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The de Blasio Administration released the Where We Live NYC Draft Plan for public review. This is the city’s comprehensive plan to promote fair housing and take action to advance opportunity for all New Yorkers The Where We Live NYC Draft Plan outlines key goals and strategies to address New York City’s fair housing challenges. The plan analyzes the state of fair housing in New York City today and lays out an action plan for the next five years. It includes the following key goals and strategies:

On Dec. 19, the City Council passed a bill that would require owners to install temperature monitoring devices in buildings with heat problems. The legislation would require HPD to identify 50 class A multiple dwellings based on factors including the number of temperature violations and heat-related complaints every two years. Such identified buildings would then be required to install Internet-capable temperature reporting devices for up to two years. And HPD would be required to conduct dedicated heat inspections of these buildings at least once every two weeks.

The governor recently signed a bill package from Attorney General Letitia James that she says will make it more difficult for owners to force tenants out of their rent-regulated homes. Previously, the law provided protections only to those tenants who could demonstrate physical injury and failed to take into account the conditions caused by the landlord.

HPD, in partnership with LeadFreeNYC, recently launched an outreach and education campaign to remind property owners of their responsibilities under the law when it comes to identifying lead-based paint hazards and remediating those hazards safely. LeadFreeNYC is an interagency comprehensive plan to end childhood lead exposure. Through the initiative, the city will increase resources and support for children, parents, and healthcare providers to make sure every child under 3 is tested for lead exposure – and any child who does test positive gets the services he or she needs.

The NYU Furman Center recently released a brief showing an overall decline in residential evictions filed in New York City Housing Court between 2010 and 2017. The analysis draws on records from New York State’s Office of Court Administration and provides new insight on landlord-initiated cases filed in housing court, revealing trends for eviction filings, judgments (including settlement agreements), and executed warrants.

The de Blasio Administration recently launched a campaign to educate tenants on their new rights under the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019. The ads, designed by The Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants, give New York City renters the information they need to hold their landlords accountable. The Office to Protect Tenants also has launched a new website with digestible breakdowns of the new rights renters have under enacted laws.

At a recent Environment Protection Committee hearing, council members from Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, and Manhattan questioned Jainey Bavishi, director of the Mayor’s Office of Recovery & Resiliency. With regard to resiliency projects since Superstorm Sandy, lawmakers stressed that many are still in their infancy, such as a project to reduce the risk of power failure to the city’s core food processing hub in the south Bronx, and a flood barrier in Coney Island Creek.

Housing Justice for All, an advocacy group comprising several different tenants’ rights organizations, recently announced a new campaign calling for the state legislature to prioritize housing and invest in guaranteeing homes for New York State residents in 2020. The group wants state legislators and Gov. Andrew Cuomo to pass the Home Stability Support Act, a rent supplement for low-income families experiencing hardship including homelessness, and the Good Cause Eviction bill, which was championed by some lawmakers but didn’t pass with other rent reforms earlier this year.

The city recently released updated guidelines for its rent freeze programs that help senior citizens (aged 62 and over) and tenants with qualifying disabilities (aged 18 and over) stay in housing by freezing their rent. Together, Senior Citizen Rent Increase Exemption (SCRIE) and Disabled Rent Increase Exemption (DRIE) make up the NYC Rent Freeze Program, which is administered by the NYC Department of Finance. Under the program, a property tax credit covers the difference between the actual rent amount and what the tenant is responsible for paying at the frozen rate.

NYC Comptroller Scott Stringer recently released results of an investigation revealing the city’s systemic failure to protect children from toxic lead. According to the Comptroller, the city failed to use its own data to perform lead inspections in buildings most likely to pose threats to children – never inspecting 9,671 buildings with documented cases of child lead exposure.