On the afternoon of October 22, New York State Senator Julia Salazar held a press conference in Brooklyn to announce her proposal aimed at capping city funding for hotel-style homeless shelters. Salazar emphasized that the initiative seeks to prevent corruption and collusion between government and private developers, urging the city to redirect resources toward building more affordable housing.
Using the intersection of 86th Street and Avenue D as a prime example, Salazar pointed out that the city and developers are converting hotels into homeless shelters under the guise of providing accommodations, which leads to significant profits while wasting taxpayer dollars and failing to effectively address the homelessness crisis.
The proposal is slated for formal introduction at the start of the next legislative session, with plans to request that the city reference standards from the New York City Housing Authority’s (NYCHA) “Section 8 Vouchers” program. This would establish that if social service agencies or their partners contract with hotels for temporary shelters, the daily reimbursement from the city could not exceed 75% of the cost of affordable housing.
Salazar stressed the need for the government to allocate resources towards long-term stable housing solutions, noting that existing practices are ineffective and contribute to waste and corruption. She aims to leverage available resources and policy tools, such as affordable housing construction loans and tax incentives, to ensure that residents have access to safe and stable homes. Additionally, she highlighted that the ongoing construction of homeless shelters on 86th Street has adversely affected the lives of many local residents and expressed her desire to address the root causes of these issues through legislation.
The proposal also plans to exempt certain neighborhoods, including parts of Upper Manhattan and Community Boards 1 and 2 in Brooklyn and Queens, from the funding limits. Salazar’s office indicated that hotel operators in these areas should not rely on turning hotels into shelters for profit. However, in communities like Bensonhurst, the operators would need to secure both stabilization funding and long-term contracts with the government, thereby narrowing the proposal’s focus to areas where developers might exploit the situation.
In addition to her new proposal, Salazar expressed her commitment to advancing the Housing Access Voucher Program, initially introduced by Senator Brian Kavanagh in 2023, which aims to reduce homelessness by subsidizing housing. According to the state legislature’s website, the program is designed to determine qualifications and allocate funds based on applicants’ income and geographical location while establishing guidelines to ensure tenants cannot be evicted due to an inability to pay rent. Furthermore, it mandates that local governments maintain existing homeless assistance programs and funding levels, ensuring that new initiatives do not diminish current resources.
