The lack of affordable housing in Catskill
CACHE Action hosts State Senator Michelle Hinchey for an enlightening hour about the most far-reaching problem locally
Above is video of the first hour of the Oct. 1 CACHE Action meeting with New York State Senator Michelle Hinchey, all about affordable housing. It is the problem that touches everyone, from employers to renters, people who use services, and folks on a fixed income. In the side space of the Community Theatre on Main St. Tuesday evening, Hinchey (above sitting) and Nick Weist (above standing) of CACHE led the discussion of the roots of the affordable housing crisis in Catskill, and the potential solutions. Watch it above.
CACHE stands for Catskill Artists & Creatives for Housing Equity and has been meeting for about a year, usually somewhere near Main St., and they have been pushing the politics of the town and specific politicians forward on the affordable housing issue. The group of artists grew out of the brouhaha with Foreland, a large taxpayer-funded project in the town that has its fans (of Willa’s Bakery, for instance), but also a lot of enemies. Foreland raised the rent prohibitively last year on the Hudson Catskill Housing Coalition, forcing the group out. That move ended up both creating and organizing a lot of opposition to Foreland. There are now stencils nearby playing off the “for-land” name, and complaints Foreland has blocked off access to Catskill Creek. At the same time, Foreland hired Rich Azzopardi, who was known as former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s attack dog with the media.
CACHE, working with local officials, already have achieved successes and have several solutions in the works for the local affordable housing crisis, and attempted to make Catskill a pro-housing community. Jeffrey Workman was elected to the Village Board earlier this year, winning by nine votes to give Democrats their first majority in 50 years (according to one voice at the CACHE meeting). CACHE worked hard to turn out the vote in that election, and take credit for Workman’s win. Weist explains that the group works closely with Catskill town and village officials, and have learned most do not have much capacity to address large issues such as the affordable housing crisis, when they have to constantly deal with water main breaks, snowstorms or floods, and other infrastructure issues. So CACHE worked to find grant money with Hinchey for Catskill to survey occupancy, so actual information can be used to discover how large the problem is, and what can be done about it. With Hinchey, they also got a bill passed in the State Senate and Assembly that would allow Catskill to levy an occupancy tax. So far Gov. Kathy Hochul has not signed the bill, and Hinchey urged local citizens to call her and ask Hochul to sign it.
Statewide, a weak Good Cause tenant protection law was approved last year and CACHE is about to introduce legislation to get the Village of Catskill to opt-in at its Oct. 9 meeting, with a public hearing expected on Oct. 23. The group is also about to start crowing about the $85,000,000 available for creating and upgrading accessory dwelling units across New York State, that Greene County has not joined yet, leaving money to address the problem in Albany, rather than Catskill. This affordable housing crisis is happening in Catskill, but all the issues discussed are also true in Hudson, and many other Hudson Valley towns. Click on the image at the top of this missive to get to the Instagram video of Weist, and then Hinchey, discussing the affordable housing crisis in Catskill. It is an hour’s worth of information.