NEW YORK CITY—In a wide-ranging speech Thursday morning spotlighting his accomplishments so far while revealing current and future priorities, Mayor Bill de Blasio introduced a new plan to try to combat homelessness during a breaking meeting in Midtown of the Association for a Better New York.
By several measures, he said, the city is enjoying record prosperity and its highest-ever known degree of safety but more must be done to lift up the have-nots. "We're at an all-time high of over 4.2 million jobs and unemployment is at 4.8%, the lowest it's been since before the Great Recession," he declared.
He also praised the city's work on the affordable housing front. "In these final weeks of the year, we expect to close on thousands of affordable apartments, building on the more than 30,000 already secured for New Yorkers, and keeping us on pace toward our goal of 200,000 affordable apartments by 2025. That's more than 30,000 families—from the poorest to the middle class—whose lives will be transformed.
In particular, he mentioned the recent Stuyvesant Town–Peter Cooper Village trade, where "more than 5,000 apartments were preserved," and Wednesday's reported $201 million sale of the Riverton Complex, where another 975 units were preserved.
Too, the Mayor noted efforts to boost the MTA and keep the city's transportation arteries on track, noting, "Our $2.5 billion contribution to the MTA will address delays and overcrowding, advance projects like the Second Avenue Subway, and fund station improvements."
Yet, the Mayor said, the clear escalation of the city's homeless population must be addressed. After noting that, four weeks ago, the city committed to creating 15,000 affordable supportive units over the next 15 years.
Still, he acknowledged, much more needs to be done. Devoting much of his talk to the city's homelessness crisis, Mayor de Blasio unveiled a new plan to deal with the issue. Called NYC Homeless Outreach & Mobile Engagement Street Action Team, or HOME-STAT, the program commits a dedicated force to the streets to "tackle the problem with unprecedented vigor and attention—literally reaching all 3,000 to 4,000 street homeless constantly."
Set for a full roll out by March, the plan's first responders will canvas "every single block" from Canal Street to 145th St. in Manhattan, along with areas in other boroughs, to determine what people want and need, as well as to root out illegal activity. Additionally, HOME-STAT will entail the centralizing of information, arming those involved in the program with information to help those in need.
Harkening back to the crime ridden days of the 1980s, Mayor de Blasio pledged to keep the city moving away from that history. "I can tell you with 100% confidence that on my watch, we are never going back to those bad old days. We will never permit quality of life to erode."
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Rayna Katz
Rayna Katz is a seasoned business journalist whose extensive experience includes coverage of the lodging sector, travel and the culinary space. She was most recently content director for a business-to-business publisher, overseeing four publications. While at Meeting News, a travel trade publication, she received a Best Reporting award for a story on meeting cancellations in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.
