“In this new era of partnership between tenants and City Hall, we will put the worst landlords out of business, and win both affordable and dignified homes for working people”

NEW YORK, NY – In response to the announcement of Mayor Mamdani’s housing plan, NYS Tenant Bloc Director Sumathy Kumar released the following statement:

“Tenants organized to take back our city and elected a mayor who pledged to deliver for us, the people who make NYC run. This Housing Plan is a roadmap, and to realize its promise tenants must get organized with our neighbors and build power in our homes. 

“The Plan leverages the tools and resources of the City to hold bad landlords accountable, fix our homes, and expand the availability of housing tenants can afford. Working hand in hand with tenants organizing in our buildings, the City will step up code enforcement –  empowering tenants to win change in our living conditions, collecting fines from negligent landlords, and, in response to the worst actors, taking our homes into tenant and community control. 

“Working in partnership with organized tenants will be the key that turns this from a plan to progress – and we won’t hesitate to push back when the City gets it wrong. With costs rising in every part of our lives, exempting distressed vacant units from the rent freeze undermines the urgent need to preserve affordable housing in our city and incentivizes landlords to kick tenants out of our homes.

“We know what causes sky-high rents and disrepair in our homes: landlords’ relentless drive for profit. And we know how to counter it: by getting organized to take control of our homes. In this new era of partnership between tenants and City Hall, we will put the worst landlords out of business, and win both affordable and dignified homes for working people.”

The Housing Plan includes many commitments that have long been key demands of the organized tenant movement, including several improvements to the code enforcement system highlighted at an April Tenant Townhall hosted by Housing Justice for All. 

Highlights from the Housing Plan’s commitments to tenants include: 

• $2.2 Billion to take buildings away from bad landlords and put them into tenant and community control.
• Stepped up code enforcement from the Department of Housing Preservation and Development that includes:
  • Enabling tenants to proactively reschedule inspections; 
  • Giving each heat complaint the attention it deserves;
  • Expediting the 7A Program, for HPD to initiate legal action to remove negligent owners and property managers;
  • Collecting fines from landlords who break habitability law. 
• Support for tenant organizing including:
  • Revising “rent-impairing violations” list to protect tenants’ right to withhold rent and go on rent strike in response to neglect; 
  • Coordinating roof-to-cellar inspections with organized tenant associations; 
  • Defending tenants from retaliation for organizing.
• Building 200,000 new rent stabilized homes and expanding the public sector’s role in creating new, affordable housing, including:
  • Historic capital commitments & new financing tools
  • A focus on creating units for low income tenants failed by the private market and limiting their rents to 25% of income
  • Targeting new development in transit corridors and wealthy neighborhoods that have blocked new housing for years