Transcript: Mayor Bill de Blasio Delivers Remarks at Mt. Hermon Baptist Church

March 13, 2016

Mayor Bill de Blasio: [Inaudible] this day would not be possible. Amen.

[Applause]

I have to say the pastor just struck a nerve there. My wife Chirlane and I asked each other many times if we were in our right minds to seek this particular office. Yes, New Yorkers are demanding – Pastor, you have a wonderful and glorious flock. I have a flock of 8.5 million people – each and every one has a strong opinion on everything.

[Laughter]

It is, however, a tremendous honor to serve the people of the city. It really is. And every day it inspires me. There are tough days – no doubt, but every day inspires me because we have a chance to better people’s lives, we have a chance to turn some things around. And that is an extraordinary honor.

I’m so thrilled to be with you today. And I want to talk to you about some of the issues we’re facing, but first I want to say – Reverend Jones you are doing so much for this extraordinary congregation. You’re right that Mt. Herman gives back so much to the community, and means so much. But you have a pastor who elevates this church and makes it so powerful in this community. Let’s thank Reverend Jones for all he does.

[Applause]

He works in my administration as part of our Commission on Human Rights. And I’m so thrilled that he is a part of our team – helping to protect the rights of people all over this city, helping to stop people from being discriminated against, helping to heal wounds between different communities – so he [inaudible] strong, and he exercises it in his ministry here, but he also does so much for the people of the city and this church.

And I have to tell you with what’s happening in this church especially – the focus on justice and righteous is powerful, and I know it is also the result of partnership because Reverend Jones is blessed to have a wonderful first lady to walk through life with.

[Applause]

First Lady, this is the occasion where I explain that in our household we did away with an old saying that you used to hear a lot – you know the saying that behind every great man stands a great woman? We don’t allow that saying anymore. We say, beside every great man stands a great woman.

[Applause]

Let me talk to you about the issues we face today in this community and face all over the city, but I first want to note in so much of the work I’m doing I’ve had a tremendous partner in this community and at City Hall, and you need to know that Vanessa Gibson’s impact is truly city wide. Not only is she an extraordinary representative of this community, she is also the chair of the Public Safety Committee in the City Council covering the entire city. That’s an extraordinary responsibility.

And I talk about the fact that we are very proud that I said from the beginning we could have a safer city and a fairer city simultaneously. I said we could bring down stop-and-frisk, and we could make the city safer at the same time. There were many naysayers – many people said that was impossible – well, Vanessa Gibson was one of the people who believed that safety and fairness could walk hand in hand and did so much on the City Council to support this vision.

Let me give you a quick fact that I think you’ll appreciate. In the last two years that I’ve been in office, and Vanessa’s been in office as the Public Safety chair crime – major crime in the City has gone down 6 percent, stop-and-frisk is down 93 percent.

[Applause]

We are devoted to bringing police and communities closer together in partnership and respect, and a lot of that progress is because of Councilmember Gibson. Let’s give her a round of –  

[Applause]

But the thing I really want to focus on for a few minutes is the affordable housing crisis in this city. I’m going to tell you is that one thing I know for certain is wherever I go – wherever Chirlane goes – people come up to us, and they don’t just talk to us casually. They talk to us urgently – they literally grab us by the arm, grab us by the lapel, and say I’ve got to talk to you because I don’t know if I can stay in the city.

I hear it everywhere I go, “I don’t know if I can afford to stay here. I don’t know if I’m going to be priced out of my own city. I don’t know if it’s my city anymore” That’s what people say to me. They don’t know if they can stay in the neighborhood they love, the neighborhood that they helped to build.

Now, let me put this in perspective, there were some very tough years in this city. A few decades ago, a lot of people had given up on New York City. A few decades ago, a lot of neighborhoods couldn’t get any investment, the price of everything was plummeting. You couldn’t get people to start businesses, you couldn’t get people to build houses. And in the face of that abandonment, hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers took a stand, and they said we’re going to fight for our neighborhood – we’re going to defend our neighborhood, we’re going to bring it back – whatever it takes. It was a people’s movement.

The reason so many neighborhoods that were once struggling have made so many – in so many cases a strong comeback is because the people of the neighborhood believe, and they did what they could to make the neighborhood safe, and they did what they could to build it back up. The people believed in the neighborhood – and that history has to be remembered because now as more and more parts of the city are finally getting investment, are finally places that more and more people want to move into. We got to remember the people that saved those neighborhoods to begin with.

Audience: Amen.

Mayor: And we have to protect the rights of the people who really call that neighborhood home through thick and thin. We know it’s like families – stay by your family through thick and thin? A lot of people stayed by their neighborhood and stood in their neighborhood through thick and thin.

So what do you do in this kind of an environment?

