Meet Your Mayor
Answer the questions below to see which candidates for NYC mayor agree with you most
Welcome to Meet Your Mayor, which shows you how the candidates’ stands fit with your take on the issues that matter most to New Yorkers.
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Answer the following four questions on housing to see which candidates for mayor most closely match the future you want to see for New York City.
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NYC’s next mayor will inherit ambitious affordable housing programs that rely heavily on government subsidies but also encourage or require private developers to rent some apartments to people with modest incomes. Growing homelessness and a shortage of housing for low-income tenants have led to demands for more aggressive action to lower rents.
Question 1 of 4
Adams wants housing built on public land to be 100% affordable to low- and moderate-income residents.
from NYC Mayoral Candidate Forum on Tenants Rights, Feb. 27, 2021
"Necessary investments in affordable housing are long overdue. As Mayor, I will.... Create a new mixed-income model that includes deeply affordable units."
from Twitter, Feb. 4, 2021
"Much of what is advertised as ‘affordable’ housing is not actually affordable at all. I will abolish all tax breaks for luxury condominiums and focus our resources on housing for those who need it the most."
from THE CITY Interview, April 29, 2021
Yang has said that housing built on public land should be 100% affordable at a range of incomes.
from NYC Mayoral Candidate Forum on Tenants Rights, Feb. 27, 2021
"I'm a huge favor of mixed-income and mixed-use developments. But I think that the focus has to be on creating low income housing."
from THE CITY Interview, April 30, 2021
“When I'm mayor, my focus will be on deeply affordable housing. What do I mean by that? Less than 30% of median income in New York City. Those are the folks who struggle to make the rent every month.”
from Campaign video
"I'll double the city's current level of investment, and the majority of that money will go to build deeply affordable housing. What does that mean? That means housing for a family of three earning less than $51,000."
from McGuire NYC Housing Plan video , April 1, 2021
Morales advocates for government-led social housing on land held in public trust, "creating a whole new paradigm for how we exist together in the city, and enable everyone to live in dignity."
from Gothamist, April 1, 2021
“We have got to ensure that the next generation of housing we build is actually for the people who need it the most.”
from NYC Mayoral Candidate Forum on Tenants Rights, Feb. 27, 2021
"We should be building what people can actually afford. And that will look different in every community, but at least it will create stability in every community."
from THE CITY interview, Sept. 24, 2020
“We're going to track it by people's needs. So it's going to include very low and extremely low-income people and ensuring that we have housing for them.”
from NYC Mayoral Candidate Forum on Tenants Rights, Feb. 27, 2021
Fernando Mateo, Isaac Wright Jr., Paperboy Prince
City planners and private developers rely on changing zoning rules for a site or neighborhood to allow bigger buildings that can include affordable housing. Such “upzonings” have led to pushback in some communities.
Question 2 of 4
“We have our upzoning wrong. We've upzoned in poorer communities and displaced poor residents for richer communities, and I would do just the opposite. I will upzone in affluent areas where you have transit, rich communities, great schools, access to healthy food. So we need to reverse that.”
from NYC Mayoral Candidate Forum on Tenants Rights, Feb. 27, 2021
"We, more and more, have seen political divisions in this city stop the potential to grow our economy and to create more affordable housing.... The only way we’re going to be able to solve that is to have a mayor who can create what I would call a progressive coalition for equitable growth."
from Bloomberg Opinion, March 1, 2021
“We also need to be creative — you know, end the zoning that blocks us from really creating more density.”
from Open New York Conversation with Kathryn Garcia, Dec. 29, 2020
McGuire's campaign says he "will advance a citywide rezoning that will drive new residential construction."
from Campaign website, April 1, 2021
"We need to fully restore funding cuts to affordable housing, change our outdated zoning rules."
from Twitter, Oct. 30, 2020
Stringer seeks to require affordable housing in new development regardless of whether zoning changes are sought. “If you’re going to build in New York City, you will provide affordability that is sustainable.... No longer will developers be able to use affordable housing as a bargaining chip with communities.”
from Comptroller website, Jan. 29, 2020
"We must prioritize building permanently and deeply affordable housing for low income and extremely low income people across the city, not prioritizing certain zoning designations."
