The Architect’s Newspaper — New York City has historically been a city at the front lines of housing justice and tenant activism. One of the entities at the forefront of this are Community Land Trusts (CLTs), of which there are 15 of in the city. Today, CLTs and alliances working alongside them are working hard to pass the Community Land Act (CLA), a proposed legislative package aimed to give CLTs more power (or really, level the playing field) when buying land or buildings.

The Brian Lehrer Show — As this year’s budget season comes to a close in New York City, Tousif Ahsan, Public banking campaign organizer at the New Economy Project, and James Parrott, Director of economic and fiscal policies at the Center for New York City Affairs at the New School, explain the findings of a new report that shows how holding city money in a public bank could uplift the local economy, create jobs, tackle the affordable housing crisis, and move us forward on the path for a more sustainable and economically just future.

Norwood News — At a public meeting billed as a “Boroughwide Town Hall on Public Banking,” representatives from ten Bronx-based groups joined various elected officials to push for State and City legislators to build upon efforts to promote worker-owned businesses, increase community land trusts, and facilitate access to more local credit unions as an alternative to big commercial banks.

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.