Housing activists privately raged that Gov. Kathy Hochul is a “racist” who “does not like immigrants” during a mass “virtual call” to discuss deadlocked state budget negotiations.
The April 11 strategy session was sponsored by Housing Justice for All, which is pushing for “good cause” legislation to limit rent hikes in apartments across the state and back a new housing access voucher program, to aid the homeless and tenants facing eviction.
The activists claimed Hochul, who has her own plan to spur the construction of 800,000 affordable housing u🍌nits statewide, is holding up their pet pro-tenant programs.
“Governor Hochul doesn’t like [Housing Justice For All] because she doesn’t want everyone who’s included in this program to be included. That includes people who are undocumented, people with felony convictions,” said organization staffer Ritti Singh, according to a recording of the event by a participant that was provided to The Post.
“We know Governor Hochul is like really conservative and that she really, you know, she’s racist. She does not like immigrants. She does not like people who’ve been, you know, in jail. So she’s, like, really, really been fighting against it,” Singh charged.
Another participant in the event, Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition housing organizer Julie Colon said, “She [Hochul] hates immigrants, and she hates poor people. And that’s like, demonstrated like through like, you know, how she has like run her career, the things that she has done.”
Darryl McPherson, an attendee from the Bronx, said Hochul has been a disappointment — saying she’s much like her predecessor, disgraced ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
“Kathy Hochul depended solely on the progressives to get elected [last year],” and “she has zero conscience,” he said.
McPherson also complained Hochul used money from the Seneca Nation tribe and “gave it to her friend” Terry Pegula, owner of the Buffalo Bills, to finance a new Bills stadium.
Other attendees include re🌌ps from VOCAL-NY, Citizen Action, the Democratic Socialists of America and Make the Road.
, Mayor Eric Adams’ new appointee to the Rent Guidelines Board, was presen♊t but did not speak.
Hochul got hit from both sides,✱ with other part🌸icipants saying the governor was too generous to the migrants in comparison to legal residents.
Housing Ju🦩stice For All member Renette Bradley expres꧃sed frustration that migrants were receiving housing in New York City while Hochul opposes housing voucher programs for “people that are already here.”
“They’re bringing these – they have people coming in and they’re giving them housing, and
we have people that’s already here. … That’s not fair. And I’m fighting. I’m gonna fight
[Hochul] against that,” Bradley said.
Another member wrote a note in the chat section during the meeting, “She [Hochul] is helping all the Venezuelan people.”
Film producer Charlie Dibe, who identified himself as a member of “Communist Party
USA Housing,” proposed ‘bombarding’ Governor Hochul’s Twitter account with “nonstop
‘Hochul-shaming.’”
Others endorsed jamming up the governor’s Twitter account.
“Governor Hochul proposed the New York Housing Compact to create 800,000 new homes in the coming decade, has committed billions of dollars to affordable housing and rental assistance, and is actively working with the legislature on a final budget that addresses our housing crisis and meet the needs of New Yorkers.” the governor’s office said in a statement to The Post.
Meanwhile, the activists boasted about bജullying legislators to sign onto the good cause eviction proposal by threatening to protest outside their homes and shaming advocates for landlords.
“Senator Andrew Gounardes. He wasn’t on Good Cause, but we ran him down and told him if he signed, we wouldn’t come to his house. So, I guess he didn’t want us there, so he signed,” Bradley of Housing Justice for All.
Several participants, including DSA member Andrew Hiller, sai🌼d their “favorite moment” was sha❀ming Real Estate Board of NY president Jim Whelan.
“So we caught him eating lunch by himself, and we got a crowd of like 50 people to like, you know, start chanting ‘shame’ and we walked past him. We like literally booed him all the way down the hall and Albany and he like went and like hid behind security. So that was a really good moment,” Singh said.
Sarah Lazur of Crown Heights Tenants Union, a French instructor at Barnard College, expressed contempt for members of Small Property Owners of New York in the chat section, saying she🌺 knows where one of the members lives and would “love to knock overဣ his trash cans.”
Another attendee 🐎replied, “I w𝔍ould love to kick that can and the owner of it, too.”
Housing Justice For All organizers solicited suggestions for tactics to pressure lawmakers to support
putting “good cause” eviction in the budget.
One atten൲dee suggested “redecorate their offices.”
“What else do we have? Some buddies that redecorate their offices. That’s a good one,” Colon said.