Well, I’ll tell you what has happened in the last couple of years before I took office. I’ll tell you why it didn’t work. What used to happen in this city was whatever the free market decided, won the day. Real estate developers would create their own plans, and the government would simply say yes – the market forces dominated the entire equation.

Now, there’s a place obviously for a free market, but I have to tell you, if it’s not in some form or fashion inspected by the government, if the government is not there to watch for the people's interest and make sure the market doesn’t make all the decisions, what happens then is people get displaced. What happens then is people are not treated fairly. What happens then is people’s lives get uprooted without any other solution. I don’t turn to private business and expect private business to think about our families and our seniors. I don’t have that illusion.

I expect our government to step in and defend the rights of our families and our seniors and our children – but we didn’t have the tools. For so long, along would come the real estate industry - they would make their plans, the government stood back, sometimes made a few demands on behalf of the community, but a lot of times didn’t do anything about it. So we came into office and said things have to change – it has to be an entirely different set of rules. We respect the right of a business to go about its business, but there have to be rules that guarantee the people’s rights.

We do not believe the business community should be calling the shots for our neighborhoods.

Audience: Amen.

Mayor: The people should be calling the shots for our neighborhoods. So what do we do? We said that from now on there will be rules that have to require the things we need.

And this is what’s going on right now in the debate in City Council. I have two pieces of legislation before the City Council – and I believe they will change things fundamentally in this city because what I want to see is a requirement, a mandate that whenever there’s major development in this city, private developers must build affordable housing as part of it – it must be a requirement.

Let me say it plainly – such a clear requirement that if they don’t build affordable housing they don’t get the right to build anything. That’s the standard that I want.

[Applause]

Now this legislation is called Mandatory Inclusionary Zoning – one of the most boring names I’ve ever heard in my life but the word I’d like people to focus on is the word mandatory – putting rules in place that say the people’s interests come first. And to tell you the truth, this would be groundbreaking not only for New York City, but for our entire nation. This would be the most progressive approach to affordable housing in the county because what we’re experiencing here – I bet you’ve heard from people in other places, your family your friends, the price of housing in cities all over the country is going through the roof.

People are being forced out of their neighborhoods, not just in New York City, but cities all over the country – and instead of giving a community the tools to hold on, to make sure that the communities interests come first, too many governments around the country throw up their hands.

We said this has to end – so a truly progressive vision is one that requires affordable housing. If it’s optional, it won’t happen. If it’s a choice for real estate developers, they won’t do it. The previous administration had what they called the voluntary approach, and guess what happened? Very little affordable housing.

If you believe in the need for affordable housing for our families, for our children, for our seniors, we have to require it. It will change the rules of the game once and for all, and say in today’s world we have to require it because the people need it, and our seniors, by the way, need it more than anyone. There are more and more seniors in the city. People are living longer that’s a blessing – that’s a blessing, but guess what? Living longer and having enough money to live longer are two different things.

[Applause]

And I see that clearly. So many of our seniors have very limited income – fixed income, we’ve always heard that phrase fixed income. Fixed income does not mean abundant income. Fixed income does not mean sufficient income. So, the price of housing keeps going up, but that fixed income is fixed – and so we have to create a lot more affordable housing for our seniors.

Once upon a time the federal government actually took some responsibility and focused on senior affordable housing but no more. That’s a fight we’re going to have to fight in the future to change that, but here and now, the City of New York has to step up.

So we have another piece of legislation. It’s called Zoning for Quality and Affordability, and I believe it was make a fundamental difference in our ability to build more senior housing more quickly in this city.

I’m going to give you an example of why this is so powerful. In my neighborhood in Brooklyn, there’s a wonderful senior affordable housing building, and behind it there’s a big parking lot. They would love to build another senior affordable housing building – Catholic Charities runs it, it’s a great, great facility – they’d love to build another, but the law says the have to have a parking space for every apartment in their building.

Well, guess what? I’ve talked to seniors all over this city. They don’t want parking – they want affordable homes. They want a place to live.

Audience: Amen, amen.

Mayor: So we need to change the rules – because those laws I referred to, they’re about 50 years old, from another time and another place before anyone could imagine the cost of housing being what it is today.

Both these pieces of legislation will changes things fundamentally, and they both refer to the times we’re living in. Once upon a time, in New York City, there was a lot of affordable housing – now there’s not so we have to require it.

Once upon a time in New York City, you could say, “Hey, you’re going to build a senior building put a parking lot next to it,” but now we need the homes for people more than ever before.

We’ve got to get with the times and protect our people.

[Applause]

These two pieces of legislation are going to be coming to the City Council this month, I want to thank Councilwoman Gibson who has listened carefully to these arguments. I know she’s deliberating, and I appreciate the seriousness with which she deliberates.

