This report recommends improvements to New York City's stringent Tenant Selection Criteria for affordable housing. The current criteria set forth by the City's Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) bars low-income New Yorkers, families, those experiencing homelessness, and the elderly from access to safe and stable housing. Public Advocate James' report suggests that the current criteria puts too great an emphasis on past financial challenges rather than a household's ability to pay rent, and that the housing lottery process needs greater transparency and accessibility.
The 2017 Housing Supply Report examines changes in the overall supply of housing in NYC during the prior year, looking at factors that include the number of permits issued for new dwelling units and the number of completed housing units.
The Changes to the NYC Rent Stabilized Housing Stock in 2016 examines additions and subtractions of dwelling units to and from the rent stabilization system in 2016.
Public Advocate James called for a thorough review of the City's Tenant Interim Lease Apartment Purchase Program (TIL). After hearing complaints from a number of constituents and holding a town hall meeting, Public Advocate James' office investigated the program and found that TIL is not fulfilling its purpose of providing New Yorkers with self-sufficient low-income cooperatives.
The 2017 Income and Affordability Study reports on housing affordability and tenant income in New York City's rental market. The study highlights year-to-year changes in many of the major economic factors affecting New York City's tenant population and takes into consideration a broad range of market forces and public policies affecting housing affordability.
The 2017 Price Index of Operating Costs (PIOC) study measures the price change in a market basket of goods and services used in the operation and maintenance of rent stabilized apartment buildings in New York City.
This Brief identifies the severity and scope of serious transgender housing discrimination and recommending a number of improvements to protect the transgender and gender non-conforming (TGNC) community. The report describes the overt, outspoken, and exploitative behavior that the TGNC community experiences and highlights the inadequacy of the tools used to report incidents to the City's Commission on Human Rights (CCHR).
The 2017 Income & Expense Study analyzes the cost of operating and maintaining rental housing, examing the conditions that existed in New York's rent stabilized housing market in 2015, the year for which the most recent data is available, and also the extent by which these conditions changed from 2014.