New York City Council leaders on Tuesday highlighted budget and policy priorities for the city's Black community, which included funding for housing and transportation programs. At the same time, the leaders said much work needs to be done in education and boosting support for Black and ethnic media outlets.
For many long-time Black New Yorkers, the baseline cost of dignity and happiness has become out of reach, replaced by the low-bar cost of survival, highlighted by the loss of nearly 200,000 Black residents since 2000.
City Council Speaker Julie Menin, alongside Deputy Speaker Dr. Nantasha Williams, Majority Whip Kamillah M. Hanks, Deputy Leader Chris Banks, and Council Member Kevin C. Riley, hosted a roundtable for Black Community Media at City Hall, primarily to hear concerns of community media outlets and the communities they cover.
They highlighted recent budget wins for fiscal year 2027, including:
- Securing $5.15 million for the Homeowner Stabilization Services Initiative—including estate planning assistance, foreclosure prevention, and deed theft and pre-purchase counseling—in addition to $500,000 for a Homeowner Help Desk expansion.
- Rejecting the proposed 9.5% property tax increase, refusing to balance the budget on the backs of working New Yorkers.
- Allocating $4.6 million to the Digital Inclusion and Literacy Initiative, supporting community-based organizations that provide digital literacy programming.
- Reforming outdated construction code requirements to unlock up to 35,000 new homes on nearly 3,000 small, vacant, or underused lots across the five boroughs.
- Securing $7.5 million in additional funding to help NYCHA remediate thousands of vacant units so that public housing residents can live in safer, healthier homes.
- Demanding increased transparency and accountability in the management of rental assistance programs, ensuring the Department of Housing Preservation and Development evaluates and accepts applications within 240 days, and requiring annual reports on the voucher program.
- Protecting and expanding Fair Fares, helping 1.3 million New Yorkers get access to half-price subway, bus, and paratransit fares.
- Providing $1,000 to every public-school kindergartner in a college savings account through a historic expansion of NYC Kids RISE.
- Protecting consumers from unfair pricing practices, including the use of personal data to charge different customers at different prices, and frequent price increases at grocery stores.
- Creating a new housing voucher program to aid New Yorkers facing eviction or whose income makes them ineligible for CityFHEPS.
When asked about enforcing Local Law 83, which created The Mayor's Office of Ethnic and Community Media and mandates mayoral agencies direct at least 50% of their advertising and marketing budgets to Ethnic and Community Media outlets, Menin said she is worried that the city is not upholding the law.
"I'm very concerned that the administration right now is not honoring the law that the council passed," Menin said. "We are actually going to have an oversight hearing on that to get to the bottom of it."
Council members also spoke about the relaunch of the MWBE Accelerator program, which was originally launched in 2025 under the Adams administration. The relaunch will make it impactful for all five boroughs, and it will work directly with council members to make recommendations for businesses in their districts to support them and ensure that they thrive.
Williams said it was hard for the City Council to pass any legislation that would help improve the acceptance rate of Black students into the city's specialized high schools. This year, about 3.5% of the roughly 4,000 offers in total went to Black students, edging up slightly from last year’s 3%, according to Chalkbeat New York.
"That test is a very clear example of how NYC public schools are failing our students," Williams said. "I don't think students should only be judged by a single test, but if your students were more prepared to take the test, we would see better results."
