Mayor Adams has also directed city agencies, including the Department of Housing Preservation, to make 3 percent cuts to their budget in 2022, 2023 and future years. This decision is short-sighted as it pertains to housing and will ultimately exacerbate a housing emergency that is impacting millions of New Yorkers. We are calling on Mayor Adams to exempt HPD from the 3 percent budget cut.
Several agencies are exempt from the cut, including the Department of Corrections, Health + Hospitals, Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, due to the “unique challenges” facing those agencies according to the budget directive. New York’s long-standing housing crisis fits the same bill.
HPD is already short-staffed; total agency staffing is down 5 percent from before the pandemic, while the office of development, which manages affordable housing production, is down 13 percent. Reducing staff and resources at HPD will only lengthen approval time, delay projects, and decrease housing production, preventing your constituents from accessing the affordable and supportive housing that they desperately need.
Please join us in a sign-on letter to Mayor Adams opposing the cuts to HPD’s budget and staffing and to make housing a priority. You can see the full letter and sign on here. The deadline to add your organization is Wednesday, January 19, 2022.