Housing for All

Introduction

A good home is the foundation for a good life, but finding and holding onto one can feel like an impossible task. But the housing crisis is a political choice. Too many politicians serve the landlords who raise our rent instead of representing the majority who have to pay it. Landlords profit by neglecting repairs, speculating on our neighborhoods, and building homes for the richest, with some of the worst offenders in our own backyard – and Congress has let them. Across the country, someone working full time at minimum wage can't even afford a modest one-bedroom apartment. Meanwhile, Trump continues to slash funding for affordable housing and discriminate against mixed-status families.

77% of NY-7 residents are tenants, and as homeownership slips further out of reach, that number will only grow. Tenants are the teachers, artists, nurses, and restaurant workers who make our district vibrant – and we deserve safety, stability, and control over our homes.

New York has led the country with some of the strongest tenant protections and most innovative models for building homes that stay affordable. We are one of the few states that guarantees a tenant’s right to organize, allowing groups like the Bronstein Tenant Union, Bushwick Tenant Union, and A\&E tenants to wield their power and enforce their rights. But disinvestment, deregulation and failure to build for the many have eroded these gains. Claire will take on landlord interests and bring the fight for tenants to Congress.

Our Vision

Claire believes that housing should be a human right, not a commodity or source of profit for landlords and developers. Homes are where we rest, raise families, and build community. The housing we create should reflect our values: beautiful, well maintained, close to transit, and deeply affordable.

Housing is the single largest expense for most working people in the United States. Addressing the housing crisis is essential to tackling the broader affordability crisis. We can't rely on the private market to solve a crisis it created. Landlords and private equity firms have every incentive to keep housing scarce and expensive – and without intervention, they will.

The federal government needs to step in: to protect tenants from exploitation, to remove the barriers that have blocked construction for decades, to build permanently affordable homes directly, and to give working people democratic control over where we live. Permanently affordable, union-built, beautiful homes for everyone.

As one of the few members of Congress who would be a tenant, Claire will not stop fighting until we win that future. She will fight for:

• Universal rent control;
• A full supply of homes through public investment;
• The right to a safe home;
• Real tenant power and landlord accountability

Universal Rent Control

Rent control works. It is the most direct, immediate tool we have to keep working people in their homes – slowing or even stopping rent increases while everything else gets more expensive. It is the last bulwark keeping working class New Yorkers in the city. Only 1% of rent stabilized tenants had to move due to inability to pay rent. But decades of deregulation have gutted protections across our district – Williamsburg, Bushwick, Astoria, Long Island City, and Ridgewood have lost tens of thousands of rent stabilized apartments, fundamentally changing who can afford to live here.

Rent control must be expanded not just to every New York tenant but to every tenant in the country. Instead, Congress has let landlords run wild while 33 states have blocked cities and counties from passing even local protections. Whether you have any protection from rent gouging depends entirely on where you live. Claire will fight to:

• Pass national rent control. In the 1940s, Congress established near-universal rent control and set up local rent boards to administer and enforce it, because housing stability was considered essential to the functioning of the country. Claire supports returning to that model, allowing localities to set rent adjustments based on local housing data, and legislation that closes the loopholes that let landlords deregulate units and raise rent without limit between tenants.
• Fix the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC). LIHTC exists to incentivize private developers to build more affordable housing, but it also allows developers to raise rents or exit affordability requirements after a few decades. Tenants in LIHTC buildings deserve permanent affordability. Claire will fight to require 99-year affordability and cap rent increases at 3%.
• End big tech price fixing. Landlords have used algorithmic driven software like RealPage to collude with each other and raise rents across entire housing markets – costing tenants $3.8 billion nationwide in inflated rents in 2023 alone. Claire will fight to pass the Preventing Algorithmic Collusion Act to ban algorithmic rent-setting software nationwide and protect tenant data from being weaponized against them.

Build Homes for All

The United States is short up to 3.7 million homes – and the stock of units renting under $1000 has dropped by nearly a third over the last decade. Insufficient supply empowers landlords to jack up rents and neglect their tenants, using scarcity to their benefit.

