Directly Impacted New Yorkers Push Democratic Mayoral Candidates to Strengthen Housing Solutions

NEW YORK, NY (04/10/2025) (readMedia)-- On Monday, at the Democratic Mayoral Candidate Forum on NYCHA & Family Homelessness, dozens of impacted community members pressed this year's democratic mayoral candidates on their positions and policy solutions to address family homelessness and public housing. Hosted at the Manhattan Neighborhood Network, the forum offered an opportunity for leading housing advocates, public housing residents, and families navigating homelessness to voice their constituent priorities and push candidates to strengthen their case for mayor.

Five democratic hopefuls attended the forum, including State Senator Jessica Ramos, City Comptroller Brad Lander, City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, former Comptroller Scott Stringer, and former Assemblyman Michael Blake. Attendees probed candidates on top concerns for folks experiencing homelessness and living in public housing such as CityFHEPS vouchers, shelter deadlines, and disruptions to housing services.

Organizers from Family Homelessness Coalition and National Public Housing Network amplified sobering data on the housing crisis. As of last year, more than 146,000 public school children are facing homelessness, spending time in shelters, cars, and hotels with their families amid the city's stagnant rental vacancy rate of 1.4%. Concurrently, the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), which provides affordable homes to 1 in 17 city residents, is facing nearly $80 billion in repair needs over coming years.

Emphasizing policies they helped implement while in office, candidates shared their vision for tackling homelessness and enhancing affordable housing with a focus on:

• Expanding workforce opportunities to prevent homelessness and improving re-entry services to keep families housed
• Transforming vacant, city-owned land into new supportive housing units and public housing campuses
• Implementing "tech for good" to modernize data dashboards tracking homelessness, and auditing NYCHA repairs/building improvements
• Revamping the CityFHEPS voucher program to reduce time spent getting into stable housing

"Monday's forum was an important step toward ensuring that families experiencing homelessness are not left out of the conversation in this election cycle. Drawing on lived experience and my work at FHC, stable housing and access to supportive services are absolutely essential to breaking the cycle of homelessness. NYC mayoral candidates must not only understand these realities, but commit to policies that reflect them. Our forum gave advocates, providers, and most importantly impacted New Yorkers a platform to demand more from our city's leadership," said Kadisha Davis, Senior Fellow at the Family Homelessness Coalition.

"New York families are facing a perfect storm: federal cuts to our most vital housing services, unreasonably priced homes, and the lowest vacancy rate on record. Amid this, as domestic violence continues to be the number one cause of family homelessness, survivors and their children are being pushed from one shelter system to another, without a viable path to permanent housing. This forum was a critical opportunity to connect Democratic mayoral candidates with the very constituents they're seeking to represent: people who have experienced homelessness. As organizers and advocates, we hope that this forum showed candidates that they can push for bold, visionary solutions when it comes to solving our family homelessness crisis," said Gabriela Sandoval Requena, Director of Policy and Communications at New Destiny Housing, a co-convener of the Family Homelessness Coalition.

"Our city has seen decades of disinvestment in public housing, increased management challenges at NYCHA complexes, and a history of exclusionary city planning policies that harm Black and Brown New Yorkers of color the most. At the same time, the City continues to delay contract payments to the invaluable nonprofits and grassroots advocates who directly serve residents. In this critical moment before the June primaries, our forum was an urgent opportunity to put New Yorkers in dialogue with the very candidates vying for NYC's highest office. With more than half a million New Yorkers living in public housing, we must ensure their voices and needs are front and center in this election - and beyond," said Rasmia Kirmani, Founder of the National Public Housing Network.

"City Limits has been reporting on housing and homelessness in New York City for nearly half a century. We were glad to kickstart this conversation among the candidates about two vital issues that are often overlooked on the campaign trail, so that New Yorkers can head to polls this June armed with the information they need to vote in the primary," said Jeanmarie Evelly, Executive Editor at City Limits.

About the Family Homelessness Coalition: The Family Homelessness Coalition (FHC) is made up of formerly homeless mothers, organizations representing service and housing providers, children's advocacy organizations, and New Yorkers with lived experience with family homelessness, united by the goal of launching a coordinated, collaborative, multi-agency effort focused on preventing family homelessness, improving the well-being of children and families in shelters, and supporting the long-term stability of families with children who leave shelter.

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