Zoran Mamdani

What makes this different is the amount of money we're actually putting behind it.

We're talking about a housing plan, we've called it block by block, that is going to invest more than $22 billion in affordable housing in the city.

That means we're going to build 200,000 affordable homes that are going to be permanently rent stabilized, preserve 200,000 affordable homes across the same period of time, and do all of this while investing more than $5 billion into public housing

and investing in the tenants of today so that we make it easier for them to report any violation of housing code across the city and for the city to actually then enforce and hold those bad landlords accountable.

That's what it looks like for us to tackle what is a multifaceted housing crisis.

And the reason we do so is it's the number one driver of the cost of living crisis in the city.

I think it's exactly as you said.

We've been told time and again when it comes to housing that we have to make a choice, when in reality, the choice really is between a city government that debates this and a city government that delivers this.

And we want to be the one that delivers this.

And the reason we do is we know that New Yorkers, they are more than just one thing.

When a construction worker goes in the morning to help to construct affordable housing, oftentimes they go home and then they're a tenant in that same city.

We want to make this a city where we're building more affordable housing than we've ever done before.

We're doing it

with stronger wage protections and labor protections than we've ever seen before and then we're also encouraging tenants to utilize their rights and actually organize in a manner where they'll have city support when they do so all of these things together are what help us start to build the kind of housing we used to build until 1961 and a series of choices that were made to make it harder and harder to not just build in the city but frankly for new yorkers to live in the city

My message to that audience is the same as I would say to anyone.

I want them to be able to afford to live in the city as well.

And yes, if there is a bad landlord that is violating housing codes, the city will hold them accountable.

We have held bad landlords accountable to the tune of $65 million in these past six months.

And that's not something we're embarrassed of because we're proud to actually stand up for our laws that ensure that New Yorkers don't just have a place they call their home, but one that's also habitable enough to be considered a home.

And when it comes to this program, we're talking about actually delivering block by block a kind of housing vision that ensures the long term stewardship of homes across the city.