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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Howard Slatkin, Executive Director of Citizens Housing and Planning Council, on Housing Connect and Affordable Housing Allocation
2:06:56
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133 sec
Howard Slatkin, Executive Director of Citizens Housing and Planning Council (CHPC), presented findings from their ongoing research on affordable housing allocation systems in global cities. He emphasized the need for balance between speed and choice in housing allocation, and the importance of an adaptable process to address New York City's unique challenges.
- CHPC's research reveals that cities globally strike different balances between speed and fairness in housing allocation.
- Slatkin highlighted the risks of rigid procedures, given NYC's diverse individual circumstances and limited affordable housing supply.
- He recommended that lottery procedures should not be fixed in law, but continually monitored and improved upon, with clear goals and measurement of results.
Howard Slatkin
2:06:56
Good afternoon.
2:06:58
Chair Sanchez and and council members, I'm Howard Slatkin.
2:07:00
I'm executive director Citizens Housing and Planning Council, a housing and planning policy research organization.
2:07:06
I'll try to give the best one minute and fifty seconds of my written testimony, which is submitted in its entirety.
2:07:13
CHPC is in the midst of a research project about, the range of approaches to matching residents with affordable housing units used in other global cities.
2:07:22
We look forward to publishing, this research, but I'll share some key takeaways of relevance.
2:07:28
In defining a fair and efficient system, every city strikes a different balance between speed and choice.
2:07:35
It's really important to put people in homes quickly as well as fairly.
2:07:38
These goals relate in complex ways and policy often strikes different balances in different situations as well as over time as cities adapt their processes to evolving needs and conditions.
2:07:52
The one of the the things that we have found is that rigidity and proceduralism pose risks not just because of the wide range of individual circumstances, the allocation process in New York City in particular needs to address, and the incredible depth of need for affordable housing and the limited supply of units to meet it.
2:08:15
But also, I should I'm sorry.
2:08:20
I'm gonna move forward.
2:08:21
The long lease up times that we have identified in our brutal bureaucracy analysis of the lease up process as well as the delays and re rentals recently documented, by others here, highlight the need for continuous monitoring and improvement of the process as well as the need for an agile and adaptable process, for, administering this process.
2:08:46
So our recommendations here are that the lottery procedure should not be fixed in law, but that the council should, as it is doing today, and we appreciate this, use its oversight authority to ensure clarity of goals for the, lottery and allocation process, the measurement of results, and that there's an ongoing practice of monitoring and improving upon the process.
2:09:09
Thank you.