The City Council is expected later this week to approve a plan to build a housing complex in the Bronx for ex-inmates with serious health issues, bucking a last-ditch effort from Mayor Adams’ administration to block the project.
The “Just Home” plan would pave the way for more than 80 affordable and supportive housing units to be built on the Jacobi Hospital campus in Morris Park. Under the plan, which is being overseen by the city’s NYC Health + Hospitals public hospital system, the apartments would be set aside for ex-inmates suffering from serious health issues, like stage 4 cancer.
After supporting the plan for years, Adams had an abrupt change of heart earlier this month as his first deputy mayor, Randy Mastro, started trying to find ways to block the project, as first reported by the Daily News. The reversal culminated last week as the Adams administration declared it will try to kill the project outright and move it to a different location. Specifically, Adams — who’s facing accusations he’s trying to derail the housing plan to score political points with the local community ahead of November’s mayoral election — asked that the Council put the matter on ice so his team can identify a new site.
In a statement Tuesday, Benjamin Fang, a rep for Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, smacked down that request and announced that the chamber expects to vote to authorize the original Just Home proposal at Thursday’s full Council meeting.
“Mayor Adams and Randy Mastro may be trying to block another housing project that can deliver homes for the people of our city, but the Council won’t allow it,” Fang said. “It’s despicable that the mayor and Mastro are trying to use housing with medical care for New Yorkers as a political bargaining chip.”
Council sources told The News the plan is expected to pass Thursday since it has earned widespread support, though not from Republican Kristy Marmorato, who represents the area. Marmorato, who sources say has been in direct touch with Mastro about trying to undo the plan, didn’t return a request for comment Tuesday.
There doesn’t appear to be a mechanism for the mayor to blow up the plan if passed, since the normal veto process doesn’t apply.
In response to Fang’s comment, mayoral spokesman William Fowler referred to a statement his office issued last week accusing the Council of “playing politics instead of focusing on making New Yorkers’ lives better.”
Fowler also contended a Council vote doesn’t specifically require the Just Home project to move forward. Rather, he argued, the Council’s measure would only authorize the facilitation of supportive and affordable housing at that site, not for a particular population.
Council sources have disputed that claim, saying the plan itself is based on a 2024 vote from the H + H board that first authorized the Just Home plan for ex-inmates.
The mayor’s flip-flop on Just Home comes as he scrambles to line up support for his long-shot reelection bid amid poor poll numbers and continued fallout from his corruption indictment. Conservative communities like Morris Park could be key for Adams to try to cobble together a coalition of support ahead of November’s election, which Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani is polling as the favorite to win.
