Executive Officer of NALEO, pointed out during the press conference, this is “an incongruous finding” because it shows that those who are not citizens are “better informed.” That’s why Vargas asked the English-language media to be as attentive to the problem of Census misconceptions as the Spanish-language media.
It is, however, also worrying that 42 percent of undocumented immigrants still believe the question is part of the Census.
The study also highlighted “high levels of anxiety within Latino community around the 2020 Census.” This is reflected in the fact that while 77 percent of Latinos understand that their community would benefit if they participated in the Census, at the same time, 75 percent of the respondents had major concerns that their personal information would be uses against them by the Trump’s administration
To add to this concern, 78 percent of respondents think the Census website is vulnerable to online interference. Moreover, according to the press release, “there are widespread misconceptions around what will be asked, and what the Census does with the information”.
As Julie Menin, New York City Census Bureau director, explained, the Census is essential for everyone because it allocates “the share of public funds.” For New York, this means millions of dollars for programs such as housing, health, education, transportation, as well as political representation and “more than 300 programs in the city,” says Menin. Due to the undercount in 2010, “we lost millions of dollars,” she says.
In addition to its public importance, the Census has political significance: The results can increase or decrease the number of legislative representatives in the city. New York’s population dropped by an estimated 76,790 people between 2018 and 2019; thus New York could lose two seats in Congress. It can also shift power in Congress, the state Assembly, State Senate and City Council among neighborhoods or between the city and its suburbs.
Additionally, the Census is important for defining the political representation of immigrant and non-White communities, which have been historically underrepresented. According to projections by the Urban Institute, “Black and Hispanic/Latinx-identified individuals in the high-risk scenario could be undercounted nationally by 3.68 percent and 3.57 percent, respectively.” Some 2.2 million Latinos around the United States could be miscounted. Immigrants are among the Census’ definition of hard-to-count populations. On the other hand, White people are the only group projected to be over-counted in certain states.
Surprisingly in New York, the self-response rate in the 2010 census was 77,4, slightly higher than the national rate 76 percent, in Washington Heights, a neighborhood with a large immigrant population. But the concern is that it will slip this year.
Another concern for Latinos is providing specific information about themselves or their family members. In addition, “nearly all shared the view that Latinos who are not citizens will not want to participate once they see the questions being asked,” reads the NALEO report. Also, 73 percent of “non-citizens are concerned that immigration enforcement agencies will use their census information against them or their families”.
This misunderstanding is more prominent among Latinos under 40. Just under half of them believe that the census is used to provide information to track and locate people by “immigration and law enforcement agencies,” while 29 percent of Latinos over 40 believe the same.
The fear among Latinos, and especially among undocumented immigrants, is not baseless. Shortly after the question about citizenship was rejected, President Donald Trump asked federal agencies to find a way to “gain a full, complete and accurate count of the non-citizen population.” As Reveal reported, “even without a citizenship question, the [Census] Bureau now can accurately identify whether a respondent is a citizen at least 90 percent of the time.”
With regards to the response options, Latinos preferred to participate by mail, especially non-citizens and Latinos over 40. In contrast, those Latinos under under 40 preferred online despite the fact that in the focus groups in 2019, most admitted not knowing how the online process worked.
The Census consists of nine simple questions, but one question about citizenship–which is not included–could end up costing several cities billions in aid, under-counting historically marginalized populations, and undermining research.
Speaker Johnson and Councilmember Levin at the unveiling of the Council’s homelessness report on January 30.
New York’s modern homelessness problem, which first gained attention during the Koch administration, predates the creation of the City Council as we know it today.
It wasn’t until after the Supreme Court cast the Board of Estimate to the dustbin in 1989 and the city charter was changed that the local legislature gained its current share of governing power. By then, the crude image of the New York City homeless person—think of a shopping cart next to a cardboard box under an overpass—was indelibly stamped upon the city’s reputation.
Since that time the Council chamber has been where successive mayors tried to defend their approach to managing the homelessness problem, at hearings of the Council’s general welfare committee. In the 1990s, the irrepressible Steve DiBrienza grilled Mayor Giuliani’s homelessness team. In the 2000s a tall, bearded man from Brooklyn pursued a more conciliatory conversation with Mayor Bloomberg’s commissioners during that mayor’s first two terms; the questions got tougher from Anabel Palma during Bloomberg’s final tour. For the past six years, the once-bearded man has been mayor, and Stephen Levin has led the committee.
Meanwhile, thousands slept in the shelters, their numbers rising and falling, then rising and rising, on economic winds and policy shifts.
The Council’s release late last month of a report and policy blueprint on homelessness represents something different: a comprehensive and proactive approach to a crisis that multiple mayoral strategies have failed to corral.
Levin joined the WBAI Max & Murphy Show (Live at 5 p.m. at 99.5FM every Wednesday) this week to discuss the report.
Long history, divided management
In surveying the history of homelessness in New York, the report renders this assessment of recent mayors:
New York City has been struggling to address homelessness for decades, with varying success. The Koch and Dinkins Administrations recognized that permanent housing options were important, while the Giuliani Administration took a punitive approach to homelessness, restricting shelter access and criminalizing poverty. The Bloomberg Administration saw homelessness as an incentive problem, and while a key prevention program—Homebase—was created to help those at risk, rental subsidies and priority access to public housing were discontinued, resulting in an explosive increase in the homeless population. The de Blasio Administration has made strides, reinstituting rental assistance vouchers, enhancing street outreach teams to help unsheltered individuals come inside, and drastically reducing the homeless veteran population. But, right now, the homelessness crisis is only being managed.
