“It’s clear that this system can’t be salvaged with iterative tweaks. It needs political courage and bold reforms that will reboot the housing market.”

The view from Dean Street near Vanderbilt Avenue in Brooklyn. (Phot by Adi Talwar)

Every week, I speak with dozens of renters who feel overwhelmed with crippling rent increases, unresponsive landlords, and a system designed to wear them down. Many are ready to leave the city altogether because they can’t afford to stay. As New York’s mayoral candidates debate zoning targets for 2035, renters are dealing with an urgent, immediate crisis that just can’t wait.

It’s clear that this system can’t be salvaged with iterative tweaks. It needs political courage and bold reforms that will reboot the housing market. If the next mayor is serious about housing, here are five policies they should kickstart in their first 100 days:

Turn city voucher programs into a cash-based housing allowance

The city’s voucher program is failing the people it is supposed to serve. Despite an increasing budget, growing from $174 million in 2019 to over $816 million in 2024, the program is underperforming. A recent audit by the State Comptroller found that households approved for CityFHEPS waited an average of 10 months to move out of shelters, with some families waiting more than three years for placement.

Even when renters finally secure vouchers, they’re blocked by endless administrative red tape and widespread landlord discrimination. These vouchers can’t be used for shared housing, sublets, or rooms in family homes, even though these are common, affordable options for many renters.

Instead of forcing tenants to navigate a rigid and bureaucratic system, the city should issue portable, cash-based subsidies, paid directly to renters. A portable benefit would also improve voucher acceptance, giving renters leverage in lease negotiations and reducing the stigma that often accompanies subsidy holders. 

Make rental assistance available before eviction happens

The city needs to intervene earlier. The data is clear: an average shelter stay for a family costs the city over $100,000 per year, while early rental assistance can cost as little as $3,500. Beyond the financials, eviction prevention keeps people rooted in their communities. If we can stop eviction before it begins, we can keep our neighbors safe and healthy and prevent the lasting damage that forced relocations or foreclosures can cause. 

Reform the Rent Guidelines Board (RGB) for smarter rent policy

Every year, the RGB votes on rent increases for over 1 million stabilized apartments. However, the board applies the same adjustment to all units, regardless of the borough, building condition, or landlord history.

That’s outdated. Why should a landlord with hundreds of open violations be able to increase rents? Why should a luxury rent-stabilized building in Hudson Yards get the same increase as a small owner with six units in Brooklyn? We need a policy that reflects the realities of New York’s housing stock.

Smart rent regulation must be data-driven, context-aware, and tied to tenant protections. The next mayor needs to appoint a bold and reform-oriented board, and the board also needs to be given the mandate and support to reshape and reinterpret how increases are established.

Reward good landlords with real incentives

Enforcement alone won’t fix our housing crisis. We also need to reward the landlords who maintain their properties and rent responsibly. A “Good Landlord Program” could offer:

Tax breaks for clean code records

Low-interest loans for capital improvements

Fast-track permits for owners who accept vouchers and comply with the law

We know incentive programs can work. In Phoenix, Arizona, the Threshold program incentivized landlords to accept housing vouchers, resulting in over 1,000 previously unhoused individuals gaining access to homes or apartments. Before its launch, about 65 percent of voucher recipients could find landlords willing to rent to them, a figure that increased to almost 90 percent after the program’s implementation. 

Too often, we treat all landlords the same. We need to start recognizing and rewarding those who are part of the solution. 

Fix Housing Preservation & Development (HPD) enforcement and start collecting fines

New Yorkers report heat outages, leaks, mold, and pest infestations every day, but code enforcement is inconsistent. In 2024, housing code violations in New York City jumped 24 percent, totaling 895,457 violations, yet many landlords face minimal financial consequences. HPD is understaffed, and most fines issued to bad landlords go uncollected. It’s estimated that over 97 percent of fines issued to delinquent landlords are never collected. The next mayor needs to give city agencies the mandate and resources to enforce existing laws and reinvest penalties into housing support. 

