With more than half of disabled New Yorkers being rent burdened, Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani told Able News in a recent interview that his administration will transform the mayor’s office to “protect tenants.”
Mamdani has proposed freezing rents on rent-stabilized apartments, but his proposal does not apply to market-rate, unregulated apartments.
When asked by Able News about his plan to ensure that people with disabilities on fixed incomes can remain in their apartments, Mamdani said:
“One of the ways that we address this is by transforming the mayor’s office to protect tenants. There are a number of tenant protections that exist here in New York City that many tenants do not know about,” he said. “I can tell you that we fought for many years to win good cause protections for market-rate tenants across the city. I would say that the vast majority of those tenants still do not know about those protections, and part of that is a reflection of just how busy New Yorkers are in their lives and how easy we have to make it for them to know those rights.”
The Center for Independence of the Disabled New York (CIDNY) provided housing assistance to 2,151 New Yorkers with disabilities, a 2023-2024 annual report showed. A report compiled by “Where We Live NYC 2025” – a city initiative that includes the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) and is led by the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) in collaboration with many government and community partners, found that some landlords may be unwilling or slow to provide legally mandated accommodations, such as installing grab bars or allowing service animals.
Michael Vincent Crea, 70, has been living homeless in the subway system and on the Staten Island Ferry for nearly a year after being evicted from his Central Harlem residence. Able News met Crea as he maneuvered himself on a walker.
“Homelessness kills” and “silence equals death,” he said after the Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities (MOPD), under Eric Adams, rejected his request for an “Emergency Housing Choice Voucher.”
Crea says he is “very disappointed and disheartened” at being denied assistance from city agencies and nonprofit organizations tasked with providing temporary housing solutions.
More than 1.8 million disabled New Yorkers are living in what leaders at CIDNY call an “inaccessible city.”
There are “systemic barriers to food access, housing, physical healthcare, mental healthcare, employment, education, transportation, and voting and civic engagement for people with disabilities,” said Sharon McLennon Wier, the first disabled appointee to the incoming mayor’s transition team and executive director of CIDNY.
Mamdani, elected the city’s youngest mayor, discussed housing and immigration for the final story in an Able News series. He posted a promotional video reminding immigrants of their rights against ICE and he did not hesitate to reiterate that message in the one-on-one interview.
“We’re looking to ensure that we’re making it as easy as possible for everyone to understand the protections they have under the law, whether it be with housing, immigration, whatever else that may be in,” he said.
The city has made “only small steps toward providing universal access for all,” Dr. Wier said. “However, there are still too many people with disabilities who need assistance in these areas of life and have limited resources. No one should be forced to be homeless. No one should be forced to go without medical or mental healthcare. We hope the city will commit to helping resolve these critical, life-changing issues immediately. CIDNY will be here to partner with new leadership and hold them accountable by expediting the need for equal access for people with disabilities.”
Neglection of medical attention isn’t just a homelessness problem. In 2023, staff writer Christopher Alvarez reported the city’s failed efforts to provide reasonable accommodations to newly arrived disabled migrants.
In September, the New York City Comptroller’s office found that ICE was continuing the trend at 26 Federal Plaza withholding the right to medical care, showers, food, reasonable accommodations and lawyers who speak their native languages from immigrants with disabilities. When Able News brought this to mayor-elect Mamdani’s attention, he said:
“I think that’s horrific to hear, frankly, because I think the reports we’ve heard of what individuals are having to go through at 26 Federal Plaza should concern everyone in this city,” he said. “And they will be part of the case that I make to the federal government about the importance that I have, that I place, frankly, on fulfilling my responsibility to protecting each and every New Yorker, and that includes the more than three million New Yorkers who are immigrants. I think for those disabled New Yorkers who are at 26 Federal Plaza, being denied their medication – that is something they should have immediate access to.”
This is the third and final story in a multi-part series from an exclusive one-on-one December interview with Able News staff writer Christopher Alvarez at his Manhattan office where Mamdani discussed employment, transportation and housing.