continued from page 5 training requirements before a housing offer,
The Governor’s Beef: Cuomo and
New York City Housing
by Daniel Girma
W hen setting out onto the Hudson River, it is import-
ant that you sail against the tide. A full ebb or flood,
extending from the river’s mouth up to Troy, will pull you
far from your dock if you choose to follow it. Before you
know it, the boat lies stranded in the Upper Bay or the Tap-
pan Zee, the way back home stretched beyond your view.
The rub that lies therein is that you are unable to go anywhere.
Full heel, hiking out, and your markers have not moved. You had
big plans for this sail; you were going to see things. A dark thought
starts to creep in: Am I spending all of this time just to tread water?
Bill de Blasio has asked himself this question more than
once. His tide flows one direction: an eternal ebb that stems from
the peculiar forces of Albany and Governor Andrew Mark Cuomo.
This standoff has a most direct impact upon the public, as the
battle lines often cross core issues on every New Yorker’s mind.
Two of these issues, the homeless and housing crises in New York
City, bind these public officials together. Where are we to stand
between the spear chucking of Gracie Mansion and State Street?
A Feud
A Democrat Governor and a Democrat mayor who do not
get along in a Democrat state may sound confusing at
first. However, at ground level the divide is quickly deter-
mined to be one of weights and scales. New York City alone
made up 40% of the state population in the last consensus,
and on its own would be the 13th largest state in the union.
When adding the suburban counties of Westchester, Rock-
land, Suffolk, Nassau and Putnam, the percentage rises to 65%.
Disproportionate as the state population is, it becomes
even more so when you view what the population pays. In a 2011
study conducted by the Rockefeller Institute, it was determined
that 80.5% of personal income tax based on residence in fiscal year
2010 was collected from New York City and Downstate suburbs,
with a relative split of 46.7%/33.8%. When based on workplace,
the number was 78.9%, with a 54.6%/24.3% city-suburb split.
It is not surprising that holding such a large municipal office
gives one a degree of autonomy. In April of last year, de Bla-
sio rolled out an $84.8 billion fiscal budget for 2018, and on
Feb 1 announced a 2019 budget of $88.7 billion, more than
45 existing state budgets. This amount is also more than half
of New York State’s $168.2 billion budget for fiscal year 2019.
During the 2019 budget announcement, de Blasio high-
lighted at the very beginning, “this budget process proceeds
against a backdrop of tremendous uncertainty – particular-
ly in Washington and to some extent in Albany as well.”
In turn, Governor Cuomo highlighted New York City
during his state budget announcement, addressing the difficulty
to manage state allocation on a municipal level. “So yeah, that’s
great we have a formula, we direct it to the poorer districts…
What does New York City do with it?”
The attacks became more pointed when a homeless man
was pictured sleeping under the seats in a subway car in Octo-
ber 2017. It was a glimpse of the rising homeless population in
the New York City subway system, who feel
safer underground than in the crowded shel-
ters across the five boroughs. Cuomo struck
first, aiming for the existing tension between
de Blasio and the NYPD. “We need to get the
homeless off the trains and out of the sub-
way station so people can feel safe,” reading
from a teleprompter and attempting to ges-
ticulate at the same time, “the NYPD used to
do this. They need to do it again.” The plan
backfired. The police department snapped
back that 90% of homeless people in the
subway refuse a relocation, as is their right.
De Blasio was also quick to insist that
Albany’s hands were not clean either.
When addressing the increased vul-
nerability of low-income residents and
their fight to hold onto housing, de Blasio
opined, “the sad reality is we lost those protec-
tions not by accident; it was a series of choices
made – made at the state level and made by
the previous mayoral administration.” The two
traded blows over who was at fault when the
421a tax abatement, an exemption meant to
incentivize development on vacant land, was
not immediately renewed after the city com-
plained about the cost levied on taxpayers.
Like Father Like Son
S
uch barbed exchanges, under flooded po-
diums, in front of the entire press appara-
tus of the state. This conflict is not unheard
of in the history of State/City politics, neither
does it reach the same depths. Former Gov-
ernor Nelson D. Rockefeller and Mayor John
Lindsay exhibited a more direct dislike. It does
not even reach the same depths within the
Cuomo family itself. The elder Mario Cuomo
and former mayor Ed Koch formed an intense
feud, fueled by competing primary runs for
both city mayor and state governor. Although
the 1982 gubernatorial primary highlighted
the division between the two, it was the may-
oral primary in 1977 that became infamous.
