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

February 21, 2016

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Two of our officers, two of our police officers fired at in both came out of their ordeal. One walking around the hospital, thank God, the other one will be out soon, fully recovered.

[Applause]

And I want you know that the officer that was shot in the back was in his hospital bed. I was talking to him and I think what he had wanted me to know the most was that the day before he had gotten a gun off the streets of this community, and he was very proud about that.

Now, Mt. Pisgah, I don’t have to tell you this is a special place called by many, “the Jewel of Brooklyn.”

[Applause]

The borough is a pretty fabulous place, so if you’re the jewel, it’s pretty exalting. I want to thank you for the spirit of this place. I want to thank you for how [Inaudible] you are and for how thoughtful you are.

I know that this month is a powerful month. You’re focusing on the commemoration of MAAFA.

[Laughter]

I said it that time, I said it.

And that commemoration is necessary in this country, as we still have not exposed and discussed all of our history. But, I can say on a hopeful note that this month, in the last few years, a lot was suddenly being unveiled and talked about one thing. We now, in our police force we are talking about structural racism, we are talking about the intersection of structural racism and economic [inaudible]. We are finally in this country reaching a language that was necessary not to be just a part of the discussion among the enlightened or the activists, but every day Americans need to hear these words and think about how must undo –

[inaudible]

[Applause]

I’m an optimist by nature. And, I see this discussion leaping forward because people of faith and people who believe that change will come brought it to the floor. That change came from the grassroots, it came from houses of worship, it came from college campuses and it’s growing. It’s something to be proud of, and it’s something that will lead to a material change in people’s lives. Now, I have to praise your pastor because –

[Applause]

Some people reach an iconic status and you’re never sure why but, other people reach an iconic status perhaps, because they earned it. Pastor Youngblood earned it.

[Applause]

You can go back a number of years and you would already have to register him as a leading voice of the city and a conscience of the city. And he is [inaudible] today. No, he’s not new to the dance. But, I’m going to talk to you today about how we afford to live in our own neighborhoods in our own city. Long before it was imaginable, long before people thought it was even possible, this was the author and the leader.

[inaudible]

[Applause]

A movement for affordable housing and I would say at the time there were many doubting Thomases. And he chose to –

[inaudible]

But, sometimes we have to think about the fact that there was a prophet among us who overcame the doubters, overcame the challenges and created something. Sometimes it’s important to stop and remember. That tells us we can win the next victory too. Let’s stand for Pastor Youngblood.

[Applause]

So, what I find all over the city, it’s on the minds of everyone, everywhere I look, people say, “Can I afford to live in my own neighborhood? Can I afford to stay in my own home? Can I be part of the city I love, the city I helped to build?”

In every way, New York City today is in so many ways a success, every single person in this room contributed to it. But remember, it goes back to the [inaudible] movement, there are a lot of people who stood and fought when this city was doing so well. It wasn’t that long ago. It seems, when you look at some of the portrayal of this city today, you would think it never happened but in fact, people stood and fought in neighborhoods that were in distress. That believed they could hang on to make it better and they did – they did. With all due respect to those who build new buildings, and tall buildings, and shiny glass buildings, and people stay in their neighborhoods are the people who stood and fought—  kept their neighborhoods alive. 

And as we’ve seen the changes [inaudible], it’s not that I find New Yorkers are against change. Places had a lot change over the years – it’s that they want fairness. They want acknowledgement that people who built the community – people who gave it its character and its energy and its fight deserve to be able to still live there.

[Applause]

And I believe that everyone has the right to decent housing, safe housing, and affordable housing – a right to. And that is something that with all due respect to the free market – free market doesn’t guarantee that. The rules of free enterprise aren’t particularly orientated to making sure everyone gets a fair shot – everyone has a good outcome. That’s why we have a thing called government: to fight back on behalf of the people, to balance the equation, to put demands on the table, to change the rules of the game in favor of the people. It is not easy, it is not perfect, but the mission, which we work on every day at City Hall, is to change the rules of the game in favor of the people and the communities of the city.

