Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo came under fire on Monday for claiming that he “wasn’t in charge” of building affordable housing in New York City during his 11 years as the state’s top executive.
Cuomo, who is running for mayor as an independent after losing the Democratic primary to socialist Assembly Member Zohran Mamdani (Queens), argued that because he was governor of the state and not the city’s mayor, he did not control housing production within the five boroughs.
“I wasn’t the mayor of New York and I wasn’t in charge of building affordable housing in New York,” said Cuomo, referring to the city, during a July 28 interview with WNYC host Brian Lehrer. Cuomo was responding to the criticism that his actions as governor directly contributed to the city’s current housing crisis.
“If I were mayor of New York, we would have housing,” Cuomo said.
He contended that his record of constructing large-scale infrastructure projects in the city, under the state’s purview, as governor shows that he is best positioned to address its acute housing crisis, which has seen rents soar and left just 1.4% of apartments vacant.
“I built LaGuardia,” he said. “I built Moynihan Train Station. I built the Second Avenue Subway. I built the new Kosciuszko Bridge, new Shirley Chisholm Park. Those were all much harder than building housing. I can cut the red tape. I know how to do it. And I can get it done.”
Cuomo also cited his experience as the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under former President Bill Clinton to show that he is the most qualified candidate to boost housing production in the city.
The moderate former governor is not only in a November general election rematch with Mamdani, but is also competing against incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, Republican Curtis Sliwa, and indepndent Jim Walden.
Cuomo’s comments drew swift backlash from critics who charged that, as governor, he had immense control over affordable housing construction in the city and simply did not act on it.
“The governor has enormous powers to solve New York’s housing crisis, both in NYC and across the state,” the pro-development group Open New York wrote on X. “This claim is ridiculous, and New Yorkers aren’t falling for it.”
Political strategist Sam Raskin, who worked on former city Comptroller Scott Stringer’s unsuccessful primary campaign, also slammed Cuomo’s remarks in an X post.
“This is a pretty revealing admission by Cuomo that he was asleep at the wheel as the statewide housing-affordability and homelessness crises got significantly worse while he was governor,” Raskin wrote.
Cuomo took heat from his rivals during the primary over his housing legacy as governor. Specifically, they blasted Cuomo’s 2011 move to defund a state housing voucher program for homeless New Yorkers known as Advantage — an action many say sparked a sharp rise in the city’s homelessness population.
Cuomo’s team has responded that he replaced Advantage with several other similar programs that he funded at higher levels.