And I know there are people here - in this room – who are maybe represented by other councilmembers. Please – whoever represents you on the City Council, let them know that you care about affordable housing, let them know that something has to change.

One thing we can say for certain about New York City today – this status quo is not working. What’s happening right now is not working. We better change it. We better change it now if we want to keep people in their homes and in their neighborhoods.

This is part of - I want to give you a few other points to put this in context - and Pastor I won’t go too long, I won’t talk too long.

I want to give you – I hope this does shed some light and provide a little education about what’s happening right now in this city. You know, I came into office and I said, “Given this crisis we face, we need the biggest affordable housing plan this city has ever seen – in fact any city has ever in history.” The plan we are working on right now – those two pieces of legislation are absolutely essential to it. This plan would create affordable housing for half-a-million people – half-a-million people. Now this city is so big I could tell you every one of those apartments will be snapped up, and we’ll be needing them more going forward. But the good news is for half-a-million people, we will change their lives. It’s 200,000 affordable apartments.

Now, everyone says to me the most important question – what does affordable mean?

Audience: Yes.

Mayor: Were you thinking that, right there? What is affordable mean?

Audience: Yes.

Mayor: You’re in the majority because almost everywhere I go people say what does it mean? So, let me explain. 120,000 apartments under our plan will be preserved – what does that mean? It means we will provide the subsidies and the support for that building to keep that building in good shape so the folks who are living there and can afford the housing will be able to stay in their buildings. We’ve seen so many buildings that were affordable turn into market-rate housing that no one could afford. Right before their very noses, we’ve seen people’s housing go one day from affordable to the next day unaffordable.

So, our plan says for 120,000 apartments in all five boroughs, we’re going to keep folks in their apartment – provide the subsidies so that they will remain affordable for decades to come.

Audience: Amen.

Mayor: Now, it’s a really simple rule we work by. No one in those 120,000 apartments should pay more than 30 percent of their income for housing.

[Applause]

That sounds affordable?

Audience: Amen.

Literally, whatever your income is, whether it’s a senior with a fixed income or someone who makes more, 30 percent of your income is what you should pay for rent.

In this city, we all know that there are people in this room today – pay more than 30 percent of their income. There a lot of you [inaudible] pay more than 50 percent of their income which makes life very difficult. When you’re choosing between food and rent and medicine, that’s not what should be happening in the richest city in the country. So, we say the standard in our affordable apartments is 30 percent.

We are then going to build 80,000 new apartments all over the city. Some will be for seniors, some will be for people with disabilities, some will be families, some will be for people who live in the community that it’s built in, and all of it will be available all over the city. So, the notion of this plan is we need affordable housing that fits the income level of the community. We need affordable housing for seniors. We need affordable housing for folks with very limited [inaudible]. But by the way, there are a lot of people who are working and can’t make ends meet. There are nurses who can’t make ends meet.

[Applause]

There are firefighters who can’t make ends meet in this city. There are people who do so much in our civil service and can’t make ends meet. Our job is to create all the different types of affordable housing so people can stay in their communities. 200,000 apartments in total – 120,000 we’ll keep in place, 80,000 newly built. It all has to be created under my plan by 2024, and it’s happening right now – literally right now. People are having their apartments saved. Literally right now, buildings are going up that people will be moving into soon.

Audience: Amen.

Mayor: Now, that has to keep moving and it has to keep moving rigorously. But I want you to know this is very important. That alone won’t solve our affordable housing crisis. And if you talk to anyone anywhere else in the country and said we’re going to have affordable housing for half-a-million people, they’d say, “Oh, we’re done here. That’s great.” Half-a-million people, by the way, is the same amount of people total who live in the city of Kansas City or the city of Miami. That’s how big that is but it’s still not enough. So, we have three other things we’re doing and I’m just going list them quick.

For folks who are in rent-stabilized housing – that’s a million apartments over two million people – for the first time in history, my administration instituted a rent-freeze for people in rent-stabilized housing.

[Applause]

And you need to know why because in the past whatever the landlords proposed, their word was taken for it by the Rent Guidelines Board. Well, then I appointed a new Rent Guidelines Board.  I said, “Could you please look at what is actually happening?” They came back and they said, well guess what? The price of oil went down, the price of gas went down, and price of this went down. I said landlords actually aren’t having to spend more money so there’s no increase in expenses to pass on to the tenants so I said what should you do then? They said if there is no increase in expenses then tenants should not have to pay more rent, let’s do it zero. Let’s do it rent free and that’s exactly what they did.

Because the facts [inaudible] it out. That attracted over 2 million New Yorkers. Here’s another thing you need to know. There are 400,000 New Yorkers living in our houses and our buildings- living in public housing. Imagine - 400,000 people and what I hear from them every day is, “Can I stay there? Are my buildings going to be made better? Are we going to be able to sustain this in the future?” I said very clearly, no way, no how over my dead body will NYCHA ever be privatized. We are very protective of our housing.