These aren’t radical proposals, but they do challenge the status quo. The next mayor can’t afford to govern by appeasing every stakeholder. We need to rip out the failing parts of this system before even more New Yorkers are pushed out. Change in New York is never easy, but these are implementable, common-sense policies that can be set in motion on day one. 

Housing is a right, not a privilege. We need a mayor that won’t just manage the housing crisis, but truly reimagine how New Yorkers live. 

Allia Mohamed is the co-founder and CEO of openigloo, a NYC-based rental platform that helps tenants find quality housing by crowdsourcing building reviews, surfacing city data, and promoting landlord transparency.

The post Opinion: What NYC’s Next Mayor Must Do On Housing In The First 100 Days appeared first on City Limits.

Leading up to this year’s November election, the St. Paul DFL will skip the tradition of endorsing a mayoral candidate. It won’t be vetting candidates for the sole city council race in a special election this August. In fact, the capital city chapter may not be issuing statements at all any time soon.

Dieu Do stepped down as chair of the St. Paul DFL last July at the end of her two-year term. Since then, no one has stepped up to take her place, leaving the future of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party’s St. Paul chapter up in the air. Rick Varco, a political director with the labor union SEIU Healthcare Minnesota, remains the party treasurer and the only person left on the executive board. The unit ended last year with less than $3,000 in the bank.

“The St. Paul DFL has not disbanded but we did not hold 2025 caucuses,” said Varco, who was traveling this week and communicated by email. “I am the only current officer of five positions.”

With key board positions vacant and the chapter short on funds, the St. Paul DFL has chosen not to host a citywide endorsing convention this summer for mayor. Nor will it host a ward convention for the open Ward 4 seat on the St. Paul City Council, which represents Hamline-Midway and most of four surrounding neighborhoods.

Varco noted that as a result of a successful ballot measure in November 2024, future mayoral and council elections will line up with presidential elections, the next one being in 2028, and the party unit’s constitution needs to be adjusted accordingly.

Adjusting the constitution requires caucuses, ward conventions and a city convention, which cost between $10,000 and $20,000, he said. According to filings with the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board, the party’s cash balances at the end of last December totaled $2,800.

Varco is currently working with the state DFL and others “to develop an alternative plan to adjust our constitution,” he wrote. “That should put the St. Paul DFL in a position to make endorsements in the future.”

For now, some political candidates feel shut out.

“It’s … disappointing that I haven’t had the chance for meaningful dialogue with party members about how we can improve our city’s performance,” said Yan Chen, a biophysicist and mayoral candidate in the November election. “I am a proud DFLer, and I will make that clear to voters. I also intend to seek support from DFL-aligned organizations, including organized labor, to at least honor the ‘L’ in DFL.”

Non-partisan endorsements?

Garrison McMurtrey, a former chair and outreach director for the St. Paul DFL, was elected to the Ramsey County Board in February. He confirmed he no longer serves on the St. Paul DFL executive committee and referred further questions to Varco. Other former members did not respond to requests for comment.

The St. Paul DFL’s primary role is to endorse and back candidates for city council, school board and mayor; candidates for federal, state and county offices seek the endorsement of their respective party chapters. For example, U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum has repeatedly received the endorsement of the CD4 DFL, representing the fourth Congressional district.

Megan Thomas, a longtime organizer within the party who was otherwise not intimately familiar with the status of the St. Paul board, said that like any volunteer-run organization, it was not uncommon for participants to “drift away” with time. After the seven city council members were elected in 2023, the unit’s major work was done.

The St. Paul DFL’s website has barely been updated since sometime two years ago. A landing page tells visitors there are seven council elections “this year,” referring to November 2023.

The party unit’s hiatus comes even as St. Paul and other blue cities have been buffeted by federal cuts to major institutions and the Trump administration ramps up rhetoric and policy at odds with Democratic priorities. Thomas and others acknowledged it’s an unfortunate time to take a break.

