That crisis isn’t helped by a mayor who throws up his hands, scapegoats migrants and abandons the city’s commitment to unhoused people.
Likewise, the state expects more from leaders in Albany like the Assembly speaker, Carl Heastie, and the Senate majority leader, Andrea Stewart-Cousins. They failed New Yorkers by allowing NIMBYs and suburban opponents to thwart a plan from Gov. Kathy Hochul that would have slashed the archaic zoning laws across the region that are choking off its housing supply.
New York needs that plan, known as the Housing Compact, and hopefully Ms. Hochul can resurrect it over the coming year. Albany also needs to deliver on so-called “good cause” eviction, which would afford critical protections to renters, helping them stay in their homes.
In the coming days though, Ms. Hochul, Mr. Heastie and Ms. Stewart-Cousins can at least agree to policies that the governor has called “low-hanging fruit,” some of which could be achieved by executive order. What would that look like? For starters, it would mean extending the deadline for the property tax break known as 421a, an imperfect but necessary tool that offers tax relief to developers for setting aside a portion of the units as affordable. Albany can also remove caps on the size of new residential buildings in New York City, paving the way for the higher density projects the city badly needs. It can begin to allow more accessory dwelling units, or guest apartments, to be built in the region.
At City Hall, there are things Mr. Adams can do to better manage the surge in homelessness without bulldozing the constitutional right to shelter. The most urgent task is getting as many people out of the shelter system and into the permanent housing that is available, right now.
New York City’s municipal government can do this, but it needs Mr. Adams’s help. City officials, Legal Aid attorneys and advocates who work with homeless New Yorkers say the mayor can begin by tackling the citywide staffing crisis, moving swiftly to hire more workers at agencies that serve the poorest New Yorkers.
At the Department of Homeless Services, more and better-trained workers are needed to help shelter residents apply for city housing vouchers, an onerous process that should be streamlined. “It’s harder than doing your taxes,” Dave Giffen, executive director of the Coalition for the Homeless, told me.