Posted on August 8, 2018 by Steven Wishnia in Gothamist Gothamist, By Steven Wishnia Mayor Bill de Blasio took office in 2014 in a city reeling from a housing crisis. It was hemorrhaging tens of thousands of rent-stabilized apartments each year, public housing was crumbling, and a record 53,000 people were staying in city homeless shelters. De Blasio vowed to turn that around, pledging to “create or preserve” 200,000 units of “affordable housing” within 10 years, last November upping that number to 300,000 by 2026. Yet the most direct routes there were blocked. State law prohibits the city from strengthening rent regulations or their enforcement, and a combination of finances and federal law bar it from building new housing on its own.
