Housing Activists Sit-In At City Hall, Fact-Check Mayor's Plan

NEW YORK, NEW YORK — In their latest effort to have the Mayor Bill de Blasio change his affordable housing plan, housing advocates held a sit-in outside his office on Tuesday.

A slew of city housing groups and activists, including the Park Slope woman who confronted de Blasio months ago, said the demonstration served as a "teach-in" and fact-check to the mayor's statements. The campaign demands that the mayor set aside double the number of units as affordable in his housing plan.

"It's been two months since I confronted the Mayor at the YMCA, but over two years since I became homeless," said the Park Slope woman, Nathylin Flowers Adesegun, who is a Community Leader at VOCAL-NY. "I put my body on the line today, because Mayor de Blasio says he's ‘comfortable’ with his approach to dealing with the homelessness crisis. More than 63,000 people sleep in shelters every night and we do not have the comfort our Mayor is so privy to."

Adesegun added that she is heartened that Council Member Rafael Salamanca joined the protesters in the cause. Salamanca introduced a bill that would require developers who receive city financial assistance for housing development projects to set aside a certain number of units for the homeless.

Currently, Mayor de Blasio's housing plan creates twice as many units for households who can afford rents above $2,500, than it does for the homeless, the group's contend. The plan sets aside 5 percent of his 300,000-unit Housing New York 2.0 plan for homeless New Yorkers, but The House Our Future NY campaign demands he edicate 10 percent, or 30,000 units. This would include 24,000 units created through new construction.

The House Our Future NY campaign has the support of 62 organizations, the demonstrators said. Other groups that participated include Coalition for the Homeless, VOCAL-NY, Housing Works and Neighbors Together.

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