Malliotakis Press Conference: Homeless Crisis Edition



Republican mayoral candidate Nicole Malliotakis held a press conference this afternoon promoting her plan to address homelessness in New York City.  It’s an issue that she, and other de Blasio challengers, have frequently spoken of over the past months.   Today Malliotakis outlined a series of steps should she would take as mayor to address the “homeless crisis”, including establishing “pop-up intake shelters,” creating an interagency taskforce, limiting the number of nights homeless individuals may be housed by the City in a hotel, seeking to move “empty nesters” in large NYCHA apartments into smaller apartments  and entering into an agreement with New York State to fund supportive housing units.

The preceding 24 hours had been quite consequential for Malliotakis.  She had just returned from the extraordinary session of the legislature called by Governor Cuomo to address mayoral control of the City’s schools and her main rival for the Republican mayoral nomination abruptly withdrew from the race yesterday afternoon, leaving her as the overwhelmingly likely Republican nominee.

Questions in the 25 minute Q&A were almost entirely on Malliotakis’ plan and related issues.  The only two off-topic questions posed were on her position on the healthcare bills currently being considered in Congress and on providing additional City funding for the MTA.  Interest in her plan and the broader issues involved in addressing homelessness crowded out any questions on the mayoral race and the withdrawal of Paul Massey.

Video:

Here is Malliotakis’ full press conference (Q&A begins at approximately 16:00):

Update – Photo Gallery:

Our photo gallery is available here.