The Council’s nearly 200-page report, which was two years in the making, proposes steps to address homelessness in all its facets: as a risk to those who could become homeless, a crisis for people who now are in shelters, and a trauma for those who have—for the moment—escaped the system.
It proposes everything from improving planning for those getting out of prison and making rental vouchers more broadly available to increasing the market value of those vouchers, targeting affordable housing to the city’s poorest, creating more “safe havens” and boosting support for those dealing with domestic violence, which is an increasingly visible driver of shelter use.
More fundamentally, it calls for an end to the odd bifurcation in the city’s approach to housing people, which treats the production of affordable housing and the handling of homelessness as separate portfolios (with public housing often as a third, separate bucket).
Need for immediate steps
At the unveiling of the report on January 30, Council Speaker Corey Johnson noted that the city has one deputy mayor who handles housing, and another who handles homelessness. “That makes no sense given the depth and breadth of this crisis,” Johnson said.
Backed by dozens of advocates on the City Hall steps on a frigid morning, the speaker alluded to the “national homelessness crisis” and said the Council’s goal in crafting the report had been to create a “long-term comprehensive plan.”
But he also stressed, “We must take immediate steps like increasing rental assistance voucher amounts.” Most of the proposals in the Council report are steps the city can take on its own, although some of the more significant moves would require support from the state.
“It doesn’t rely on simplistic, single new strategies,” Catherine Trapani of Homeless Services United, who spoke at the City Hall event, said of the report. “It’s not going to be one thing [that addresses homelessness]. If it were, we would have solved it already. It’s going to be lots of things, done to scale.”
Some of what the de Blasio administration has done is working, Trapani said.: Some segments of the homeless shelter census have leveled off in the past year. That is proof that policy can succeed, she said, but also an indication that more is needed.
On Max & Murphy, Levin broke down the report’s diagnosis of the homelessness problem and the lengthy list of fixes it has proposed.
“Some of it has to do with doubling down on existing policies but a lot of it has to do with things that we’ve been advocating for for years that are still not done. A lot of them are things we’ve been talking about for five, six years,” Levin said, like making sure runaway and homeless youth have options when they age out of the youth shelter system, and setting aside more subsidized housing for people in the shelter system. “There’s a lot of those kinds of common-sense solutions.”
Hear our conversation with Levin above. Below, you can listen to our discussion of the mayor’s state of the city address last week, or scroll down further to catch the full show – which includes discussion about the New Hampshire primary and Bloomberg’s recently unearthed 2015 comments on stop-and-frisk.
Speaker Johnson and Councilmember Levin at the unveiling of the Council’s homelessness report on January 30.
New York’s modern homelessness problem, which first gained attention during the Koch administration, predates the creation of the City Council as we know it today.
It wasn’t until after the Supreme Court cast the Board of Estimate to the dustbin in 1989 and the city charter was changed that the local legislature gained its current share of governing power. By then, the crude image of the New York City homeless person—think of a shopping cart next to a cardboard box under an overpass—was indelibly stamped upon the city’s reputation.
Since that time the Council chamber has been where successive mayors tried to defend their approach to managing the homelessness problem, at hearings of the Council’s general welfare committee. In the 1990s, the irrepressible Steve DiBrienza grilled Mayor Giuliani’s homelessness team. In the 2000s a tall, bearded man from Brooklyn pursued a more conciliatory conversation with Mayor Bloomberg’s commissioners during that mayor’s first two terms; the questions got tougher from Anabel Palma during Bloomberg’s final tour. For the past six years, the once-bearded man has been mayor, and Stephen Levin has led the committee.
Meanwhile, thousands slept in the shelters, their numbers rising and falling, then rising and rising, on economic winds and policy shifts.
The Council’s release late last month of a report and policy blueprint on homelessness represents something different: a comprehensive and proactive approach to a crisis that multiple mayoral strategies have failed to corral.
Levin joined the WBAI Max & Murphy Show (Live at 5 p.m. at 99.5FM every Wednesday) this week to discuss the report.
Long history, divided management
In surveying the history of homelessness in New York, the report renders this assessment of recent mayors:
New York City has been struggling to address homelessness for decades, with varying success. The Koch and Dinkins Administrations recognized that permanent housing options were important, while the Giuliani Administration took a punitive approach to homelessness, restricting shelter access and criminalizing poverty. The Bloomberg Administration saw homelessness as an incentive problem, and while a key prevention program—Homebase—was created to help those at risk, rental subsidies and priority access to public housing were discontinued, resulting in an explosive increase in the homeless population. The de Blasio Administration has made strides, reinstituting rental assistance vouchers, enhancing street outreach teams to help unsheltered individuals come inside, and drastically reducing the homeless veteran population. But, right now, the homelessness crisis is only being managed.
The Council’s nearly 200-page report, which was two years in the making, proposes steps to address homelessness in all its facets: as a risk to those who could become homeless, a crisis for people who now are in shelters, and a trauma for those who have—for the moment—escaped the system.
It proposes everything from improving planning for those getting out of prison and making rental vouchers more broadly available to increasing the market value of those vouchers, targeting affordable housing to the city’s poorest, creating more “safe havens” and boosting support for those dealing with domestic violence, which is an increasingly visible driver of shelter use.
More fundamentally, it calls for an end to the odd bifurcation in the city’s approach to housing people, which treats the production of affordable housing and the handling of homelessness as separate portfolios (with public housing often as a third, separate bucket).
