NYC mayoral candidate Maya Wiley wants to expand housing vouchers for city residents
Originally published at: https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/nyc-elections-2021/ny-nyc-mayoral-race-maya-wiley-affordable-housing-20210601-dgg2e5rurna7pglwy2dm5mm42e-story.html
The city would offer housing vouchers to more New Yorkers, under a new plan from mayoral candidate Maya Wiley.
In an echo of the “rent is too damn high” rallying cry from years past, she decried the high cost of living at a press conference in Washington Square Park in Manhattan on Tuesday.
“How many of you can pay the rent?” she said. “How many of you know someone who is afraid of eviction?
“COVID just made it worse,” added Wiley, a former top legal aide to Mayor de Blasio.
Under her plan, a family of three making $54,000 or less per year would become eligible for housing vouchers, the goal is to make sure they don’t spend more than 30% of their income on rent. Under the status quo, vouchers cut off at $42,000 for a family of three.
With tens of thousands of New Yorkers in the shelter system, the City Council last week voted to increase the dollar amount of the vouchers. A family of three will get $2,217 per month, a boost of 40%.
Wiley’s proposed expansion would cost $1.5 billion for 216,000 households per year, her campaign estimates.
She would also ax limits on how long New Yorkers can get vouchers.
New York City mayoral candidate Maya Wiley (Luiz C. Ribeiro/for New York Daily News)
Wiley’s housing proposals include investing $2 billion in NYCHA and transforming vacant hotels and commercial space into supportive housing for homeless people.
With three weeks to go until the Democratic primary for mayor, Wiley has emerged as perhaps the strongest progressive in the race. Rival lefty Dianne Morales’s campaign has effectively succumbed to a staff revolt. City Comptroller Scott Stringer has been reeling from an allegation of sexual misconduct.
Meanwhile, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, an ex-Republican who’s been running a tough-on-crime campaign, and businessman Andrew Yang, who’s taken a centrist approach, have been leading in the polls.
Allen Roskoff, longtime head of the influential Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club, lamented that state of affairs on Tuesday.
“It’s a crime that some of the frontrunners for mayor are to the right of center,” he said before Wiley took the podium, going on to call her the “best hope of electing a progressive to be mayor of New York City.”
Earlier Tuesday, the Jim Owles club took back its endorsement of Morales and backed Wiley.