Mayor de Blasio Puts Bad Landlords on Notice

NEW YORK CITY—As promised earlier this year, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has established a new office geared at protecting tenants from harassment. As part of the initiative, the mayor today hired the director of the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants—Jackie Bray.

Bray, who currently serves as the First Deputy Commissioner at the New York City Department of Homeless Services, will help spearhead the city’s anti-harassment initiatives as well as enhance interagency enforcement and closely engage with tenants and housing advocates.

“Bad landlords – you’re on notice,” says Mayor de Blasio. “As Director of the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants, Jackie will be the fighter in the corner of every New Yorker experiencing harassment. She will make existing programs better and create new strategies to root out abuse.”

The mayor announced the establishment of the new agency at his State of the City address in January and subsequently signed an executive order establishing the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants to lead comprehensive outreach on anti-harassment initiatives and be the central point of contact for tenant advocates.

In her role at the Department of Homeless Services, Bray has been credited with helping to develop and implement the mayor’s “Turning the Tide on Homelessness in New York City” plan to transform the city’s haphazard shelter system and improve homeless services citywide.

The Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants will have a number of key responsibilities, including serving as a central point of contact for advocacy groups and tenants to raise issues and get results from agencies; lead policy development to strengthen tenant protections and better target problematic buildings and owners and bring government and advocate task forces together to address challenges.

In addition, the agency will also be charged with convening and coordinating activities of key city agencies including Department of Housing Preservation and Development, Department of Buildings, Human Resources Administration, Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, Law Department, Department of Finance, Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement, the Commission on Human Rights and the Mayor’s Office of Data Analytics. The new office will also look to strengthen the Tenant Harassment Prevention Task Force and track outreach efforts across agencies and metrics at a building and neighborhood level.

Bray notes that during the past three years working with homeless in New York City, it became clear that securing stable and affordable housing for the needy must be the highest priority.

“Rooting out bad landlords and supporting the right of tenants to live free from harassment and displacement cannot be the work of any single individual program or agency. As Director of the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants, I will ensure the entire force of City government is coordinated and laser focused on helping New Yorkers stay in their homes and holding bad landlords accountable for abuse,” Bray says.

A host of City Council members and housing advocacy officials praised the launch of the new office and the selection of Bray as its director.

“Jackie Bray has had a thankless job and has done it with intelligence and grace,” says Manhattan Borough President Gale A. Brewer. “She has represented her homeless clients ably and has worked hard to address community concerns as New York City has moved to shelter its homeless population. I believe she will be a fierce tenant advocate and I look forward to working with her in her new position.”

Previously, to her stint at the Department of Homeless Services, Bray served as Deputy Commissioner for Strategic Initiatives at the city’s Department of Social Services and as a policy adviser at City Hall focused on mental health policy and programs. Prior to joining city government, she served as Deputy Chief of Staff at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Chief of Staff at the National Weather Service.