Need for immediate steps
At the unveiling of the report on January 30, Council Speaker Corey Johnson noted that the city has one deputy mayor who handles housing, and another who handles homelessness. “That makes no sense given the depth and breadth of this crisis,” Johnson said.
Backed by dozens of advocates on the City Hall steps on a frigid morning, the speaker alluded to the “national homelessness crisis” and said the Council’s goal in crafting the report had been to create a “long-term comprehensive plan.”
But he also stressed, “We must take immediate steps like increasing rental assistance voucher amounts.” Most of the proposals in the Council report are steps the city can take on its own, although some of the more significant moves would require support from the state.
“It doesn’t rely on simplistic, single new strategies,” Catherine Trapani of Homeless Services United, who spoke at the City Hall event, said of the report. “It’s not going to be one thing [that addresses homelessness]. If it were, we would have solved it already. It’s going to be lots of things, done to scale.”
Some of what the de Blasio administration has done is working, Trapani said.: Some segments of the homeless shelter census have leveled off in the past year. That is proof that policy can succeed, she said, but also an indication that more is needed.
On Max & Murphy, Levin broke down the report’s diagnosis of the homelessness problem and the lengthy list of fixes it has proposed.
“Some of it has to do with doubling down on existing policies but a lot of it has to do with things that we’ve been advocating for for years that are still not done. A lot of them are things we’ve been talking about for five, six years,” Levin said, like making sure runaway and homeless youth have options when they age out of the youth shelter system, and setting aside more subsidized housing for people in the shelter system. “There’s a lot of those kinds of common-sense solutions.”
Hear our conversation with Levin above. Below, you can listen to our discussion of the mayor’s state of the city address last week, or scroll down further to catch the full show – which includes discussion about the New Hampshire primary and Bloomberg’s recently unearthed 2015 comments on stop-and-frisk.
Una imagen del sitio web del Censo 2020 de la ciudad
Más de la mitad de los ciudadanos estadounidenses de ascendencia latina creen que el censo de 2020 incluirá una pregunta sobre la ciudadanía, una creencia errónea cuya aparente popularidad ha preocupado profundamente a los defensores y funcionarios.
Desde que se dejó por fuera la pregunta sobre la ciudadanía del censo de 2020, muchos se cuestionaban cuáles serían las consecuencias entre los latinos. En febrero 10, la organización National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO por sus siglas en inglés), publicó los resultados de una encuesta nacional realizada entre el 8 y el 19 de octubre de 2019, meses después de que se decidiera no incluir la pregunta sobre la ciudadanía en el censo.
En total, el 48 por ciento de los latinos encuestados cree que la pregunta sobre la ciudadanía es parte del censo. Visto más en detalle, 53 por ciento de los latinos que son ciudadanos (naturalizados o nacidos en los Estados Unidos) todavía creen que se les hará la pregunta sobre la ciudadanía. En contraste, solo el 40 por ciento de los latinos que no son ciudadanos creen la pregunta es parte del censo.
Como lo remarcó Arturo Vargas, director ejecutivo de NALEO, durante la rueda de prensa, esto es “un hallazgo incongruente” pues son quienes no son ciudadanos los que “están mejor informados”. Por ello Vargas pidió a los medios de comunicación en inglés que sean tan receptivos “para cubrir los temas de nuestra comunidad como lo hacen los medios de comunicación en español porque tiene un efecto”. Sin embargo, y a pesar de esta tendencia, es todavía preocupante que el 42 por ciento de los indocumentados aún crea que la pregunta es parte del censo.
Otro de los resultados que resalta el estudio es que “confirman altos niveles de ansiedad en la comunidad latina en torno al censo 2020”. Esto quiere decir que si bien el 77 por ciento de los latinos entiende que su comunidad se beneficiaría si participa más gente en el censo, al mismo tiempo existe un temor generalizado pues al 75 por ciento de los encuestados les preocupa que la administración Trump utilice la información del censo contra los latinos.
Para añadir a esta preocupación, al 78 por ciento de encuestados les preocupa que el sitio web del censo sea vulnerable a la interferencia en línea. Al mismo tiempo, según el comunicado de prensa, “hay conceptos erróneos muy extendidos sobre lo que se preguntará” en el censo. Y también hay confusión sobre “lo que el censo hace con la información”.
Como lo explicó Julie Menin, directora de la oficina del censo de la ciudad de Nueva York, el censo es importante para todos porque asigna “la cuota de fondos públicos”. En el caso específico de Nueva York, esto quiere decir que de allí viene parte del dinero para los programas en vivienda, salud, educación, transporte, además de representación política y para cubrir “los más de 300 programas de la ciudad”, dice Menin.
Además de su importancia pública, el censo tiene una importancia política que afecta en varios niveles. Uno de ellos es la participación política porque puede aumentar o reducir la cantidad de representantes de la ciudad. Debido a que la población en Nueva York se redujo en 76.790 personas entre 2018 y 2019, esto muy posiblemente le quitará dos puestos en el congreso.
Otra importancia política del censo es la representación de las comunidades inmigrantes, quienes han sido históricamente subregistradas. Según proyecciones del Urban Institute a nivel nacional los residentes afroamericanos podrían estar subestimados en el censo del 2020 hasta en un 3.68 por ciento y los latinos en un 3.57, unos 2.2 millones de latinos alrededor de los Estados Unidos. Los inmigrantes se encuentran entre la definición del censo de poblaciones difíciles de contar. Sólo se proyecta que la gente blanca sea sobre contada en ciertos estados. Por esto “perdimos millones de dólares”, dice Menin.