As a 19-year-old Fordham student, An-
drew Cuomo watched decorum dissolve as the
race turned negative. Mario Cuomo appealed to
his family man image in contrast to Ed Koch’s
single lifestyle, and in the worst of the slog signs
that read “Vote for Cuomo, Not the Homo”
were seen in Italian neighborhoods of Queens
and Brooklyn. The senior Cuomo forever de-
nied any involvement in the slander, but Ed
Koch held a grudge not only against him as well
as his son for years to come. In 1982, Andrew
was campaign manager for his father, who got
revenge over Koch in the gubernatorial primary.
Under his father’s tenure, Andrew would
start a path towards his own unique relation-
ship with city hall. After a brief stint as assis-
tant district attorney in Manhattan, and while
working at a private law firm, Cuomo shifted
focus towards non-profits. He founded HELP,
Housing Enterprise for the Less Privileged, in
1985. This new corporation found work early,
after Mario Cuomo and Ed Koch announced a
homeless shelter plan in East New York. How-
ever, in a few months the shelter was already
behind schedule as Cuomo experienced for the
bureaucratic mire of NYC special interests for
the first time. But it was the next mayor, demo-
crat David N. Dinkins, who gave Cuomo his first
real victory in New York City housing policy.
Dinkins was in trouble. His exten-
sive homeless shelter plan was harshly criti-
cized. Middle-income residents did not want
to see an influx of homeless in their com-
munities. The mayor responded by form-
ing an independent Homeless Commission,
and chose Andrew Cuomo, whose nonprof-
it was now recognized nationally, to chair it.
The commission quickly criticized the
mayor’s plan and its focus on broad public
spending and vouchers for permanent hous-
ing. Instead, the commission recommended
oversight by nonprofits like HELP, suggest-
ed psychotherapy, drug screening, and job
and advised that the city create a new agency.
Dinkins reluctantly signed off on the proposal,
forming the Department of
Homeless Services in 1993.
The public lauded Cuomo and his commis-
sion, and the Clinton Administration tapped
him for Deputy Secretary of the department
of Housing and Urban Development. It was
in this department where he would Andrew
Cuomo and Bill de Blasio would first meet.
New Battles, Old Grounds
A
lthough Governor Cuomo and Mayor de
Blasio’s political connections had them
cross paths in 1989, when de Blasio volun-
teered in the Dinkins campaign for which Cuo-
mo was an advisor, their first real relationship
was forged in 1997. Cuomo had become HUD
secretary, and de Blasio, who had worked on
the Clinton-Gore reelection campaign, became
New York and New Jersey regional director.
And while Cuomo was eager to make his first
splash in his home state, orchestrating a $131
million revitalization initiative of New York’s
Lake Erie waterfront in his first year, the two
had a paper trail of working well together.
In 2014, De Blasio manufactured endorsement
from liberal organizations for Cuomo’s 2014
campaign. By 2017, a ten-foot pole was not long
enough. This is deterioration was so much a
new rift, but rather a reopening of an old rift that
Cuomo has with progressive housing policy.
As public advocate in 2010, de Blasio
fought to protect housing vouchers for sec-
tion 8 dwellers. The Mayor highlighted East
New York in his 2015 State of the City, Cuo-
mo’s first step into housing policy so many
years ago, as a target for rezoning and public
funded housing initiatives. When the mayor
announced that the city planned to open 90
new homeless shelters on February 28, 2017,
Cuomo was undoubtedly seeing shades of
Dinkins. The governor is not keen to see his
housing policy record at risk, especially when
his eyes are set on the political horizon. De
Blasio also sees housing as the crown jewel
of his administrations future legacy. And so,
while the two hurl insults for the camera, a
battle is drawn between State Street and City
Hall, the terrain rolled over our living rooms.
De Blasio’s multi-billion dollar housing
plan, Housing New York, is matched by Cuo-
mo’s $20 billion homeless and housing plan
that spans statewide. The mayor considered a
$15,000 increase in vacant property tax, while
Cuomo renegotiated the $1.4 billion 421a tax
abatement on vacant properties, renamed Af-
fordable New York, against the complaints of
the mayor and the Independent Budget Office.
And when Albany expanded the successful de-
sign build program that helps cities combine en-
gineering and construction contract bidding to
streamline production cost, it conspicuously left
out the five NYC boroughs as part of the expansion.
This tit-for-tat policy sparring contin-
ues while the frustrating lives of sour most
vulnerable stay the course. Homeless shel-
ters open behind schedule, landlords provide
more concessions in a plea to fill their dwell-
ings, public housing occupants endure de-
teriorating infrastructure. De Blasio jumps
from podium to podium and Cuomo times a
curated criticism from upriver, but it is New
Yorkers that deal with the fall out. They
sleep on relatives’ couches and cars, choose
between shelters and subways, and if they
are lucky, spend 50-60% of their paycheck on
their homes. They wait for the housing lottery
results. They wait for placement eligibility.
They wait for change. The boat hasn’t moved.