Still, over the years, even some past presidents of the St. Paul political unit have questioned why it needs to host endorsing conventions at all, given that it concerns itself with non-partisan races. The central picture on the chapter website’s landing page features 11 DFL-endorsed elected officials who hold non-partisan roles: Six of the seven members of the city council, four members of the St. Paul School Board board and the mayor. Officially, those are all non-partisan positions; no party affiliation is listed on the voter ballot.

The St. Paul DFL isn’t the only St. Paul unit of a major party to fall under the radar. The last candidates to run for public office in St. Paul under the Green Party banner were mayoral candidate Elizabeth Dickinson in 2017 and council candidate Danielle Swift in 2019. Neither won office.

It’s unclear who was the last candidate to hold the official endorsement of the St. Paul Republican City Committee, but it’s been a while. Eva Ng ran for mayor with the Republican endorsement in 2009 against then-St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman, a DFLer, and three Republicans — Kevin Huepenbecker, Pat Igo and Lizz Paulson — sought school board seats in 2011.

While not officially a political party, the Twin Cities chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America was active in the 2023 council elections and is supporting Cole Hanson in Ward 4 this summer.

Ranked-choice election makes endorsements moot?

Meanwhile, some say culling the field before election day through the endorsement process undermines the point of ranked-choice voting. Ranked-choice elections allow an unlimited number of candidates for mayor or city council onto the general election ballot. Whether that makes DFL endorsements outdated or more important than ever in helping voters understand a busy field remains a matter of perspective, but there’s now less incentive for candidates to drop out of a race after failing to secure the endorsement.

In 2019, hours after promising to abide by the party’s endorsement process, more than one candidate for the Ward 1 office who had not received the endorsement decided to run in the general election anyway.

Also of concern, endorsing conventions have sometimes descended into chaos, rancor and accusations of malfeasance, and the cost and complication involved with hosting conventions have discouraged volunteers.

In 2019, council candidate Anika Bowie filed a complaint with the state party alleging voting irregularities and inappropriate volunteer behavior at the Ward 1 convention. Nothing much came of it, and Council Member Dai Thao was able to retain the party’s endorsement.

Four years later, when the April 2023 Ward 1 convention ended without endorsement and a mass delegate walk-out after nearly 10 hours, some in the Central High School auditorium audience wondered whether the process had simply more to confuse and alienate non-English speakers and first-time attendees than invite them into a big tent. No one received the endorsement, but Bowie won the eight-way race for the open Ward 1 seat that November.

Beth Commers, a past-president of the St. Paul DFL, foresees better days ahead for the local party under Varco’s direction.

“The St. Paul DFL was impacted by the switch to even-year elections,” Commers said. “The St. Paul DFL needs to reconfigure to endorse like the Ramsey County DFL operates. … Varco has a clear plan.”

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The way Winston Wisely was dealing, one run was plenty for Mahtomedi.

After all, his opponents managed just one hit.

The junior left-hander took a no-hitter into the fifth inning and Mahtomedi beat Simley 10-0 in six innings Wednesday afternoon a Class 3A baseball tournament quarterfinal.

“That was for sure one of my best, but it wasn’t like out of the ordinary,” said Wisely, who allowed four hits in a 3-0 win over the Spartans April 15.

Playing in centerfield, Ethan Felling has had a great view of Wisely’s dominance this season.

“This is a common outing for this kid, Pumps the zone every time with all of his pitches. This is a name to remember,” said Felling, who will play for the University of Minnesota next year.

Felling and Jake Reubish each reached base four times, Cody Loida had three hits, as the third-seeded Zephyrs (17-7) advance to play No. 7 Hutchinson in a semifinal at 9:30 a.m. Thursday back at the Mini Met in Jordan. The Tigers beat Totino-Grace 5-3 Wednesday.

