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TESTIMONY
Testimony by Maria Forbes, public housing Tenant Association President, on housing rights and process failures
2:23:21
·
4 min
Maria Forbes, a Tenant Association President in public housing with roles at the UN and other advocacy groups, testifies on the failures of the current system to treat housing as a human right and meet resident needs.
She criticizes extreme delays in housing development compared to projects like Yankee Stadium, the lack of minimum wage affordable housing, insufficient support for fire victims, the erosion of resident preferences (Section 3), and calls for charter changes to speed up ULURP, restore some community board power, and ensure economic benefits like local hiring reach residents.
- Forbes frames housing as a fundamental human right being inadequately addressed.
- Criticizes the slow pace of affordable housing development and lack of options for minimum wage workers.
- Highlights specific failures like lack of alternatives to shelters for fire victims and loss of Section 3 hiring preferences.
- Calls for speeding up ULURP and restoring some community board influence (short of a veto).
- Advocates for economic development and local hiring mandates within the charter.
Maria Forbes
2:23:21
Hello?
2:23:23
Oh, good evening.
2:23:24
I almost thought I was gonna miss this testimony.
2:23:28
But good evening to the panel.
2:23:29
Thank you for having me here.
2:23:31
My name is Maria Forbes.
2:23:33
I got a lengthy, lengthy description of myself, and you'll understand why.
2:23:39
I'm the first public housing authority tenant association president that has a seat at the table for the United Nations.
2:23:46
So I've done the SDGs to understand when you say how long it takes to get something with this housing and land committee done.
2:23:56
Imagine planning from 02/2016 to 02/1930 and then saying you're planning from 02/2022 to 02/1950.
2:24:06
This is how long it's taking us to arrive as something because housing is a human right by the federal law, and I'm sure that everyone in this room knows that.
2:24:19
And while we have not reached that decision of building more affordable housing for just as well for minimum wage workers, I still don't understand that.
2:24:31
But I have some description.
2:24:34
I didn't come to tack anybody.
2:24:36
I just have some descriptions of some different things.
2:24:41
Richie Torres, before he left city council, he went to a big fire, and he said, wow.
2:24:46
People who have apartment should not have to go into the shelter.
2:24:52
And he thought he would've been able to pass that law, and that hasn't happened for residents of The Bronx or just anyone in the city, period.
2:25:02
We have multiple fires throughout the house.
2:25:04
I had to stop commissioner Carrie Young because, wow, he left here to go to Washington DC to be with the HUD secretary and to only come back and get HPD.
2:25:17
And I don't see that people who have fires have to go through the shelter again when the landlord takes his time to repair the apartment.
2:25:28
The charter changed for the New York Yankees.
2:25:32
Like, they came in under Carrie Young's watch, and they built Yankee Stadium in four point five seconds in comparison to what they did down to the world trade.
2:25:43
It didn't make any sense to me.
2:25:47
I'm a public housing authority tenant association.
2:25:50
I also sit on Bronx South District Council of Presidents as their business agent, and my national level is called the National Congress of Neighborhood Women.
2:26:01
You can may push me off this mic, sir.
Richard R. Buery Jr.
2:26:03
I am.
2:26:04
I'm sorry.
2:26:05
It's, twenty fifth fifteen seconds left.
Maria Forbes
2:26:07
Fifteen seconds.
2:26:08
But, please, I saw a expert.
2:26:10
I consider myself to be an expert.
2:26:13
Affordable housing for minimum wage families, that needs to be addressed in this new charter.
2:26:19
Economic development and local hiring for current in this new charter.
2:26:26
Section three, we lost section three as public housing residents, and and I'm sure a lot
Richard R. Buery Jr.
2:26:31
of you
Maria Forbes
2:26:31
know that we were entitled to any federal developments being built or anything.
2:26:37
We were entitled as public housing authority residents first.
2:26:41
But when city council who makes a lot of decisions for a lot of people, some of not per se the voting, but let's just consider giving the community planning boards back some of their positions.
2:27:00
The union land use review procedure, that needs to be addressed and speeded up because you can't plan for 02/2016 until we plan for for 2050.
2:27:12
It's it just doesn't make any sense.
Richard R. Buery Jr.
2:27:13
Thank you
Maria Forbes
2:27:14
so the community boards without granting the veto power has to stop because people are taking advantage of their power.
Richard R. Buery Jr.
2:27:25
Thank you so much for your
Maria Forbes
2:27:26
for allowing me to share.