Op-Ed | Making New York City affordable for working New Yorkers

Working-class New Yorkers are the backbone of our city; they keep our city safe, healthy, clean, and help us continue to take the greatest city in the world to new heights. These dedicated workers deserve the chance to build a better future for themselves, their children, and their families. This includes securing good-paying jobs, affordable homes, and a world-class education for their children. That is why, from day one of our administration, we have focused on making New York City more affordable for working-class New Yorkers.

We have done this by helping to save New Yorkers more than $30 billion through programs that help them get ahead, like the “Earned Income Tax Credit,” which enables families and working-class people to have more money to pay for groceries, bills, and rent. We have helped New Yorkers in public housing access free high-speed internet and basic TV through Big Apple Connect, and we are on the path to eliminate medical debt for 500,000 New Yorkers — saving them an estimated $1.8 billion.

We have created homes that working people, families, immigrants, and young people need with back-to-back record years of building affordable housing; this includes a combined nearly 29,000 affordable and public housing units just this year. We signed two historic agreements with our partners in labor that allow us to build more and build faster, all while creating good-paying career pathways and apprenticeship opportunities for New Yorkers living in New York City Housing Authority housing or low-income zip codes.

But we’re still delivering for New Yorkers. Later this week, we will continue to advance the generational Willets Point transformation, which will deliver new, resilient infrastructure, the largest 100 percent affordable housing project in 40 years in our city, over 20,000 square feet of retail space, a 250-key hotel, and the city’s first-ever soccer-specific stadium for the New York City Football Club.

Also, this week, the City Council will vote on our historic “City of Yes for Housing Opportunity” proposal that will allow us to build a “little more housing in every neighborhood.” By enacting this plan, we can clear the way to build a new generation of affordable housing for our city, including housing for our seniors, our families, our young people, our unhoused, our neighbors, and so many others. It will allow us to take on the long-running housing crisis that has made life far too difficult and far too unaffordable for far too many New Yorkers.

And we have expanded FutureReadyNYC, our learning program that connects public school students to real job credentials, paid work-based learning, and puts our students on pathways to good-paying careers. Now an additional 36 schools will participate in FutureReadyNYC, bringing the program to 135 schools across the five boroughs. This means a total 15,000 students will have the chance to receive real world experiences in tech, education, business and finance, and health care.

As someone raised by a single mother who worked several jobs to support our family, I know the struggle many are facing. That is what drives me to make sure that hard-working New Yorkers can get the chances I was given to get ahead. We want to make and keep New York City affordable, so that all New Yorkers can build their dream here in the greatest city in the world.