Sanders Campaign Press Release - Sanders Details Affordable Housing Plan

NEW YORK - U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders addressed the affordable housing crisis in New York and across the nation Sunday after he toured the New York City Housing Authority's Howard Houses in Brooklyn's Brownsville neighborhood.

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams and New York City Council Members Jumaane Williams of Brooklyn and Ritchie Torres of the Bronx accompanied Sanders on a walking tour of the low-income public housing buildings.

"This is the wealthiest country in the history of the world. People should not be forced to live in dilapidated housing," Sanders said afterward.

Public housing residents in New York are forced to live with leaky roofs, mold, unreliable heating systems, broken elevators and vermin. The authority provides housing for some 400,000 New Yorkers, but there is a $17 billion backlog in unmet capital needs.

Sanders released a plan to address the crisis of affordable housing in America and create millions of good-paying jobs. As president, Sanders would expand the National Affordable Housing Trust Fund – which was created by legislation he authored in 2001 – to repair public housing, increase funding for housing vouchers and make it easier to refinance mortgages.

From the time Sanders was elected mayor of Burlington, Vermont, in 1981, he has made affordable housing a top priority. Then-Mayor Sanders created the first municipally-funded housing trust in the nation, which continues to create home ownership opportunities for families who had been shut out of the market.

Sanders stopped in Brownsville after he attended a church service at the First Corinthian Baptist Church in Harlem and before a Sunday afternoon rally at Prospect Park in Brooklyn in advance of Tuesday's Democratic Party presidential primary.

To read Sanders' plan to address the affordable housing crisis, click here.