Nydia Velazquez Quotes

All New Yorkers have the right to decent housing, regardless of income and rent.

Do we believe housing is a right and that affordable housing is part of what it should mean to be an American? I say yes.

While it's absolutely important that we build housing for our low-income residents, when we are talking about opening up hundreds of sites for housing, we should be trying to build affordable housing for all of our residents struggling to pay rent. That means housing for teachers, for nurses, for janitors.

It is no secret that New York City has an affordable housing shortage. For those who've returned from the battlefield, the problem is even more pronounced.

We have to be bold and serve all San Franciscans who are struggling to afford housing.

It is unacceptable that people often have to make huge sacrifices just to find a place to live, a roof over their heads.

There isn't profit to be made off low-rent housing, and it's time we acknowledge that, instead of perverting a system around maintaining private ownership.

When you meet people who are spending 70, 80 percent of their income on rent, eviction becomes much more of an inevitability than the result of personal irresponsibility.

A lot flows from the question: Is having decent, stable housing part of what it means to live in this country? And I think we should answer 'yes.'

What we see out there is an affordable housing crisis, particularly in the rental market in cities big and small, and we don't have the resources necessary to fill that gap.

People should have affordable places to live. That's a fundamental right.

We need more housing in San Francisco, plain and simple, and we especially need more affordable housing for our low-income households, seniors, teachers, formerly homeless people, veterans, and middle-income residents.

Tackling affordable housing via land use planning won't necessarily solve the problem.

We can't keep limiting ourselves when it comes to housing. Affordable housing and teacher housing are too crucial to let the failed policies of the past get in the way.

HUD's mission is to provide decency and sanitary housing for low and moderate income people in this country.

For families to access affordable housing, they often need legal representation that takes their side against abusive landlords.

Every American will be given a decent, safe and affordable home.

If you have someone who is paying 88 percent of her income on rent, and we have laws that allow a landlord to evict a tenant who falls behind under those circumstances, eviction becomes an inevitability.

Between 2009 and 2011, more than one in eight Milwaukee renters were displaced involuntarily, whether by formal or informal eviction, landlord foreclosure, or building condemnation.

When you ask people why they were evicted, the big reason is nonpayment of rent. They can't afford to keep a roof over their heads. Utilities are a big part of the story too, while the third leg on the table is the lack of government help with housing.

Most Americans think that the typical low - income family lives in public housing or gets housing assistance. The opposite is true.

Housing is a social issue: how we live and where we live.

There's no way to understand housing as it exists today without federal policy.

If we care about family stability, if we care about community stability, then we need fewer evictions.

Fighting for tenants' rights has never been about political posturing for me. It's very personal. It's why I fight for everyone who's struggling to stay in San Francisco.