A tournament participant for the 10th time since 2014, Mahtomedi won the 2021 crown and took second the past two seasons.

Reubish made the defensive play of the game for Mahtomedi with a sliding stop to start an inning-ending double play in the fifth, when Simley had its first baserunner via a Wayne Seelhammer hit.

“It sucks because it wasn’t a great swing that one hit but props to him for turning on the baseball and getting it over the infield,” said Wisely, who needed just 61 pitches for his career best low-hit game.

“My fastball, I was really consistent with it in the zone, my curveball was great especially in strikeout situations, and my changeup was good. I just kind of used it as a get-me-over pitch, kind of maybe one strike, get it to a two-strike count, put the pressure on them and take a little bit of speed off the fastball.”

A tournament newcomer, Simley (15-8) entered as winners of eight straight, the last three via shutout. Its last loss was a 4-2 setback to Mahtomedi May 7.

“They strung their hits together, they handled our pitcher who’s been great all year,” said Simley coach Jon Heiderscheit. “We were able to get out of jams against them earlier in the year and we just played a little bit cleaner. But they’re a really good team and they’re battle tested.”

“That pitcher” is Steelhammer who allowed eight hits over five innings. He allowed one hit through five innings in a previous matchup this year with the Zephyrs.

Wisely provided insurance for himself with an RBI single in the fifth to plate Felling who tripled. A Peyton Whitlock single made it 4-0 three hitters later and Isaac Iten followed with a sacrifice fly.

Back-to-back-to-back RBI singles by Loida, Felling and Wisely began a five-run sixth inning that ended the game via a run rule.

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VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Leo XIV made his first appointment of a Chinese bishop under the Vatican’s 2018 agreement with Beijing, signaling he is continuing one of Pope Francis’ most controversial foreign policy decisions.

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The Vatican expressed satisfaction that Leo’s June 5 nomination of Bishop Joseph Lin Yuntuan as auxiliary bishop of Fuzhou was recognized Wednesday by Chinese authorities.

The Vatican said in a statement that Lin taking possession of the diocese and the civic recognition of his appointment “constitutes a further fruit of the dialogue between the Holy See and the Chinese authorities and is a significant step in the diocese’s communal journey.”

Francis had riled conservatives when he approved a deal in 2018 over bishop nominations, which had been the most divisive issue in Vatican-China relations since diplomatic ties were severed when the Communists came to power. China had insisted on an exclusive right to name bishops as a matter of national sovereignty, while the Vatican asserted the pope’s exclusive right to name the successors of the original Apostles.

China’s estimated 12 million Catholics have been divided between an official, state-controlled church that didn’t recognize papal authority and an underground church that remained loyal to Rome through decades of persecution. The Vatican tried for decades to unify the flock and the 2018 deal was aimed at healing that division, regularizing the status of seven bishops who weren’t recognized by Rome and thawing decades of estrangement between China and the Vatican.

The details of the 2018 deal were never released, but it affords the state-controlled church a say in its church leaders, though Francis insisted he retained veto power over the ultimate choice.

The deal has been criticized by some, especially on the Catholic right, for having caved to Beijing’s demands and sold out the underground faithful in China. The Vatican has said it was the best deal it could get and has been renewed periodically since then.

Pope Leo XIV (C) reacts wearing a Chicago White Sox baseball team cap as he meets newly wedded couples during the weekly general audience in St Peter’s Square at the Vatican on June 11, 2025. (Photo by Filippo MONTEFORTE / AFP) (Photo by FILIPPO MONTEFORTE/AFP via Getty Images)

One of the big foreign policy questions facing Leo, history’s first American pope, was whether he would continue renewing the accord or heed conservative demands and make some changes.

There have been apparent violations on the Beijing side with some unilateral appointments that occurred without papal consent. The issue came to a head just before the conclave that elected Leo pope, when the Chinese church proceeded with the preliminary election of two bishops, a step that comes before official consecration.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.