Search and filter by content type, issue area, author, and keyword
December 31, 2023
New York City residents are facing the ill-effects of drastic, across-the-board budget cuts affecting the most basic city services. It would hardly seem to be the right time for the Adams administration to undertake an expensive new housing program with the city’s own funds. Yet that’s exactly what the Department of Housing Preservation and Development announced last week….
December 21, 2023
Official data released last Friday show that 2023 was the worst year ever recorded for homelessness, and it’s not even close. The 12 percent rise in homelessness quadrupled the previous record for a single-year increase. Our homeless population is now the largest it has ever been. Policy-makers must wake up to this national crisis. Our…
December 18, 2023
Progressives have long claimed that the only problem with New York’s largest collection of slum housing—our public housing projects—has been a lack of federal funding. Former mayor Bill de Blasio liked to blame the decline of what was once the nation’s best-managed public-housing system on someone who left office in 1989: Ronald Reagan. Now, thanks…
December 11, 2023
By implementing onerous requirements on Airbnb hosts, New York City is attempting to scapegoat short-term rental (STR) sites for the city’s own failings. Rather than accounting for city policies that continue to drive its housing and hotel room shortage, officials have decided to target the city’s 40,000 active listings, operated by—mostly smalltime—Airbnb hosts. In the…
December 11, 2023
The post-pandemic rise in rents has fueled the view that the private housing market inevitably fails those of modest means. The left-leaning Center for Budget Policies and Priorities summarizes the idea that the short-term spike in rents merely dramatizes that essential market failure. It asserts that the “rent burden among families with the lowest incomes is a…
November 27, 2023
Those who believe New York City not only needs more housing but more types of housing to serve its many types of households should be cheered by the Adams administration’s support for “granny flats.” These small “accessory dwelling units” built in backyards, converted basements or converted garages can help homeowners pay their mortgages and older adults…
November 9, 2023
Some will attribute Kristy Marmorato’s election as the first Republican to represent The Bronx in City Council in 40 years to selfish NIMBY-ism. And there is no doubt her opposition to two subsidized- (a k a “affordable-”) housing developments in the northeast Bronx (District 13) were a key factor in her defeating incumbent Democrat Marjorie Velazquez —…
October 13, 2023
It’s cliche to observe that socially conservative views emerge when liberals are “mugged by reality.” But when it happens to the governor of California and the local leadership of Portland and Seattle, it’s not trite — it’s important. That’s exactly what has happened in the form of a push by leaders from every Western state asking the…
October 4, 2023
At first glance, Mayor Eric Adams’s extensive new citywide rezoning plan, meant to encourage new housing, may seem like more of the problematic same. It emphasizes, for instance, the construction of yet more “permanently affordable” new apartments through the dubious means of permitting more units to be built if some get set aside as “income restricted.” This “inclusionary”…
September 18, 2023
We’re living through one of the greatest housing crunches the U.S. has ever known. It’s resulted in record numbers of homelessness and entire generations certain they will never become homeowners, that critical milestone of the middle class. But there is a simple solution to the problem. The answer to our housing crisis is to legalize…