Housing and Rent
What Mamdani Wants to Do
- Freeze rents in all rent-stabilized apartments, so tenants can actually keep up.
- Build more social housing, using a new city agency focused on just that.
- Make tenant protections tougher and push back harder against evictions.
- Hit landlords who keep units empty with a “vacancy tax.”
How He Plans to Pay for It
- Raise property taxes on luxury and empty homes.
- Take the money the state already gets from the “millionaire’s tax” and put it into building affordable housing.
- Sell municipal bonds, backed by city revenue, to get long-term, low-interest funding for these projects.
What’s in the Way
- Developers probably won’t love frozen rents or slimmer profits. Some might just stop building.
- NYC can’t do this alone—state lawmakers have to agree on big housing and tax changes.
- Experts think it’ll take 10–15 years to hit the city’s social housing goals, and that’s only if the funding keeps flowing.
- Public Transit and Getting Around
What He Wants
- Make all city buses free, for everybody.
- Speed up buses with more bus-only lanes and traffic signals that give them the green light.
- Let more low-income subway riders into the Fair Fares program.
Where the Money Comes From
- Use the money from congestion pricing (those new Manhattan tolls) to pay for free buses.
- Go after federal grants, especially for low- and no-emission buses.
- Charge big companies a small payroll fee, kind of like what Paris does to fund its transit.
Roadblocks
- The MTA runs transit with the state, so the city doesn’t have full control.
- Free citywide buses would cost about $1.8 billion a year.
- The Governor and state budget team would need to be on board.
- City-Owned Grocery Stores
What’s the Plan
- Open public grocery stores in neighborhoods where food costs are sky-high.
- Run these stores “at cost,” with no markup.
- Buy food from local and regional farms, supporting the area’s growers.
Funding
- Starting out, Mamdani wants $50–$100 million to launch five stores, one in each borough.
- The city would need about $25 million a year to keep them running.
- Any profits would get pumped back into making food even more affordable.
Possible Problems
- Private grocery chains aren’t thrilled—they say it could mess with competition.
- City-run supply chains might not be as efficient as private ones.
- It’s a pilot program for now. The city has to prove it works before scaling up.
- Universal Childcare
What He’s Proposing
- Make childcare free for every family, starting at six weeks old.
- Turn empty or underused city buildings into new public childcare centers.
- Make sure childcare workers get union wages and decent benefits.
How He’ll Fund It
- The program would cost $2–$3 billion a year.
- Mamdani wants to shift money from the Department of Education’s surplus, use federal early-childhood funds, and tweak city income taxes for top earners.
- He’s also looking at private foundation partnerships to help renovate buildings.
The Catch
- This single policy would eat up about 4–5% of the city’s annual budget.
- New York would need to train and certify thousands of new childcare workers.
- State lawmakers would have to sign off on some of the funding moves.
Climate and Green Infrastructure
- What’s on the Table
- Install solar panels and better HVAC systems at 500 schools.
- Turn 500 schoolyards into “green” spaces that soak up rain and help cool the city.
- Set up 50 “resilience hubs” in schools so people have a place to go during storms or heat waves.
Money Breakdown
- The whole package costs about $5–6 billion over 10 years.
- The city would rely on federal climate grants, green bonds, and partnerships with clean energy companies.
- After rollout, maintenance runs about $100 million a year.
Hurdles
- Retrofitting old schools isn’t easy—lots of construction headaches.
- Multiple city departments have to work together and not trip over each other.
- Ongoing costs add up, and someone has to keep paying attention after the launch.
- Equity and Public Safety Reform
What He Aims to Do
- Create an Office of LGBTQIA+ Affairs with a $65 million budget.
- Make sure public hospitals provide gender-affirming care.
- Swap out police for social service teams when dealing with mental health or homelessness calls.
How He’ll Pay
- Cut $40 million from NYPD overtime.
- Reallocate $25 million from the city’s health budget.
Biggest Challenges
- Police unions will fight hard against budget cuts.
- Changing how emergency calls are handled means retraining a lot of people and dealing with the risks that come with that.
That’s Mamdani’s vision. It’s ambitious, sometimes expensive, and it’ll need some heavy political lifting to get any of it done. But each policy is aimed at shaking up the status quo in New York City.
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