"Housing costs and rent are going up for more and more Americans while income stagnates. Relaxing zoning laws and NIMBYism would help in many areas, as would micro-apartments and innovative approaches to communal housing."
from Twitter, Aug. 11, 2019
In addition to creating more affordable housing, Chang calls for factoring climate change. "Where we spend our precious dollars on increasing density has to be in some of these higher land areas."
from THE CITY Interview, April 30, 2021
"Jamaica is one area that is ripe for redevelopment. Jamaica already has the requisite infrastructure for upzoning, including a variety of mass transit options, local colleges and universities, and a thriving downtown."
from THE CITY Interview, April 29, 2021
No candidates selected this answer
Isaac Wright Jr.
With many of its 171,000 apartments in dire physical condition, the New York City Housing Authority is seeking to move half of its public housing into a federal program, Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD), that enables NYCHA to borrow funds to make repairs. NYC’s version of the program puts RAD buildings into private management — also removing them from the oversight of a federal monitor.
Question 3 of 4
“RAD does not require privatization. It is a way to get Section 8 resources into public housing...we need a reset on RAD.”
from Housing Conservation Coordinators' forum, Dec. 8, 2020
"When I went and saw developments that had gone through the RAD process at Ocean Bay or at Campos II, the tenants were extremely happy."
from Housing Conservation Coordinators' forum, Dec. 8, 2020
"I'm going to give [NYCHA residents] an attorney that they are going to interview and decide — not a city intern attorney, but someone in private practice that we would pay for so they can be in the room negotiating these important issues such as RAD."
from Housing Conservation Coordinators' forum, Dec. 8, 2020
"I think that a lot of the friction we're describing is because too many NYCHA residents don't feel like they have a say...the NYCHA board, instead of being minority tenants, should be majority tenants."
from NYC Mayoral Candidate Forum on Tenants Rights, Feb. 27, 2021
"It's an attempt to have one-size-fits-all. RAD is not going to work in all of NYCHA buildings."
from THE CITY Interview, April 30, 2021
In her administration, Morales vows, "There's no sweet deals or handoffs to private developers...we've got to focus on retrofitting our buildings and investing in the capital repair."
from NYC Mayoral Candidate Forum on Tenants Rights, Feb. 27, 2021
“Every time we move to privatize public housing, it comes with a sense that we have failed . . . But when we look at the different models we're forced to use right now, it's because of the lack of investment on a federal level.”
from Housing Conservation Coordinators' forum, Dec. 8, 2020
“I don’t just see RAD as just private management, I see RAD as private ownership to developers.... We need to create opportunities for those NYCHA residents that may have the ability to own something, to give them ownership, to give them control of their own developments and create better for themselves."
from THE CITY interview, Sept. 24, 2020
"The principles have to be about keeping public housing public, and that's one of the concerns around RAD."
from Housing Conservation Coordinators' forum, Dec. 8, 2020
Ray McGuire, Isaac Wright Jr.
Under a 2005 agreement, surplus revenues from tax-like payments by property owners in Manhattan’s Battery Park City must be used to fund affordable housing.
Question 4 of 4
"One idea that I think we should put forth immediately is to take $40 million a year over 10 years from the Battery Park City Authority.... We could bond that money as a way of creating a new revenue stream for NYCHA."
from Housing Conservation Coordinators' forum, Dec. 8, 2020
"The funding for Battery Park City can help facilitate affordable housing elsewhere."
from THE CITY Interview, April 29, 2021
Isaac Wright Jr.
Reporting by Ann Choi and Mónica Cordero, development by Will Welch, editing by Alyssa Katz. Candidate images from Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY, Alejandro Durán/THE CITY, Shutterstock and campaign websites.