Now, I said when I ran for office we needed to do something very, very big and very bold – we needed 200,000 apartments that were affordable, enough for half-a-million people. It had never been done on that scale in the city before. We are moving on that program right now. 40,000 plus apartments have already been either preserved – meaning the people who live there now have the resources to stay in their own apartments.

[Applause]

Or we have put the finances in place to build new affordable apartments.

Now, remember, Pastor and I were talking about this before, everyone in the city says to me what does affordable mean. 120,000 families under my plan – 120,000 families will stay in the apartment they are in right now, and pay no more than 30 percent of their income for that apartment. That is affordable.

[Applause]

And [inaudible] we’re going to build a lot of units for senior citizens. We know a lot of our seniors [Inaudible].

[Applause]

We don’t have a lot of seniors who need affordable housing who make a lot of money. So, when I say senior housing I’m saying people on fixed incomes, people on very limited resources. We’re going to build a lot of housing for people making under $20,000 a year or $30,000 a year. 

[Applause]

[inaudible] we’re also going to build housing for our public servants, for Sanitation workers, and police officers and teachers and nurses.

[Applause]

And they make – thank God they make good salaries, they deserve those salaries.  So, we’re going to have different types of affordable housing, but the bread and butter of what we’re doing – 120,000 apartments – just to keep people exactly in the apartment they’re in right now. Exactly in the apartment they’re in right this minute.

And so far, last year alone, 13,862 families got the good news they could stay right where they are – that’s in one year alone. Now, I want to tell you, when you think about keeping a neighborhood affordable – Pastor, I will be brief, I’m getting myself worked up, but I will be brief. When you think about keeping a neighborhood affordable there are many tools, many pieces to the equation. If you live in rent-regulated housing, which is over a million apartments in the city, thank God. Our job is to protect that in Albany, keep it rent-regulated and to make sure the rent is never raised unfairly. That is why for the first time in a half-century, this year, we had a zero percent increase for the rent increases in rent-regulated housing.

[Applause]

That was never done before because no one ever asked the question before: did the landlords have a reason for a rent increase? Well, we looked at the numbers – [inaudible] we looked at the numbers and we realized [inaudible] that their costs had not gone up. So, we said if your costs haven’t gone up why do you need a rent increase? [inaudible]

[Applause]

We have over 400,000 New Yorkers living in public housing – in NYCHA. And what we say is we must protect NYCHA, never ever allow it to be privatized – over my dead body.

[Applause]

And stabilizing it because NYCHA was this close to bankruptcy when I came into office. And we – by the way – NYCHA asked [Inaudible], but I’m going to tell you something you probably find hard to believe, that NYCHA was required to pay the NYPD for police services until I came into office and we cancelled that and gave that money back to the Housing Authority to fix up people’s homes.

[Applause]

And I didn’t even know this until I was in office – since 1947 the Housing Authority was forced to pay taxes to the City of New York – 1947. I cancelled that. We gave that money back to the Housing Authority to repair apartments and improve the quality-of-life.

[Applause]

So, protecting our rent-regulated apartments, protecting our Housing Authority, building new affordable housing, giving people the subsidies to stay in the affordable housing – these are all pieces of the puzzle but one more. And I asked Pastor earlier to help and I ask all of you in Mt. Pisgah to help, because if you know anyone who you believe is being harassed by a landlord, or you believe is being illegally evicted – we didn’t used to have this but what now we’ve created is something very powerful – if you believe you are being treated unfairly by a landlord call 3-1-1. When you call, you will be connected to someone who will go over the case with you. If it’s a legal case we can make, we will provide you a lawyer for free to stop that eviction and stop that harassment.

