What Scott’s Done
- Worked as a Mitchell-Lama tenant organizer, fighting for tenants’ rights.
- One of only a dozen Democrats in the Assembly to vote against the advent of vacancy decontrol that set tenants’ rights back decades.
- As Borough President, empowered Community Boards to stand up to developers by placing urban planners to support every board.
- Pushed NYCHA to improve repair processes and governance, and audited NYCHA more than all previous Comptrollers combined to demand better conditions for residents of public housing.
- Identified thousands of vacant lots to spur development of affordable housing.
- Fought to preserve rent regulation to save the homes of thousands of tenants around the city.
- Exposed deplorable conditions in New York City shelters in multiple audits, holding City Hall to account, pushed the City to finally connect its homelessness policy with its housing policy, and provide more support for survivors of domestic violence experiencing homelessness.
- Delivered security deposit and broker fee relief to New York City renters.
- Stood against rezonings that have been an engine for displacement, pricing out New Yorkers who build our city in the first place, particularly in communities of color.
- Invested more than $2.4 billion of pension fund capital in more than 38,000 units of affordable housing since 2014.
Scott’s Plans
Scott Stringer has dedicated himself to fighting for housing for working families. He believes that safe, affordable housing is a right, not a privilege, and has a bold plan to fight the housing crisis, end homelessness, and extend the right to housing to all New Yorkers.
Help renters stay in their homes and small landlords stay solvent
- Expand Voucher Usability, increase the City’s enforcement of housing violations, and educate residents on the availability of the voucher system.
- Expand the right to counsel by increasing funding for legal services and ensuring a universal right to counsel.
- Convert vacant hotels and commercial spaces into shelters, supportive housing, and affordable housing.
- Assist small landlords and non-profit organizations with a new program to provide financial assistance in exchange for restrictive declarations preventing tenant eviction.
- Reverse the damage of the Trump Administration and fight for real federal relief for tenants and homeowners.
Invest in NYCHA and New Social Housing
- Build a new generation of social housing on the more than 2,900 vacant lots already owned by the City currently unused and undeveloped.
- Preserve existing affordable housing, create a transparent list of existing rent restricted buildings, end the Lien Sale, get tough with bad landlords, and preserve existing limited equity coops.
- Reform NYCHA and invest billions to make badly-needed repairs.
- Establish good permanent jobs and wage and benefit floor standards for construction and building service workers in affordable housing.
- End wasteful tax giveaways to private developers and establish and tailor a new subsidy program to fund deep, permanent affordability on a discretionary basis.
- Create a new operating subsidy program to finance deep affordability.
- Establish a Tenant Bill of Rights in every lease packet and translated into numerous languages.
- Fight speculation by giving tenants an opportunity to purchase (TOPA) and community land trusts the opportunity to purchase (COPA).
Make Every Neighborhood Affordable
- Mandate Universal Affordable Housing (UAH) to require every developer to set aside 25 percent of its units for permanent, low-income housing.
- Replace developer-driven rezonings with comprehensive planning.
- Allow tenants to build credit by delivering the option to have rent payments reflected on credit for willing tenants.
Fight Homelessness with Housing and Support
- Build permanent housing for very and extremely low-income families on City-owned land to make a permanent dent in the city’s homelessness crisis.
- Address the intersection of domestic violence and homelessness by increasing the capacity of shelters that specialize in domestic violence, reforming lease termination laws, and providing a new statewide rent supplement to assist all survivors.
- Increase the availability of stabilization beds and safe-haven beds and improve the conditions of existing shelters.
- Prioritize a housing first model with supportive housing, create new standards to ensure that the system has the array of services necessary to serve homeless New Yorkers, and work with the State to expand our supportive housing network by 30,000 beds.
- End agency silos regarding social services and homelessness and hold all social service agencies and organizations accountable for proactively intervening prior to entering the shelter system.
- Set aside 15 percent of all city-funded units to house the formerly homeless, in order to reduce the shelter population.
Promote and Protect Homeownership
- Expand loans to help homeowners with purchases and repairs and ensure that low- and moderate-income homeowners do not lose their homes because they are unable to pay for repairs.
- Fight speculation by giving tenants an opportunity to purchase (TOPA) and target affordable housing dollars to help tenants who purchase their buildings create new, social housing.
- Replace the Mortgage Recording Tax with a progressive Real Property Transfer Tax to lessen the burden on middle-class homeowners, scale up taxation on high-value transfers, and bring in up to $400 million in new annual revenue that can go to building more affordable housing.
- Allow homeowners to build accessory dwelling units on their properties.