Sorpresivamente en Nueva York, la tasa de autorespuesta (self-response rate) del censo en 2010 en un barrio con una importante población de inmigrantes como Washington Heights estuvo ligeramente por encima, 77,4 por ciento, con respecto a la tasa nacional de 76 por ciento.
En el estudio de NALEO, los latinos expresaron además preocupación por la revelación de información específica sobre ellos mismos o a los miembros de su familia cuando se les presentaba un formulario de prueba del censo 2020. Además, “casi todos compartían la opinión de que los latinos que no son ciudadanos no querrán participar una vez que vean las preguntas que se hacen”, dice el comunicado.
Los latinos que no son ciudadanos ven más riesgos personales en la participación en el censo. Al 73 por ciento de los no ciudadanos “les preocupa que los organismos de aplicación de la ley de inmigración utilicen la información del censo contra ellos o sus familias”.
Como lo muestra el reporte hay además otros malentendidos acerca del censo. Por ejemplo, 49 por ciento de los latinos más jóvenes, aquellos menores de 40 años, cree que el censo se utiliza para proporcionar información para rastrear y localizar a las personas por “los organismos de inmigración y de aplicación de la ley”. En comparación, el 29 por ciento de los latinos mayores de 40 años cree esto mismo.
Si se tiene en cuenta que poco después de ser rechazada la pregunta sobre la ciudadanía el presidente Donald Trump le pidió a las agencias federales encontrar una forma para crear una lista de no-ciudadanos, entonces pueda que este temor entre los latinos y especialmente entre indocumentados no suene tan disparatado y falto de sustento. Según reportó Reveal, “incluso sin una pregunta de ciudadanía, la oficina ahora puede identificar con precisión si un encuestado es ciudadano al menos el 90% de las veces”.
Por otra parte, en cuanto al método preferido de respuesta del censo para los latinos, el reporte dice que fue el correo tradicional, especialmente para los no ciudadanos y los latinos mayores de 40 años. En contraste, los más jóvenes, los latinos menores de 40 años, “prefieren completar el censo en línea”, a pesar de que en los grupos de discusión de 2019, la mayoría admitía no saber cómo funcionaba el proceso en línea.
El censo se basa en nueve simples preguntas, pero por culpa de una —aquella sobre la ciudadanía que no se incluyó—, pueda que termine costando miles de millones a varias ciudades, un subregistro en el conteo y resultados de investigaciones basadas en los datos del censo menos precisos.
Una imagen del sitio web del Censo 2020 de la ciudad
Más de la mitad de los ciudadanos estadounidenses de ascendencia latina creen que el censo de 2020 incluirá una pregunta sobre la ciudadanía, una creencia errónea cuya aparente popularidad ha preocupado profundamente a los defensores y funcionarios.
Desde que se dejó por fuera la pregunta sobre la ciudadanía del censo de 2020, muchos se cuestionaban cuáles serían las consecuencias entre los latinos. En febrero 10, la organización National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO por sus siglas en inglés), publicó los resultados de una encuesta nacional realizada entre el 8 y el 19 de octubre de 2019, meses después de que se decidiera no incluir la pregunta sobre la ciudadanía en el censo.
En total, el 48 por ciento de los latinos encuestados cree que la pregunta sobre la ciudadanía es parte del censo. Visto más en detalle, 53 por ciento de los latinos que son ciudadanos (naturalizados o nacidos en los Estados Unidos) todavía creen que se les hará la pregunta sobre la ciudadanía. En contraste, solo el 40 por ciento de los latinos que no son ciudadanos creen la pregunta es parte del censo.
Como lo remarcó Arturo Vargas, director ejecutivo de NALEO, durante la rueda de prensa, esto es “un hallazgo incongruente” pues son quienes no son ciudadanos los que “están mejor informados”. Por ello Vargas pidió a los medios de comunicación en inglés que sean tan receptivos “para cubrir los temas de nuestra comunidad como lo hacen los medios de comunicación en español porque tiene un efecto”. Sin embargo, y a pesar de esta tendencia, es todavía preocupante que el 42 por ciento de los indocumentados aún crea que la pregunta es parte del censo.
Otro de los resultados que resalta el estudio es que “confirman altos niveles de ansiedad en la comunidad latina en torno al censo 2020”. Esto quiere decir que si bien el 77 por ciento de los latinos entiende que su comunidad se beneficiaría si participa más gente en el censo, al mismo tiempo existe un temor generalizado pues al 75 por ciento de los encuestados les preocupa que la administración Trump utilice la información del censo contra los latinos.
Para añadir a esta preocupación, al 78 por ciento de encuestados les preocupa que el sitio web del censo sea vulnerable a la interferencia en línea. Al mismo tiempo, según el comunicado de prensa, “hay conceptos erróneos muy extendidos sobre lo que se preguntará” en el censo. Y también hay confusión sobre “lo que el censo hace con la información”.
Como lo explicó Julie Menin, directora de la oficina del censo de la ciudad de Nueva York, el censo es importante para todos porque asigna “la cuota de fondos públicos”. En el caso específico de Nueva York, esto quiere decir que de allí viene parte del dinero para los programas en vivienda, salud, educación, transporte, además de representación política y para cubrir “los más de 300 programas de la ciudad”, dice Menin.
Además de su importancia pública, el censo tiene una importancia política que afecta en varios niveles. Uno de ellos es la participación política porque puede aumentar o reducir la cantidad de representantes de la ciudad. Debido a que la población en Nueva York se redujo en 76.790 personas entre 2018 y 2019, esto muy posiblemente le quitará dos puestos en el congreso.
