We write to you not solely as religion leaders, however as witnesses.
Day by day, in our congregations and communities, we see the quiet pressure dealing with working households throughout this metropolis. We hear it in conversations after service, in counseling periods, and in moments of personal fear shared in confidence. The message is constant and deeply troubling: the financial strain on Black and Brown New Yorkers is intensifying, and the margin for stability is shrinking.
For householders, this implies escalating homeownership prices, heightened mortgage charges, and the fixed concern of a lien, foreclosures, or predatory threats like deed theft. These usually are not remoted considerations. They’re systemic dangers that undermine the very basis of financial safety for our communities. For a lot of, the flexibility to stay in New York Metropolis is now not simply tough. It’s unsustainable.
The outmigration from our metropolis, notably amongst Black households, shouldn’t be an abstraction. Over 200,000 Black New Yorkers have been displaced, and that quantity continues to develop. It’s a lived actuality, measured in empty pews, in households relocating to different states, in communities dropping generations of historical past and continuity.
It’s on this context that we need to acknowledge and commend you in your management, and extra notably your phrases on the Nationwide Motion Community Annual Conference:
“We’re also focused in the City Council on making sure that we are protecting the Black community. And by doing that, I say we have said a hard no to raising property taxes 9.5%. That is unacceptable because if we were to do that, we would be hurting Black communities across our city.”
These phrases had been a second of readability and aid, reflecting a deep understanding that coverage selections, particularly these affecting housing prices, have actual and disproportionate impacts on communities already underneath pressure.
However we should additionally say this, with equal readability: reactive safety is step one. Proactive motion is subsequent.
Meaning addressing present insurance policies that restrict alternative, undermine stability, and block households from accumulating generational wealth, together with Native Legislation 18, a legislation meant
to focus on dangerous actors however as an alternative has swept in one- and two-family householders and restricted their capacity to supply short-term leases. Practically three years after its enactment, housing stays a significant disaster, and our working-class householders, nurses, academics, and metropolis staff are nonetheless being denied a significant supply of supplemental revenue to offset rising prices.
As religion leaders, we should be a voice towards injustice and name for motion when alternatives for restoration are earlier than us.
That chance is right here. Passing the House owner and Stability Safety Act, Int 879 will restore this important monetary lifeline for householders.
With reform, householders will now not must make unimaginable decisions between staying present on a mortgage or falling behind, sustaining their properties or deferring crucial repairs, and holding onto a household asset or watching generations of sacrifice disappear in a single day.
If the dedication is to guard the working class and Black and Brown communities, then that dedication should prolong past stopping hurt. It should embrace motion that creates the situations for householders to protect what they’ve labored so exhausting to realize.
We urge you and the Council to pursue reforms that replicate that steadiness.
Our metropolis’s power has at all times come from its individuals, from their perseverance, their religion, and their perception that New York affords a future price striving for.
Right now, that perception hangs within the steadiness. Along with your management, we are able to restore the facility of homeownership.
We stand able to work with you to supply the lengthy overdue aid householders deserve.
Respectfully,
SIGNATORIES
Rev. Dr. Adolphus Lacey
Bethany Baptist Church, Brooklyn
Rev. Dr. Renee F. Washington Gardner
Memorial Baptist Church, Harlem
Rev. Dr. Johnnie Inexperienced
Mount Neboh Baptist Church, Harlem
Rev. Patrick Younger
First Baptist Church, Queens
Dr. Wendy Williams
Memorial Baptist Church, Harlem
Rev. James Duckett
Fort Mott Baptist Church, Bronx
Rev. Dr. Demetrius Carolina
First Central Baptist Church, Staten Island
Pastor James Clemons
Baptist Ministers Convention of Better New York and Neighborhood
Rev. Dorian Malloy
Carolina Baptist Church, Bronx
Rev. Sterling Hawkins
Church of the Meek, Harlem
Rev. Clement James Jr.
Memorial Baptist Church, Harlem
Minister Javion Howard
Alliance Tabernacle Baptist Church, Brooklyn
Bishop Calvin Rice
New Jerusalem Worship Heart, Queens
Rev. Dr. Alfred S. Cockfield
Battalion Ministries, Brooklyn
Rev. Arian B. Harris
Group Christian Methodist Church, Harlem
Dr. Mullery Jean-Pierre
Senior Pastor, Beraca Baptist Church, Brooklyn