We need to build millions of homes, but the private market won’t solve this on its own. We need the government to lead. That means tearing down the exclusionary zoning laws that have upheld segregation and blocked housing construction for decades, public financing that stays in the game when private capital walks away, and building millions of permanently affordable homes that are never handed back to speculators – union-built, beautifully designed, and controlled by the people who live in them. Claire will fight to:

• Create a federal housing developer by supporting the Homes Act. Our district is living proof that social housing works – from the Williamsburg Houses, built with federal funding in 1937, to Lindsay Park, the largest Mitchell-Lama co-op in Brooklyn, to the Clinton Hill Co-ops, originally built for Navy Yard workers. New York pioneered this model. We let it decay. Claire supports AOC's Homes Act to restore it at federal scale – establishing a public developer to finance, build, and acquire millions of permanently affordable homes, including co-ops and community land trusts, built with union labor. These homes would be publicly or community-owned and permanently removed from speculation to ensure they remain affordable for future generations instead of becoming another vehicle for private profit.
• Repeal Faircloth. Since 1998, the Faircloth Amendment has effectively banned the construction of new public housing. While rents have skyrocketed and the housing stock has aged, the federal government has had its hands tied by a provision that serves no one except landlords who benefit from scarcity. Now Trump's HUD is going further – proposing to reset every public housing authority's Faircloth cap to their current unit count, which would permanently remove NYCHA's ability to build over 10,000 new publicly stewarded affordable homes. Claire will fight to fully repeal Faircloth so we can build new public housing again.
• End exclusionary zoning. Exclusionary zoning laws have been used for decades to segregate neighborhoods by race and class and block the construction of new housing. The federal government should no longer subsidize it. Claire will fight to condition federal housing dollars on states and municipalities eliminating zoning rules that prevent multifamily housing, mixed-use development, and transit-oriented communities. Ending exclusionary zoning will help create more integrated, affordable neighborhoods.
• Prioritize transit-oriented development. Homes near transit mean lower costs, less time commuting, and better access to jobs and schools, but fragmented federal policy has blocked it for decades. California has already shown the way by eliminating single-family zoning within a half-mile of transit stops. Claire will fight to bring that model to the federal level, conditioning federal housing investment on transit connectivity so that new homes are built where people can actually get around without a car.
• Build with union labor. Residential construction is one of the least unionized sectors in the country – a direct legacy of decades of unionbusting. We will not address the affordability crisis by shortchanging the workers building our homes. Solving the housing crisis should also mean creating millions of high-quality jobs. Claire will fight for federal housing investments that include strong labor standards: prevailing wage, apprenticeship requirements, project labor agreements, and card check neutrality. She will push to bundle federal housing contracts by geography so projects are large enough to attract union contractors, and replace least-cost procurement with best value procurement that rewards job quality and community benefit, not just the lowest bid.
• Create a national housing construction fund. Private financing dries up when interest rates rise or the economy turns – exactly when communities need investment the most. Claire will fight to establish a national housing construction fund that keeps building going regardless of market conditions, and expand state loan programs that unlock stalled affordable housing developments without waiting for private capital to come back.
• Support the Affordable CO-OP Act. Limited equity cooperatives such as those in Astoria, Sunnyside, Williamsburg, and across NY-7 are one of the most effective models of permanently affordable, community-controlled housing we have – giving working people a real stake in where they live without handing buildings back to speculators. But without federal financing, many co-ops struggle to develop new units or repair and preserve existing ones. Claire will fight to pass the Affordable CO-OP Act to expand zero-interest federal loans and federally backed mortgages for limited equity co-op development and preservation.

Ensure the Right to a Safe Home

Every person has the right to a home – and that home must be safe, well-maintained, and dignified. Too many working people are paying rent every month to landlords who ignore mold, broken heat, lead hazards, and crumbling infrastructure. Working-class homeowners are one broken furnace or leaky roof away from losing what they've spent their much of their lives paying for.
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Housing policy must do more than produce affordable homes; it must guarantee every person has access to a stable, resilient, and welcoming home. In Congress, Claire will fight for policies that improve living conditions, preserve public housing, end homelessness, and ensure working people are able to live safely in the communities they call home. She will fight to:

