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New York has received $119M in federal rent relief funding from the U.S. Treasury Department, well below the $1.6B Gov. Kathy Hochul asked for in January.
The $119M that the federal government has promised New York for rent relief is significantly more than the $27.2M the state received last year but far below the figure lawmakers say they need to make a difference, Crain’s New York Business reported.
The state has already distributed $1.6B in rent relief as of March 1 and issued a provisional approval for a further $440M of payments, according to Crain’s. But New York needs more help: Hochul’s office estimates that New York currently has at least 8,500 pending applications for rental relief.
State Assemblyman Harvey Epstein told Crain’s that lawmakers would do what they could with the amount from the federal government, but that it wouldn’t stretch far. Housing advocates had harsher words: Cea Weaver, campaign coordinator with Housing Justice for All, told Crain’s the amount allocated to New York was “embarrassing.” Rent Stabilization Association President Joe Strasburg said the amount “falls woefully short.”
New York will have another opportunity to request further funding for rent relief from the federal government later this month. But the state’s requests for federal funding toward rent relief have now yielded substantially less than it asked for. Last year’s $27.2M allocation came after a request for almost $1B.
The state Assembly proposed allocating $1.3B toward rent relief in its latest budget bill, while the state Senate proposed setting aside $1B to backfill demand for rent relief if the amount granted by the federal government fell short.
While Hochul's first budget proposal included a replacement for the 421-a tax break that left most of the program intact — a move that was hailed by real estate leaders — neither chamber's budgets included a replacement for the abatement, which expires this summer, The Real Deal reported. The state’s final budget is due April 1.
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