[Applause]

And we have to actually help make public housing better because for decades it was not invested in. Let me say something that will shock some people in this room. Until my administration, the housing authority was forced to pay for police services. Yes. Paid for the same police services that everyone else in the city expects they can get for free and for some reason, even though it is a part of the city government, Housing Authority had to pay taxes to the city. Going back to 1947, money that could have been used for repairs for the residents, actually were applied to city ambassadors. I paid it off and I said this is madness. The housing authority- the people living in housing authority deserve police protection and they can get it for free. We gave that tax money back to the housing authority and we said make repairs to that money. We gave that tax money back to the housing authority and said make repairs-make these buildings better, because, we have to preserve those for the long haul. And the last thing that I want to say as part of this – the entire network provision of how we support affordable housing and people who need it.

I have met so many people who are in affordable housing and had to take [inaudible] and when the facts were known afterwards we found that housing has taken some of them illegally. We have seen too many people in this city forced out of their homes. They’ve been tricked by landlords. They’ve been lied to. And I am not saying, let me be very clear, I am not saying every landlord is bad. I think most landlords abide by the law obviously. But, there is a punishment [Inaudible]. And they lie to tenants about how much they should be paying and they don’t provide repairs. And, they don’t provide heat. They harass tenants to leave. Or they even go so far as to evict the tenant, even when the tenant has a legal right to remain. This has happened for years in this city and the city government has not stepped in. When I saw the NYCHA problem, I said what will fix this? What will change this? And the simple answer was give every tenant who is on the verge of eviction and believes they are being illegally harassed or illegally evicted – give them a lawyer for free.

[Applause]

Because then giving them a lawyer is a whole new ball game. So I need everyone in this room to be my deputy. I need everyone to spread this message. If you know anyone, if you or anyone you know- family, friends, or coworkers. If anyone you know is being faced with eviction. Anyone you know is not being given heat or hot water or is being harassed. All they need to do is call 3-1-1. They call 3-1-1 and say this is what’s happening. We will give them a lawyer for free to stand up for their rights.

[Applause]

I’m putting 10 times more money – $64 million into legal aid and legal services to stop evictions. You know what it’s showing already? In the two years we’ve been in office, evictions are down 24 percent because people have finally have a lawyer to represent them.

[Applause]

So, I wanted to give you that picture. I wanted to let you know what we’re trying to do and why it matters so much. I want to let you know that I need your help. I need your voices raised so our friends in the City Council know how much affordable housing means to the people of the community. So that everyone in this city hears that people want a new set of rules, they want to make sure affordable housing is required going forward, they want to make sure our seniors are taken care of. This is behind our rough exteriors as New Yorkers. We are a compassionate people and we care about our seniors, and we care about our children, and we don’t want people put out in the street, and Lord knows we don’t want people becoming homeless because they were illegally evicted from their apartment. We don’t tolerate that in this city.

I think faith teaches us a lot about the fact that we have to be there for our brothers and sisters, and we don’t let people fall through our hands. We pick them up. These are the changes that we need in our city. And I need everyone to spread the word that there is help for anyone who is being treated unfairly – that they will have someone there to defend them. It’s not something people are used to. But if you go out there and tell them that help’s available – just a phone call away – you can turn someone’s life around. You can save someone from being evicted. You can get someone the heat and hot water they deserve. You can make a big a difference, and I need your help to do that.

So, I conclude by saying we know there’s hard work to be done. But here’s what’s at stake – anyone needs any further motivation, here’s what’s at stake – the city we love is at stake. The city we’ve known for generations is at stake. If we don’t change things, this becomes an exclusive city. This becomes a gated community. This becomes a city that is not for everyone. We can’t accept that. This was always meant to be a city for everyone.

New York City is looked up to all over the world. We’re seen as a beacon of hope because anyone could make it here, anyone had a shot here. It was never perfect. I’m not pretending but [inaudible] opportunity available, there was a place to live, there was a chance, and it did not matter where you came from – there was a chance, there was a shot. And more and more that’s gotten harder and harder. And sometimes I worry that the formula, the secret formula that made this place great – that we were for everyone, that gave us our vitality, that gave us our creativity, that gave us something that was envied all over the world. And that’s slipping away when this becomes a place only for those who have the means to afford it, and the rest of the people who made this city great are slowly but surely pushed aside.

We are talking about the survival of New York City as we know, and New York City as we love it. That’s what’s at stake. And this is the time. This here is the decisive moment. This is the moment when we decide, are we going to hang on to what we love, or are we going to let it slip away. If you believe in New York City and if you believe it should be a city for everyone, stand with me and help us change, and help us save the city that we love.

Thank you.

[Applause]