• Preserve public housing. NY-7 is home to 17,304 households living in NYCHA apartments, which allows low income residents to stay in rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods. Across the country, public housing supports millions of Americans, yet decades of disinvestment have left many buildings in disrepair. Claire supports a Green New Deal for Public Housing that fully funds repairs, removes mold and lead hazards, modernizes aging infrastructure, and transforms public housing into high-quality, energy-efficient social housing for the future. Public housing residents deserve beautiful, well-maintained homes with access to parks, public transit, childcare, and community – not neglect and austerity.
• End homelessness through housing first policies. In the richest country in the world, nobody should be forced to sleep on the street because they cannot afford housing – and nobody should be fined, arrested, or have their belongings seized for having nowhere to go. But since the Supreme Court's Grants Pass decision, cities across the country are using sweeps and the criminal legal system to punish people for homelessness instead of housing them. Claire supports a Housing First model that treats housing as the first step toward stability, not a reward that must be earned. She will fight to dramatically expand permanent supportive housing and ensure people experiencing homelessness can access stable housing quickly and without unnecessary barriers.
• Fully fund vouchers. Housing vouchers are one of the most effective tools we have to prevent homelessness and reduce housing insecurity, yet millions of eligible households are denied assistance because of chronic underfunding. And under Trump, mixed-status families are being forced to choose between keeping their family together or holding onto their housing assistance. Claire will fight to fully fund vouchers so every qualifying household gets the support they need to stay housed, protect mixed-status families from being pushed out of housing programs, and crack down on landlords who illegally discriminate against voucher holders. Claire will also fight to prioritize project-based vouchers for social housing to crate permanently and deeply affordable housing outside of the private market.
• Invest in energy efficiency and resiliency. Multifamily buildings are among the greatest contributors to carbon emissions in cities like New York. Tenants pay the price twice: once in high energy bills, and again when landlords pass retrofit costs through as rent increases. Solar, battery storage, heat pumps, and flood protections can cut costs and keep people safe during heat waves, storms, and blackouts. Claire will fight for direct federal grants to retrofit homes, co-operatives, apartment buildings, with conditions that require union labor and guarantee savings go to tenants, not landlords.
• Fund home repair grants for low-income homeowners. Too many low-income homeowners and cooperators are one capital repair away from being unable to make their mortgage payment – and losing the home they worked their whole life to keep. Claire will fight to dramatically expand federal home repair grant programs and pass the Whole-Home Repairs Act so that a broken furnace or a leaky roof doesn't mean losing your home.
• Remove and replace lead pipes. Twenty-one percent of NY-7’s service lines contain lead – the third highest of our state’s Congressional districts. Affecting residents of apartments, co-ops, and single-family homes alike, lead exposure causes irreversible health effects, especially for children, who risk suffering from behavioral issues, decreased cognitive capacity, and more. In Congress, Claire will join the Get The Lead Out Caucus and work to hold the EPA accountable for upholding its Lead and Copper Rule Improvements rule, which requires testing, removing, and replacing lead all lead service pipes across the country by 2034.

Take Back Our Homes and Hold Landlords Accountable

Tenants are 77% of this district, a majority in every major American city, and a growing population across suburban and rural areas as homeownership slips out of reach. Despite that, the vast majority of tenants have little to no recourse when a landlord raises our rents, neglects our buildings, or kicks us out without cause. That must change by giving tenants the tools to organize, fight back, and take real democratic control over the buildings we live in – and to hold landlords accountable when they abandon or neglect their properties. And when landlords abandon their buildings, those buildings shouldn't go to the next speculator. They should go to us. Claire will fight to:

• Win a tenant’s right to organize. In 1935 the National Labor Relations Act guaranteed workers the right to form a union, and by doing so transformed the lives of millions of workers. We need to guarantee the same right for tenants. A national tenant’s right to organize should protect tenants from retaliation, guarantee the right to meet in their buildings for the purposes of organizing, and require landlords to meet with tenant unions to bargain in good faith just as employers are required to.
• Pass national good cause eviction. Across the country and still for too many tenants in New York City, landlords are able to evict tenants for any reason, or no reason at all. Claire will fight to pass a national good cause eviction law that requires landlords to prove a tenant violated their lease before they can be removed. Good Cause would ensure that if tenants pay their rent and follow their lease, they can stay in their homes.
• Hold landlords accountable. Too many tenant protections exist on paper but go unenforced. Claire will fight to establish a Federal Office to Protect Tenants to coordinate enforcement across agencies, build a national registry of landlords receiving federal subsidies or financing, and create a complaint system to identify and penalize the worst actors – including banning egregious violators from accessing any federal funding. She will fight to condition every dollar of federal subsidy and financing on strong habitability standards, with real penalties for landlords who violate them.
• Take properties away from absentee landlords. There is no right to be a slumlord in the United States. When absentee landlords are not able or willing to improve conditions, the federal government should purchase properties or use eminent domain to convert them to social housing in public or community ownership.
• Win a Tenant Opportunity to Purchase. When one landlord sells a building to another, it often results in declining conditions and increased rent – because the next buyer is typically another investor looking to maximize profits. Claire will fight for federal Tenant Opportunity to Purchase legislation that gives tenants the right to pool resources and access federal grants and loans to buy their buildings, or partner with a community land trust or public developer to do so – keeping them permanently affordable and under community control.