Otra importancia política del censo es la representación de las comunidades inmigrantes, quienes han sido históricamente subregistradas. Según proyecciones del Urban Institute a nivel nacional los residentes afroamericanos podrían estar subestimados en el censo del 2020 hasta en un 3.68 por ciento y los latinos en un 3.57, unos 2.2 millones de latinos alrededor de los Estados Unidos. Los inmigrantes se encuentran entre la definición del censo de poblaciones difíciles de contar. Sólo se proyecta que la gente blanca sea sobre contada en ciertos estados. Por esto “perdimos millones de dólares”, dice Menin.
Sorpresivamente en Nueva York, la tasa de autorespuesta (self-response rate) del censo en 2010 en un barrio con una importante población de inmigrantes como Washington Heights estuvo ligeramente por encima, 77,4 por ciento, con respecto a la tasa nacional de 76 por ciento.
En el estudio de NALEO, los latinos expresaron además preocupación por la revelación de información específica sobre ellos mismos o a los miembros de su familia cuando se les presentaba un formulario de prueba del censo 2020. Además, “casi todos compartían la opinión de que los latinos que no son ciudadanos no querrán participar una vez que vean las preguntas que se hacen”, dice el comunicado.
Los latinos que no son ciudadanos ven más riesgos personales en la participación en el censo. Al 73 por ciento de los no ciudadanos “les preocupa que los organismos de aplicación de la ley de inmigración utilicen la información del censo contra ellos o sus familias”.
Como lo muestra el reporte hay además otros malentendidos acerca del censo. Por ejemplo, 49 por ciento de los latinos más jóvenes, aquellos menores de 40 años, cree que el censo se utiliza para proporcionar información para rastrear y localizar a las personas por “los organismos de inmigración y de aplicación de la ley”. En comparación, el 29 por ciento de los latinos mayores de 40 años cree esto mismo.
Si se tiene en cuenta que poco después de ser rechazada la pregunta sobre la ciudadanía el presidente Donald Trump le pidió a las agencias federales encontrar una forma para crear una lista de no-ciudadanos, entonces pueda que este temor entre los latinos y especialmente entre indocumentados no suene tan disparatado y falto de sustento. Según reportó Reveal, “incluso sin una pregunta de ciudadanía, la oficina ahora puede identificar con precisión si un encuestado es ciudadano al menos el 90% de las veces”.
Por otra parte, en cuanto al método preferido de respuesta del censo para los latinos, el reporte dice que fue el correo tradicional, especialmente para los no ciudadanos y los latinos mayores de 40 años. En contraste, los más jóvenes, los latinos menores de 40 años, “prefieren completar el censo en línea”, a pesar de que en los grupos de discusión de 2019, la mayoría admitía no saber cómo funcionaba el proceso en línea.
El censo se basa en nueve simples preguntas, pero por culpa de una —aquella sobre la ciudadanía que no se incluyó—, pueda que termine costando miles de millones a varias ciudades, un subregistro en el conteo y resultados de investigaciones basadas en los datos del censo menos precisos.
Mayor Pete Buttigieg campaigns in New Hampshire, October 2019.
Poverty got a shout out in the run-up to Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary, in the final pre-primary debate last Friday, when moderator George Stephanopoulos asked a question about child poverty. Stephanopoulos noted that it was the first time in 20 years that such a question had worked its way into a presidential debate. Just as remarkable, perhaps, is that it was asked in the state with the lowest poverty rate it 2018. At 7.6 percent. New Hampshire was one of only six states with a poverty rate below 10 percent.
New Hampshire’s small size, rural character and lack of diversity (WalletHub found it to be the fourth least-diverse state) are often cited by people who question the Granite State’s unique and hallowed place in the presidential-campaign calendar. With the national poverty rate at 11.8 percent, add that measure to the argument that New Hampshire is not reflective of the national condition—at least not in a way that’s visible to television cameras and news correspondents who ramble through for a few days every four years.
Look closer, and the situation is more complicated. According to the American Community Survey, 44 of New Hampshire’s 107 cities, towns and villages post poverty rates in excess of the national average. Ten of them have more than one in five people living in poverty. Durham, N.H., has a poverty rate of 33 percent.
“I could drive you to the town of Exeter and you’d be appalled by the mobile homes that are rusting away and hidden in the woods,” Patte-Anne Ardizzoni, the communications director for Southern New Hampshire Services, Inc., tells City Limits. “That story stands for many of the towns.”
Some of the poor are newcomers: Until the number dropped dramatically under President Trump, New Hampshire was seeing a significant number of refugee families every year. But there is multi-generational poverty, too, especially in the northern half of the state: Coos and Grafton counties, which cover the north and west-central parts of the state, have the highest poverty rates among New Hampshire counties, at 13.3 percent and 10.9 percent, respectively.
The death of traditional industry, like paper plants, meant that “people who were once working (and generations had been in the same plants) found themselves without options,” Ardizzoni says. Lack of education—especially adult ed—or transportation options in rural areas compounds the problem. A dearth of workforce housing adds to the strain.
The latter manifests itself in a homelessness problem that, while exponentially smaller than New York City’s, is a significant concern in cities like Manchester, New Hampshire’s largest.
In the past year or so, “We saw a lot of attention paid to homelessness because it was becoming more visible than I’ve ever seen it,” says Cathy Kuhn, the director of the New Hampshire Coalition to End Homelessness. “There were literally people sleeping downtown on Elm Street. It became a key point of discussion for city leadership.” While the city had an emergency shelter system for single adults, it was at capacity. “That was the first time that Manchester has ever had to deal with that.”
