Three years after New York legalized micro-mobility bikes and scooters, lawmakers and building managers are grappling with how to make them safer, after numerous fires, some fatal.
It shouldn’t be news to anyone, but New York is at an affordable housing crossroads.
“We are in a homelessness crisis, and the driving factor is lack of affordable housing,” mayoral candidate and Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams said in a statement last month. “Why, then, are affordable units in [the Housing Preservation and Development Department’s] portfolio sitting empty right now that struggling individuals and families could be living in?”
Adams isn’t alone in his push to move the 55,000 New Yorkers who slept in shelters in January, according to a report from the Coalition for the Homeless, into long-term affordable housing fast. It’s been the battle cry of those in the affordable housing business for decades.