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Opinion

We Need a New Urban Agenda


CUNY graduation

(photo: Edwin J. Torres/Mayor's Office)


Make no mistake, our great city has a racial caste system that continues to plague us. It is time that we craft and execute a comprehensive and coherent progressive urban agenda.

I have not been able to find such an agenda from any leader or institution, not from Barack Obama or even Bernie Sanders. It's as if an urban agenda, since the long ago days of JFK and LBJ and our nation's anti-poverty programs and civil rights movement, has gone out of political fashion.

In the current vacuum, my team and I have begun crafting an urban agenda, with the immediate purpose of promoting racial, social, and economic justice for all New Yorkers.

A work in progress, it consists for now of these fundamental policy reforms:

*Ending, not tweaking or adjusting, the blatantly racist and deeply inhumane quota-driven "broken windows" policing practices that target poor New Yorkers of color -- sometimes via false arrests or bogus summonses -- for engaging in infractions that officers virtually ignore in white communities.

*As recently proposed by the blue-ribbon Lippmann Commission (and rejected publicly by Mayor de Blasio), decriminalizing four minor offenses: marijuana possession; sex work; fare evasion; and gravity knife possession.

*Closing the jails on Rikers Island by the end of 2018 and housing the city's reduced inmate population in existing borough facilities.

*Instituting small classes and integrated student bodies for the 1.1 million children attending our city public schools.

*Providing homes, not just shelters, for 60,000 homeless New Yorkers, over one-third of whom are children.

*Providing truly affordable housing units for low-income households so they can live in their neighborhoods or a neighborhood of their choosing. Work primarily with experienced and proven community-based housing groups to achieve this, including creating suitable entities like community land trusts and removing big real estate from the equation.

*Instead of arresting New Yorkers for fare evasion as is the NYPD's frequent practice -- at the rate of over 70 such arrests per day -- providing free fares for low-income people who need to use public transportation to get to work, job interviews, school, medical appointments, child care providers, and elsewhere.

*Taking a chapter from our nation's New Deal history book, institute at the city's Parks Department, its housing agencies, and other appropriate entities a public works project program that provides living wage jobs and valuable work experience to unemployed New Yorkers, whose assigned tasks will focus on repairing the city's decaying infrastructure.

*Providing free tuition at CUNY colleges for New Yorkers from low- and middle-income families.

Skeptics may call this urban agenda impractical or too far-reaching, but it is animated by the spirit behind the saying that Robert Kennedy borrowed from George Bernard Shaw and used often in his 1968 presidential bid: "Some men see things as they are and ask why. Others see things that never were and ask why not."

While recognizing the good that these reforms would achieve, other doubters may question where we'd find the money to pay for them. For starters, we point to these potential savings: the $275 million and the $1.1 billion that Mayor de Blasio has included in his recent budget proposals to build a new police academy and to design new jails. Plus, our police and criminal justice reforms would lead to significant reductions in the approximately $10 billion per year that the the city spends on its law enforcement system.

This new urban agenda, which we’ll continue to develop, would enrich the quality of life for all New Yorkers, especially the most vulnerable and heretofore discriminated groups. Given how much progress it would make toward creating a truly just, safe, inclusive, and affordable city for all New Yorkers, the question is not ‘how can you do it’, but ‘how can you not?’

***
Bob Gangi is a Democratic candidate for Mayor and former executive director of the Police Reform Organizing Project (PROP).

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Illegal Conversions Crackdown Could Worsen City’s Housing Crisis


 hum listings

(photo: Tarry Hum)


The New York City Council recently passed an “Aggravated Illegal Conversions” bill by a 49-0 vote. The legislation -- sponsored by City Council Members Gentile, Williams, and Grodenchik, and Brooklyn Borough President Adams, and signed into law by Mayor de Blasio -- significantly increases the civil penalties for owners who illegally subdivide their residential property to create three or more dwelling units (typically single rooms) above the number legally permitted by the property’s certificate of occupancy. Unpaid penalties become a tax lien that the city can recoup through a forced property sale.  

Representing the South Brooklyn neighborhoods of Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, Bath Beach, and Bensonhurst, Council Member Gentile has long argued the high risks and costs of illegal conversions in terms of tenant and emergency responder safety and overburdened public infrastructure. Media coverage of several incidences of illegal conversions in summer 2016 added momentum and renewed urgency to the bill’s passage.

Illegal conversions provide a housing source of last resort and their prevalence in working-class, immigrant enclaves and neighboring areas underscore New York City’s acute housing crisis. The outstanding demand for affordable housing augmented by rising real estate values are the driving forces behind predatory landlord practices. Investor-owners subdivide their property in order to maximize rental profits; homeowners may similarly seek to capture untapped profits, or they may depend on rental income to support a huge mortgage debt.

In either scenario, modest one- to three-family properties have become “modern-day tenements” where working-class New Yorkers are only able to afford a substandard, single room. A common sight in Sunset Park and Flushing are bulletin boards with numerous notices publicizing single rooms for rent. Long discarded as a viable source of housing for low-income tenants, SROs were recently touted as a niche alternative for affluent millennials.

In addition to identifying and punishing predatory landlords who profit by subjecting tenants to substandard housing, Council Member Williams noted, “It is also our responsibility to offer a realistic, affordable housing alternative to the residents.”