Kuhn says Manchester reacted well, convening a task force of stakeholders who crafted a thoughtful response plan. It’s still a work in progress, though. “Thankfully, we’ve been able to come up with a plan that at least on the coldest nights, when sleeping outside could be deadly, there is an overflow facility where our faith community here in the city sort of stepped up to provide that facility, both the space and the staffing.” However, “We don’t have overflow capacity on nights when it’s not cold but people still need shelters. That’s something we’re still working on.”
Family homelessness is also a growing concern. Of the households with children that her organization tracks as homeless, “typically around a third of families are reported living outside cars, basements and other places not meant for human habitation,” Kuhn says. As is the case in New York, families are less visible than street-homeless individuals. “It’s sort of the hidden homeless,” she adds. But the shelter system is simply not up to the task. “There are people getting turned away every single day,” she adds.
Just as disturbing, some of those homeless families have housing vouchers, but they still cannot find an apartment they can afford. “Our vacancy rate is so incredibly low,” Kuhn says. “It’s a landlord’s market.”
Therein lies the larger significance of New Hampshire’s homelessness problem. According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s annual point-in-time count, New Hampshire has the eighth lowest number of homeless people among the states, with just under 1,400 homeless among a total population of 1.4 million. It’s not a huge number of people. But it indicates that even in a state with little poverty, and even amid a long-lasting economic boom, there are people in the U.S.—including working people—unable to afford a place to live. It hints at bigger vulnerabilities: the other families not in the homeless tally but barely balancing their earnings against rent and other essentials.
As in Manchester, the housing emergency facing other New Hampshire cities is small-scale, but real. Nashua, the state’s second-largest city, is also wrestling with a homelessness problem that is growing, slowly but steadily. And Ardizzoni says in Portsmouth, on the coast, “Families, working families, who would otherwise opt to be rent payers are staying at Cross Roads House. Kids get on the school bus outside of the shelter, parents go to full time work, and then return to the shelter.”
Kuhn is optimistic that the collaborative approach taken in Manchester will lead to an adequate policy response. But Ardizzoni worries that other demographic changes—namely, New Hampshire’s graying population as residents age in place or opt to retire there—will complicate the challenges. “The systems and services in place right now, and to include housing, are inadequate to cover the sheer number of those retiring and who will be retiring,” she says.
Housing issues have been uniquely visible during the 2020 presidential race, with most major Democratic candidates proposing plans to create more affordability. Some have explicitly mentioned homelessness. But none did in Friday’s debate at Saint Anselm College, three miles from the largest homeless shelter in America’s least-poor state.
Mayor Pete Buttigieg campaigns in New Hampshire, October 2019.
Poverty got a shout out in the run-up to Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary, in the final pre-primary debate last Friday, when moderator George Stephanopoulos asked a question about child poverty. Stephanopoulos noted that it was the first time in 20 years that such a question had worked its way into a presidential debate. Just as remarkable, perhaps, is that it was asked in the state with the lowest poverty rate it 2018. At 7.6 percent. New Hampshire was one of only six states with a poverty rate below 10 percent.
New Hampshire’s small size, rural character and lack of diversity (WalletHub found it to be the fourth least-diverse state) are often cited by people who question the Granite State’s unique and hallowed place in the presidential-campaign calendar. With the national poverty rate at 11.8 percent, add that measure to the argument that New Hampshire is not reflective of the national condition—at least not in a way that’s visible to television cameras and news correspondents who ramble through for a few days every four years.
Look closer, and the situation is more complicated. According to the American Community Survey, 44 of New Hampshire’s 107 cities, towns and villages post poverty rates in excess of the national average. Ten of them have more than one in five people living in poverty. Durham, N.H., has a poverty rate of 33 percent.
“I could drive you to the town of Exeter and you’d be appalled by the mobile homes that are rusting away and hidden in the woods,” Patte-Anne Ardizzoni, the communications director for Southern New Hampshire Services, Inc., tells City Limits. “That story stands for many of the towns.”
Some of the poor are newcomers: Until the number dropped dramatically under President Trump, New Hampshire was seeing a significant number of refugee families every year. But there is multi-generational poverty, too, especially in the northern half of the state: Coos and Grafton counties, which cover the north and west-central parts of the state, have the highest poverty rates among New Hampshire counties, at 13.3 percent and 10.9 percent, respectively.
The death of traditional industry, like paper plants, meant that “people who were once working (and generations had been in the same plants) found themselves without options,” Ardizzoni says. Lack of education—especially adult ed—or transportation options in rural areas compounds the problem. A dearth of workforce housing adds to the strain.
The latter manifests itself in a homelessness problem that, while exponentially smaller than New York City’s, is a significant concern in cities like Manchester, New Hampshire’s largest.
In the past year or so, “We saw a lot of attention paid to homelessness because it was becoming more visible than I’ve ever seen it,” says Cathy Kuhn, the director of the New Hampshire Coalition to End Homelessness. “There were literally people sleeping downtown on Elm Street. It became a key point of discussion for city leadership.” While the city had an emergency shelter system for single adults, it was at capacity. “That was the first time that Manchester has ever had to deal with that.”
