Press Releases

A federal court granted preliminary approval of a settlement in a class action lawsuit charging the New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA), an arm of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), with aggressively going after thousands of New Yorkers for alleged debts in violation of their constitutional due process rights.

This year’s legislative session followed an all-too-familiar pattern of monied interests driving the state’s legislative agenda at the expense of working class New Yorkers. Our coalition strongly denounces Albany’s failure to enact the New York Public Banking Act (S1754/A3352), which would create a framework for local public banks that would leverage public deposits toward investments in affordable housing, small and worker-owned businesses, renewable energy, and other urgent needs in low-income communities and historically-redlined Black and brown neighborhoods.

In the wake of Albany’s failure to address the affordable housing crisis, more than 50 community, housing, and environmental justice groups and elected officials gathered at City Hall Park to call on the City to enact the Community Land Act, a slate of bills to expand community control of land and permanently-affordable housing in low-income Black and brown neighborhoods. The coalition also urged the City Council to fund the Community Land Trust (CLT) Initiative at $3 million in the FY24 budget, to support 20 groups organizing CLTs across the five boroughs.

Dozens of New Yorkers representing community groups across the city testified today at the first-ever public hearing before the NYC Banking Commission on the designation of banks eligible to hold municipal deposits. A familiar refrain at the hearing was the call for a public bank to hold city funds and reinvest in low-income neighborhoods and communities of color that the big banks routinely fail to serve.

A coalition of 113 community and affordable housing groups delivered a letter to New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams and Mayor Eric Adams, urging them to take bold and immediate action to address the city’s affordability crisis. Citing the state’s failure to strengthen tenant protections or pass other housing justice measures in the recent budget, the letter calls on City leaders to enact the Community Land Act – a set of bills to bring land and housing into permanently-affordable community control, through community land trusts (CLTs) and other nonprofit social housing models.

As the NYS Legislature turns its attention to its post-budget priorities, community and labor groups called on Albany lawmakers to enact the New York Public Banking Act (S1754/A3352) this legislative session. The bill, sponsored by Senate Banks Committee Chair James Sanders Jr. and Assembly Banks Committee Chair Pamela J. Hunter, creates a safe and appropriate regulatory framework for local public banking.

The New York City Council Committee on Finance held a hearing today on a series of bills, collectively dubbed “The People’s Bank Act,” to create a public bank in New York City. A public bank will enable the city to leverage its immense financial resources toward advancing economic security and shared prosperity for all New Yorkers. Public banks around the world, including the century-old Bank of North Dakota, have a strong track record of making equitable investments, providing high-quality financial services to underserved neighborhoods, and building community wealth.

In response to the banking crisis sending shockwaves through the economy, a statewide coalition delivered a letter to NYS Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and NYS Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie urging passage of the New York Public Banking Act to “give local governments a sorely-needed ‘public option’ for holding public deposits.” The bill would create a safe and appropriate regulatory framework for public banks – financial institutions created by local governments and chartered to serve the public interest.