Council Member Morano remarks on his landlord portal legislation

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Commissioner, for your testimony.

I look forward to asking a couple of questions in a bit.

I want to thank everybody here, but especially Chair Hudson, for joining me as a sponsor of the legislation that we're considering today.

I'm a Republican from Staten Island.

Chair Hudson is a Democrat from Brooklyn, and we probably don't agree on every housing issue.

But we agree on this one.

When the city promises to pay somebody's rent, it should actually pay the rent.

I don't think that's a particularly radical proposition.

So this legislation grew out of complaints.

brought directly to my office by landlords and tenants who were having an extraordinarily difficult time dealing with the city's housing voucher program.

So we've heard about missing checks, payments sent to the wrong address, paperwork errors, and landlords going months without receiving money that they're legitimately owed.

And when they try to get somebody at the city to fix it, they're bounced around from one office to another.

Sometimes it seems like it's easier to get a reservation at Rayo's than to get somebody on the phone to address this.

But there's a serious consequence to all of this.

And it's one that results in less housing for everybody.

I really have to say that the issue of getting more people in housing they can afford shouldn't be partisan in the least.

If we want property owners to accept housing vouchers, we ought to make sure the city is a reliable partner.

This is about helping landlords get paid, but it's also about helping tenants remain housed and making government a little less frustrating for everybody involved.

So I think the fact that Chair Hudson and I are working together on this demonstrates something important.

You don't have to agree on every housing policy to agree that people deserve a functioning government.

So looking forward to hearing more from today's witnesses, particularly those who've experienced some of these problems firsthand.

I want to know what we're missing, what else needs to be fixed.

I appreciate the commissioner's testimony touching upon a couple of areas.

But I want to know how we can make this legislation as effective as possible.

Thank you again, Chair Hudson, and I appreciate your partnership, and I'm looking forward to moving this bill forward together.