There is no question that illegal conversions pose a present danger to the thousands of New Yorkers who rely on this form of shelter. However, this legislation offers no alternatives or protections for tenants whose only source of “affordable” rental housing typically entails risk to personal safety, arbitrary eviction, and hazardous conditions.

The law -- which increases fines, requires the DOB to seek an access warrant and vacate illegal conversions, and potentially, dispossess offending property owners -- has tremendous appeal for middle-class homeowners and civic associations who are, foremost, concerned about a diminished neighborhood quality of life and aesthetic as measured by overcrowdedness, lack of street parking, and front yards converted to parking spaces. Bob Cassara of the Brooklyn Housing Preservation Alliance worries that illegal conversions will tip the balance of a neighborhood’s demography: “Once a home is sold and illegally converted, people refuse to live next to a home with triple the legal occupancy.”  

During an October 2016 City Council hearing, Council Member Williams expressed concern that the aggravated illegal conversions bill may appear to be targeting particular tenant populations such as immigrants and people of color. “I know there were some questions of what this bill was and if we were trying to hurt specific demographics and whether it was Haitians in my district and Chinese in Council Member Gentile’s district,” Williams said.

There is good reason for his concerns. Since Trump’s election, New Yorkers — including community board members representing the city’s celebrated hyper-diverse neighborhoods —feel emboldened to express anti-immigrant sentiments. A longtime member was recently removed from Community Board 4 in Queens for her comment that bicycle lanes will no longer be needed once Trump “removes all the illegals.” According to a DNAinfo map of the November 2016 elections, a large part of Council Member Gentile’s district voted for Trump. Less than a month after the presidential election, a Muslim off-duty NYPD officer and her son were the targets of a racist verbal assault in her Bay Ridge neighborhood. News accounts of escalating fears of detainment and deportation has prompted Congressional Rep. Nydia Velazquez to introduce legislation that prohibits Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents from identifying themselves as local police officers.

Mayor de Blasio has declared our city a sanctuary for immigrants. In this climate, we need to actively ensure that all New Yorkers have safe haven. While this illegal conversions law rightly seeks to punish predatory landlords and their exploitative practices, without the provision of alternative, safe and affordable long-term housing, this law deepens the crisis facing our most vulnerable tenant populations including immigrants, seniors, and the working-poor.

***
Tarry Hum is a professor at The City University of New York (CUNY) and author of Making a Global Immigrant Neighborhood. On Twitter @TarryHum.

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Double the New York Earned Income Tax Credit


cuomo fight fair pay wage

(Photo via the Governor's Office)


As President Trump pushes massive tax cuts for the wealthy our state government should be at the forefront of implementing progressive tax policy to help working families. Expanding the state Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is an effective and affordable way to reward work and bring low-income families into the middle class. If Governor Cuomo wants to show that New York can be a progressive beacon in the Trump era, he should push to double the size of the state EITC.

A working parent earning the minimum wage in the Bronx or Schenectady got a much-deserved raise this year and will again next January as a result of increases in the state minimum wage. At the same time that they earn more, however, they pay more in taxes and risk losing valuable benefits such as child care assistance, food stamps, and rental assistance. The EITC helps make up for these losses if they occur.

The EITC is a credit that increases tax refunds and goes up as recipients earn more. For example, this year a single parent with one child earning $17,000 will get a $3,400 federal credit that they can put towards child-care, rent, food, and paying down debt.

Currently, the state-level credit pays 30% of the federal EITC. In 2014, on average families with one child received $666 from the state EITC and families with two kids $1064.

Economists have shown that the EITC leads to both increased employment and decreased poverty by helping over 9 million Americans meet their basic needs. The EITC helps working families join the middle-class, allowing them to pay down debt and build assets. Unlike many economic development projects, which can be ineffective and politicized, the EITC puts cash into the hands of working people in the communities that need consumer spending, economic growth, and jobs.

Policymakers and analysts left, right, and center have supported expanding the EITC. The federal program began under Republican President Gerald Ford and was significantly expanded under President Bill Clinton. In the State Assembly, Democratic Speaker Carl Heastie and the GOP minority leader, Brian Kolb, have both advocated for increasing the credit.

Expanding the EITC will also help make up for New York’s regressive tax system, which burdens the working people more than the wealthy. The Fiscal Policy Institute found that New Yorkers making under $18,000 a year pay 10% of their income in state and local taxes, while families in the top 1% only pay 8% of their income in taxes. An expanded EITC will give back some of the property, sales, and income taxes that working families pay.

Moreover, the federal EITC does not take into account the New York’s high cost of living, which is 15.7% above the national average. An expanded EITC will help alleviate the additional burden that high prices put on low-income New Yorkers.

Doubling the EITC to 60% of the federal credit would be a small portion of the state’s $153 billion budget this year. In 2014 the cost of the EITC was under $1.1 billion and helped over 1.6 million working New Yorkers. Governor Cuomo could easily pay for expanding the EITC by limiting tax deductions and exclusions for high-income individuals and cutting corporate subsidies.

New York’s working families deserve a raise and an opportunity to enter the middle class. Doubling the state EITC is the perfect way to give them a hand up.

***
Devin Gould is a graduate student in public policy at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He previously worked at the NYC Economic Development Corporation and was President of the Four Freedoms Democratic Club in Manhattan.

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