When she first took office in January 2022, Council Member Jennifer Gutiérrez learned that her district had a particularly high rate of residential fires. Nine months later, that statistic hit a little closer to home when her chief of staff was displaced by an apartment fire.
On Thursday, Gutiérrez introduced four bills intended to protect tenants and streamline the process of navigating life after a fire or natural disaster.
The Back Home Package, sponsored by Gutiérrez and Queens Council Member Shekar Krishnan, includes measures that would increase transparency and communication by city agencies, incentivise landlords to finish repairs quickly, and hold both landlords and the city to account.