Kuhn says Manchester reacted well, convening a task force of stakeholders who crafted a thoughtful response plan. It’s still a work in progress, though. “Thankfully, we’ve been able to come up with a plan that at least on the coldest nights, when sleeping outside could be deadly, there is an overflow facility where our faith community here in the city sort of stepped up to provide that facility, both the space and the staffing.” However, “We don’t have overflow capacity on nights when it’s not cold but people still need shelters. That’s something we’re still working on.”
Family homelessness is also a growing concern. Of the households with children that her organization tracks as homeless, “typically around a third of families are reported living outside cars, basements and other places not meant for human habitation,” Kuhn says. As is the case in New York, families are less visible than street-homeless individuals. “It’s sort of the hidden homeless,” she adds. But the shelter system is simply not up to the task. “There are people getting turned away every single day,” she adds.
Just as disturbing, some of those homeless families have housing vouchers, but they still cannot find an apartment they can afford. “Our vacancy rate is so incredibly low,” Kuhn says. “It’s a landlord’s market.”
Therein lies the larger significance of New Hampshire’s homelessness problem. According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s annual point-in-time count, New Hampshire has the eighth lowest number of homeless people among the states, with just under 1,400 homeless among a total population of 1.4 million. It’s not a huge number of people. But it indicates that even in a state with little poverty, and even amid a long-lasting economic boom, there are people in the U.S.—including working people—unable to afford a place to live. It hints at bigger vulnerabilities: the other families not in the homeless tally but barely balancing their earnings against rent and other essentials.
As in Manchester, the housing emergency facing other New Hampshire cities is small-scale, but real. Nashua, the state’s second-largest city, is also wrestling with a homelessness problem that is growing, slowly but steadily. And Ardizzoni says in Portsmouth, on the coast, “Families, working families, who would otherwise opt to be rent payers are staying at Cross Roads House. Kids get on the school bus outside of the shelter, parents go to full time work, and then return to the shelter.”
Kuhn is optimistic that the collaborative approach taken in Manchester will lead to an adequate policy response. But Ardizzoni worries that other demographic changes—namely, New Hampshire’s graying population as residents age in place or opt to retire there—will complicate the challenges. “The systems and services in place right now, and to include housing, are inadequate to cover the sheer number of those retiring and who will be retiring,” she says.
Housing issues have been uniquely visible during the 2020 presidential race, with most major Democratic candidates proposing plans to create more affordability. Some have explicitly mentioned homelessness. But none did in Friday’s debate at Saint Anselm College, three miles from the largest homeless shelter in America’s least-poor state.
Rep. Yvette Clarke and Adem Bunkeddeko are two of the six declared candidates in the June Democratic primary for the Ninth Congressional district.
The spotlight on housing issues is brighter in 2020 than in any election year in recent memory. Just about all of the top Democratic presidential candidates are pitching national housing plans. Mayor Bill de Blasio, who six years ago launched the largest housing-development initiative in the country, now says the city’s deepest housing needs still need addressing. With housing stress evident everywhere from the streets of L.A. to mobile home parks in Nebraska, housing might be the pocketbook issue that connects “red state” and “blue state” voters.
It could also be the defining issue in the race to represent New York’s Ninth Congressional district, which covers a chunk of Brooklyn running from Prospect Park and Crown Heights down to Sheepshead Bay.
Two years ago, rookie candidate Adem Bunkeddeko challenged Congresswoman Yvette Clarke and came within 1,852 votes of winning—equivalent to one half of one percent of voters in the district. The two will meet again in this June’s Democratic primary, in which the other declared candidates are Councilmember Chaim Deutsch, small business owner Lutchi Gayot, technology entrepreneur Alexander Hubbard and community organizer and Iraq/Afghanistan veteran Isiah James.
Bunkeddeko opened his second attempt to unseat Clarke with a length policy paper on housing that framed what he calls an “American Homes Guarantee” that would treat housing as a basic right.
In a more modest move, Clarke last year proposed a legislative fix to the way target incomes for “affordable housing” developments are set—a long-standing pet peeve of housing advocates in the city.
One thing that is likely is that housing affordability is a challenge facing many of those voters. About 70 percent of households in the district are renters. According to the American Community Survey, 53 percent of those renter households in the district pay more than 30 percent of their income in rent, up from 49 percent of renters in 2005.
The challenger’s plan
Bunkeddeko—who until recently worked for the Local Initiatives Support Corporation, a nonprofit that helps facilitate financing for housing and other development in low-income neighborhoods—says his “homes guarantee” would “ensure that every family can live in safe, accessible, and permanently affordable housing.”
His plan revolves around the construction of 12 million units of below-market housing through community land trusts operated by nonprofits or resident cooperatives.
Bunkeddeko also wants to build more senior and supportive housing. He says Washington should fork over the “$32 billion that the federal government owes NYCHA,” and he wants to clear legal barriers to the building of new public housing. Under the Homes Guarantee plan, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development would be empowered to investigate speculators and levy taxes on vacant property. He also backs an existing scheme that would create national rent control and a “right to counsel” for tenants facing eviction.
To boost homeownership in communities that “have been historically blocked from buying homes,” Bunkeddeko’s plan also calls for deeper down-payment support and the creation of a Community Opportunity to Purchase (COPA) program.
Put simply, the plan calls for creating a lot of housing, starting with the 12 million-unit target. By way of comparison, New York State and Ohio together host about 12 million housing units, the Low Income Housing Tax Credit has financed about 2 million homes since that mechanism was created in 1986 and there are 1.2 million public housing apartments in the country. Most estimates of the country’s housing shortage put it at about 7 million units, although that need will grow as population grows (the U.S. has 40 million more people now than it did in 2000).