[Applause]

So, this is the picture of how we keep people in the neighborhoods they love in the city that they love. There’s so much more to do. I know Pastor would tell me a strong community has many [inaudible] components. A strong community should have pre-k for all its children – oh, we have that by the way.

[Laughter]

Thank you for all your support to help us get there.

A strong community should have after-school programs for young people. They need that to give them the chance to move forward.

[Applause]

A strong community needs good, paying jobs. Not just jobs – good, paying jobs, and good benefits.

[Applause]

Which is why we’re fighting for a $15 minimum wage.

[Applause]

Which is why extended Paid Sick Leave to a half-million more New Yorkers.

[Applause]

All of those pieces – which is why we need, we need businesses that are going to pay a good wage. We need high-road retailers, not Wal-Marts, that are going to give people a pittance – high-road retailers that believe they need to pay people a decent amount. That’s what we need more of in our neighborhoods and we will fight for that.

But all of those pieces are crucial but it begins with housing. It’s the number one expense in people’s lives. I’m going to ask for your help, and then I’ll conclude. I’m going to ask your help.

Right now, I am asking the City Council to do two things – to pass a program that doesn’t have the most exciting title but it’s an exciting idea, it’s called Mandatory Inclusionary Zoning. But the word I want you to focus on is the word mandatory because it says to real estate developers all over the city – wherever this policy is applied, wherever you want to build that qualifies for Mandatory Inclusionary Zoning. Literally, a developer cannot build unless it guarantees affordable housing as part of that development. Period. Period.

[Applause]

As simple as this – if the affordable housing is not a plan, and not financed, and not proven there is no permit to build. That is the government working on behalf of the people.

[Applause]

And that is the kind of muscular policy we needed a long time ago before all of this happened. If this policy had been in place there would be tens of thousands more units of affordable housing. We can do it right now. It’s going to be voted on in the City Council in a matter of weeks and I’m asking you to tell your City Council member we need a mandatory rule to protect affordable housing.

Second, something that has a little better name – Zoning for Quality and Affordability. But here’s the most important thing, if you believe in affordable housing for our seniors, this plan – Zoning for Quality and Affordability, ZQA, allows us to take parcel land that we weren’t allowed to build on before and create senior housing.

[Applause]

And I’m going to tell you all – part of it has to do with parking. Now, I have my house in Brooklyn still, I used to drive the car around the block, looking for parking. No one has to tell me how much New Yorkers love their parking spaces. But you know who doesn’t need a whole lot of parking spaces typically? It’s our seniors. They need some but most of them – I hear from seniors is they want affordable housing a lot more than they want a parking space.

[Applause]

Can I get an Amen?

Audience: Amen!

Mayor: So, this new rule, this new law before the City Council will allow us to maximize the places we can create senior housing. This city will be a city of more senior citizens than ever before in its history. We better make sure they have a place they can afford to live.

[Applause]

And, you want to know who believes this the most – go on the AARP website because they are fighting with us for it. That is a big organization.

So, I conclude by saying – everything we’ve tried to do has been because of the voice of the people. So I want to ask [inaudible] focus on income inequality – your administration? I said because, when Chirlane and I were out all over the city, talking to people, they wouldn’t just talk to us, they would grab us by the arm and say, “I feel I’m not going to be able to live here any longer. I feel I’m going to lose my apartment. I can’t get by on the job I have. I have two jobs and I still can’t pay the bills.” I’ve heard this a thousand times. All we need to do is listen to the voice of the people. The people are demanding these changes. As I said earlier, it’s a moment in history where a lot is being reexamined that should have been reexamined long ago but I’ll take it – when that moment of change comes, I say thank you. I say how about we take it and run with it and go farther than we ever imagined before. That is this moment. That is this moment. We’re a moment of change. Don’t mistake it. Don’t for a moment underestimate it. You’ve seen it before in our history and it’s happening again. It’s a moment of change and the people have to speak loudly and sustain it and build it. And I know we can do that together.

Thank you. God Bless.