New York City Mayor Eric Adams named three experienced public servants to his housing leadership team this week, opting for consensus candidates as he seeks to uphold his campaign promise to end the city’s affordability crisis.
Jessica Katz, currently the executive director of the Citizens Housing & Planning Council, will serve as chief housing officer. Adolfo Carrión Jr., a former Bronx borough president who directed the White House Office of Urban Affairs during the Obama administration, will take the helm of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development.
“There were two people on the list that I considered to be the LeBron James and Steph Curry of this game,” said Adams of Katz and Carrión during a press conference to announce their appointments. “They’re going to be on the court, placing the ball in the hoop, winning the points for our team.”
Adams also announced that Eric Enderlin, a de Blasio holdover who has served as president of the Housing Development Corporation since 2016, will remain in his post.
The mayor’s picks – who were endorsed by U.S. Representatives Nydia Velázquez and Ritchie Torres, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and various local affordable housing advocates – have their work cut out for them.
The number of homeless single adults sleeping in New York City shelters increased by 109 percent over the last decade, according to the Coalition for the Homeless. On Tuesday night alone, more than 45,000 adults and children slept in the city’s shelter system.
Rising housing costs have also plagued low-income families and those on the verge of homelessness. Even before the Covid-19 pandemic began, half of all New York City renters paid 30 percent or more of their income towards rent – nearly twice the national rate, according to New York University’s Furman Center.
During his campaign, Adams proposed converting 25,000 derelict hotels into affordable housing, a high-level plan that could roughly half the number of people relying on shelters each night. Skeptics, however, have questioned the feasibility of this idea – and of Adam’s bold pledge to “end the housing affordability crisis.”
“He has not come out with any hard numbers,” said Michael McKee, treasurer of the activist Tenants PAC, on WBAI radio this week. “It’s going to be more of the same, and it’s not going to solve the housing affordability crisis.”
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