Maloney Calls for the Preservation of Affordable Housing in New York City

May 23, 2007 Issues: Local Issues, Sale of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village

New York, NY - At a rally held today by NewYorkisOurHome.org in Stuyvesant Town to demand for the preservation of affordable housing in New York City, Congresswoman Carolyn B. Maloney (D Manhattan, Queens) released the following statement:

“I am alarmed by the dwindling availability of affordable housing in New York City and in this country as a whole. In the last decade, New York has seen an unprecedented increase in the need for affordable housing for low-income households and the middle class. This need is only magnified by the loss of affordable housing in the five boroughs of New York. I applaud the residents, activists and elected officials who have gathered in Stuyvesant Town, one of the last remnants of affordable housing in New York City, to protest the decline of affordable housing in the City.

“As a member of the House Financial Services committee and the Housing Subcommittee, I have made it a top priority to create and fund programs that preserve and create affordable housing in New York City and maintain the historical role the federal government plays in providing resources to meet this goal.   During the first months of this Congress, we have been particularly active on housing issues.  For example, the House passed legislation yesterday, H.R. 1427, the Federal Housing Finance Reform Act of 2007, which creates an non-taxpayer financed affordable housing fund, which will dedicate hundreds of millions of dollars for the construction, maintenance and preservation of affordable housing with the first year of the fund to be dedicated to the hurricane stricken areas of the Gulf Coast, and billions of dollars over the next five years for affordable housing nationwide.


“Today we are considering legislation in Committee that will reform the Section 8 Voucher program (HR 1851, the Section Eight Voucher Reform Act).  This bill will bring much needed improvements to the program including the streamlining of rent calculations and renews vouchers that were scheduled to expire. 

Today’s rally and march to preserve affordable housing in New York City was organized by New York is Our Home, a united effort of housing groups, the New York City Labor Council and the Working Families Party.

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