Millions of New Yorkers cannot afford a decent place to live. The most recent City data shows that 26% of New York City renters pay at least half of their income for rent. Thousands of affordable units in Mitchell-Lama, Section 8, and public housing are being lost every year, and hundreds of thousands of rent-stabilized apartments are decontrolled when they hit the $2000 rent level.
I've been blogging about Starrett City because that fight is a high profile example of the affordable housing fights going on all over New York. What the Starrett City fight does, since it's so big and so many people live there, is focus attention and light a fire under our elected officials that we need to act to increase the housing covered by rent regulations and protect the affordable housing we have now.
An unprecedented coalition including the Working Families Party, labor unions, and nearly every housing organization in New York City have joined forces to do just that. We'll be hosting Borough Planning Meetings across the city starting later this month, all leading up to a massive affordable housing rally on May 23 at Stuyvesant Town.
You're invited: find the closest Affordable Housing Borough Meeting and mark it down on your calendar. Let's do all we can to make sure working families can afford to stay in New York.
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