“Given Washington’s devastating disinvestment in public housing, it is going to take a real commitment, well over $100 Billion a year for the next ten years or more to try to right this ship,” Bunkeddeko tells City Limits. “But we are past the point of this being optional; families in NYCHA are living in third-world conditions and homelessness is at its highest level since the Great Depression. It’s time for Congress to act.”
Bunkeddeko’s vision is more ambitious than even the most aggressive of the presidential candidates: Sen. Bernie Sanders has proposed building 10 million units and former Mayor Pete Buttigieg 9 million.
On one hand, that makes his plan unique. On the other, it means passing it would be a heavy left for a freshman member of Congress.
“It’s exciting that folks running for president, particularly Democrats, are talking about housing,” Bunkeddeko says. He believes his 2018 race, where housing was a focus, helped shape the conversation that the presidential contenders are now amplifying. “I believe there is a great deal of energy and work to put in if we are elected, because there is a lot of work to do.”
The record and the proposal
The race two years ago was easily the toughest Clarke had faced since 2006, when she won a four-way Democratic primary to succeed Major Owens, who’d held the seat for 24 years. The legendary Shirley Chisholm was Owens’ predecessor in the district.
In Clarke’s first term, spanning 2007 and 2008, she introduced the Real Estate Assessment Center Inspection Improvement Act and the Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2008. The following session, for 2009-2010, she reintroduced the Foreclosure Prevention Act and wrote the Affordable Housing and Community Development Act.
None of those proposals appear to have made it beyond committee, but they reflected some attempt to deal with housing worries. During the same time period, Clarke was somewhat visible as a voice on NYCHA, telling the Daily News in 2010: “I’m in Washington fighting . . . to get it right and make sure that New Yorkers of modest and low income can afford to stay in this place.”
More recently, however, Clarke’s attention—at least as a law-writer—moved elsewhere; her proposals tended to focus on terrorism, small businesses, immigration and other issues, although there was a 2014 bill to assist homeowners hit by disasters. Of the 235 press releases her office has issued over the past five years, only five were connected to housing.
It wasn’t until 2018 that she proposed another broad housing bill: the Hardest Hit Housing Act, which “would provide additional funds for various housing programs, including grants to large public housing agencies for specified capital activities, grants for foreclosure mitigation counseling and legal assistance, and incremental vouchers for rental assistance for large public housing agencies,” a Clarke spokeswoman says.
That last proposal attracted some attention last fall, because Area Median Income (AMI) has been a feature of almost every debate about affordable housing, rezoning and development in the city.
The federal tax credit and subsidy programs that underwrite most affordable housing peg eligibility to AMI. In New York City’s case, an odd legislative history means AMI is calculated on a region-wide basis, with Rockland and Westchester counties thrown in. Those skew the underlying numbers. Just as important, the feds adjust AMIs upward to account for high housing costs in the city. Taken together, it often means that “affordable housing” is priced out of reach of the families who need it most.
Clarke’s bill (which has 22 co-sponsors) would address both problems—and, importantly, appears to target the housing-cost adjustments only to how tax credits are used. That means her bill avoids lowering eligibility thresholds for Section 8 and public housing, which would exclude thousands of New Yorkers. The proposed law would also increase funding for affordable housing by $2.5 billion every year for a decade. A spokeswoman for Clarke says the bill “aims to cut rents in subsidized developments in the five boroughs by more than a third.”
While those aspects of the bill address key concerns, its overall impact could be complicated, since affordable housing is typically financed using multiple funding streams. Also, lower income levels serve needier people, but they also generate lower rent revenue to support housing developments over time. “Many programs are built around federal standards and fit together like a puzzle piece,” one housing expect told City Limits. “To truly understand the impact, there would need to be a thorough analysis of which programs would be impacted and how it might impact the cost of development.”
Bunkaddeko dismisses Clarke’s AMI bill. “It’s too little, too late and doesn’t address the issues at hand,” he says. “AMI is just a number or an index. The structural issue is that there isn’t enough affordable housing available here.”
Clarke’s office did not make the congresswoman available for an interview. In a statement, a Clarke spokeswoman said: “While Brooklyn’s economic make-up has shifted dramatically during Congresswoman’s Clarke’s time in office, she has been a relentless voice to ensure that Brooklyn remains affordable for everyday working families, including low-income communities.” New housing proposals are coming, the spokeswoman says.
Along with many in the New York delegation, Clarke is a co-sponsor of Velzaquez’s Public Housing Emergency Response Act, which would authorize $70 billion to shore up public housing around the country.
A race takes shape
On the campaign trail, Clarke maintains a lead in fundraising—she has $344,000 on hand compared with Bunkeddeko’s $189,000—but it is not clear if she will be able to achieve the financial advantage she had in 2018. Over the course of that cycle, Clarke spent $879,000 to Bunkeddeko’s $259,000, although not all of the congresswoman’s spending was concentrated on the primary campaign. (Clarke faced only token Republican opposition in the 2018 general election, winning with 87 percent of the vote.)
Deutsch’s campaign did not respond to multiple emails requesting comment on his own housing-policy plans. Gayot’s agenda highlights the potential of modular housing to help close the gap between supply and demand, and stresses the importance of transit infrastructure to making distant neighborhoods viable as housing hubs. Hubbard’s campaign website features the issue but offers few specifics.
James offers the most detailed plan to rival Bunkeddeko’s. It calls for taxes on non-primary homes, support for land trusts, federal backing for low- and middle-income housing cooperatives, and a crackdown on AirBnB, among other ideas.
