Affordable Housing In New York City

1529 Words4 Pages

The city of New York deserves not only affordable house for the middle class but more options for lower class citizens as well. There are several issues with affordable housing, one is there isn’t enough of it to go around and people are being force into homelessness. This problem has put an even bigger strain on city social services and there needs to be a solution implemented. A reason there is not enough affordable housing is the lack of real estate. This problem began when Giuliani was in office, he proposed a plan that would solve the cities property tax problem. When City Council approved the plan 1996 it “relieved the city task of collecting $250 million in tax liens -- claims for overdue property taxes -- by the Giuliani administration's
Giuliani changed the way we seized properties by selling tax liens. A lien is the tie to the property that is activated by the debt. This law enabled New York City the ability to collect tax revenue upfront by selling liens on unpaid property taxes and related charges. The selling of tax liens provided the city relief on outstanding debts property owners incurred and saved the City millions of dollars from maintaining buildings. This legislation was broken in to two phases the first was done by selling $250 million in tax liens to a private investment trust. “The second phase, was initiated by the adoption of Local Law 37 by the City Council. It establishes the grounds for executing a court-sanctioned title transfer of tax-delinquent residential property to a qualified third party if the property is found to be ‘distressed.’’(Oser, 1996) The Giuliani administration’s 1996 Tax Lien Sale legislation was a way to generate income and rid the City of being the largest landlord by being able to capture tax revenue immediately. The administration’s approach drastically reduced Mayor Ed Koch ‘in rem’ program and eventually seized the long-term and management of tax foreclosed properties by the Department of Housing Preservation and

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