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Mayor Zohran Mamdani has accurately identified a pressing issue facing our city: the severe shortage of decent, affordable housing. However, his proposed solutions may be more problematic than helpful.
This became evident with the release of his housing plan on Tuesday. In his view, the root of New York City’s housing crisis is avaricious landlords. His proposed remedy involves transferring as much property ownership as possible to government and community organizations.
One might wonder, though, if this approach is truly practical. Consider New York City Housing Authority tenants, who often express dissatisfaction with government management. Many endure significant delays for essential repairs, like waiting months or even years for an elevator to be fixed.
Despite this track record, Mamdani’s ambitious plan aims to build and preserve 400,000 “affordable homes” over the next ten years, with an estimated cost of $22 billion. A significant portion of these homes would be managed by nonprofit groups or directly by the city itself.
Yet Mamdani plans to build and preserve 400,000 “affordable homes” over the next decade, at a whopping cost of $22 billion — with many run by nonprofit groups or the city itself.
This guarantees disaster.
The mayor clearly knows NYCHA is dysfunctional but blames President Ronald Reagan for launching an era of funding “cuts” for public housing.
Sorry: Reagan shelled out $1.1 billion for day-to-day operations of public authorities in 1983; by 2023, Washington spent $5.1 billion — a five-fold spike (far above inflation).
Meanwhile, much of Mamdani’s plan is more of a jobs program: He wants all construction work here to pay combined wages and benefits of at least $40 an hour and to “expand project labor agreements” (effectively, union-dictated terms) for new developments.
Great: So the city will get the fewest number of homes built for every dollar spent.
He also vows to crack down on landlord violations, which is OK — except that the overwhelming number of serious violations are in largely rent-stabilized buildings, whose rental incomes barely cover costs.
The mayor’s rent freeze will make that worse — and any new owner (public, private or nonprofit) will face the same grim math.
Indeed, thousands of such buildings now face foreclosure, with more and more landlords behind on their mortgages.
How does Mamdani expect them to make repairs?
No, all this is simply an excuse for expropriation: “We will take aggressive legal action to remove negligent owners and property managers,” the mayor brags, and “will work to transfer ownership to responsible stewards,” including “community land trusts, nonprofits or even the tenants themselves.”
Mamdani’s housing “ideas” chief, Cea Weaver, openly promotes imposing low rents and high taxes to squeeze owners into foreclosure so the city can grab their properties.
The aim is (legalized) theft, but after all confiscating private property is a pillar of socialism.
Yet socialist theories about improving people’s lives always run afoul of reality: The private sector will always supply and manage housing far better than government (let alone hapless or corrupt “community groups”); crushing the private sector won’t magically make the public sector any less hapless.
Mamdani’s plan steers the city into a deeper housing crisis — and the very tenants he says he’ll help will suffer the most.