Mayor Adams’ chief housing aide resigns amid NYC affordable housing crisis, migrant influx

Chris Sommerfeldt, Téa Kvetenadze, New York Daily News
Updated ·3 min read
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Mayor Adams’ chief housing aide is stepping down as New York City faces an influx of migrants, ongoing affordable housing issues, and continuing problems at city housing projects, officials said Wednesday.

Jessica Katz will leave her job in July. She was tasked with overseeing the city’s affordable housing strategy and a number of agencies including the Department of Housing Preservation and Development and the New York City Housing Authority.

“Jessica worked every day to ensure that New Yorkers were at the center of our housing policies, whether an individual experiencing homelessness, a family living in NYCHA, or a lifelong New Yorker struggling to stay in the neighborhood they love,” Adams said in a statement.

“From the ‘Housing Our Neighbors’ plan to the NYCHA Trust to securing millions of dollars in rent relief from Albany, she has been critical in our efforts to ‘Get Stuff Done’ for New Yorkers.”

Katz had served in the newly created role since the beginning of the Adams administration in January 2022. An Adams administration official briefed on the matter said her departure has been rumored for months.

The official said that Katz’s role as chief housing officer — a role created by Adams — stirred some confusion in city government.

Because Katz was neither a commissioner nor a deputy mayor, it became unclear exactly who she was supposed to report to and who was reporting to her, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to be candid.

That resulted in a power struggle between Katz and Deputy Mayor of Economic and Workforce Development Maria Torres-Springer, who oversees the Department of City Planning and the Economic Development Corp., both of which do work on housing-related matters.

“The way it ended up being is that it created a weird dynamic in the bureaucracy,” the official said.

Katz’s planned departure comes at a critical juncture as the city struggles to house thousands of arriving migrants as record numbers of homeless New Yorkers are already sleeping in shelters.

Just this week Adams has faced criticism for trying to weaken New York’s right-to-shelter law in state Supreme Court, citing the influx of migrants, many coming from Latin America.

In a statement, Katz said that during her tenure, Mayor Adams has made progress on many housing issues.

“Over the last year and a half, this administration has fundamentally changed the way New York City approaches housing and homelessness,” Katz said.

“We have secured historic funding to make investments in public housing that were decades overdue. We have worked aggressively to build more housing in all New York City communities.

“And we have moved more New Yorkers into safe, permanent housing even as we grapple with an unforeseen humanitarian crisis,” Katz said. “I am proud to have worked with this entire team to set the course for our city’s housing policy.”

In a statement the nonprofit New York Housing Conference described Katz’s resignation as a “huge loss for New Yorkers.”

A spokesman for Adams said there would be more information on Katz’s possible replacement in the coming weeks.