Letitia James Quotes

I don't think that you can address poverty unless you address the lack of affordable housing in the cities.

In London the average person is paying 50 per cent of their income on rent. Just think how much better off people would feel if that number was a lot lower.

When our economy is truly healthy, and everyone rises with the tide of prosperity, then issues such as the lack of affordable housing, homelessness, and hunger are greatly diminished.

As a country, we can do better. Our home should be a source of stability, not insecurity. This issue is personal for me... even with a steady paycheck, I couldn't pay rent.

Every day, families in the United States face the stark choice between a roof over their heads and food on the table. Buying health insurance, owning a home, and saving up for college are just too far out of their reach.

No one should be richer than a ten millionaire and no one should be without a home.

What we're seeing is that even in high poverty neighborhoods, the average cost of renting is quickly approaching the total income of welfare recipients and low wage workers.

New York City has become a place where it's not easy for the working class to even live.

Rent and the cost of essentials like food and child care are rising so fast that wages are not keeping up.

I am working hard to ensure that working families can continue to afford to live in our city.

We oppose the benefit cap. We oppose social cleansing. We will bring the welfare bill down by controlling rents and boosting wages, not by impoverishing families and socially cleansing our communities.

Our world is afflicted by poverty. Don't spend all this money on clothes!

This is kind of a uniquely New York experience, but when you can't afford an apartment nicer than the place you're renting, there's something so inherently depressing about it.

My own experience in the third world was that even if people started to make more money, the cost of living and housing increased often faster than the wages.

Does anyone really believe it is possible to make even the most basic ends meet on $5.15 an hour?

Millions of people are falling out of the middle class into the ranks of the poor.

Let me tell you something: I have members in my charter who, after paying their rent and house bills and taking care of their families, don't even have enough money left over to pay the fifteen dollars a week dues.

All sorts of creative communities are withering in New York because it's too hard to live here. It's ridiculous how expensive it is.

Local government cannot resolve the health care crisis in America. Local governments cannot resolve the affordable housing problem in America.

Prohibiting Poverty

The high cost of housing is crushing poor families and sending them to a state of desperation.

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.

America's vast population of working poor can only get so poor before even Walmart is out of reach.

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

I don't think we can fix poverty without fixing housing, and I don't think we can address housing without understanding landlords.