On Jan. 10, at the State of the City, Mayor de Blasio signed an executive order establishing the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants, which will lead comprehensive outreach on anti-harassment initiatives and be the central point of contact for tenant advocates. The mayor recently appointed Jackie Bray as director of the new office.

Bray currently serves as the First Deputy Commissioner at the NYC Department of Homeless Services. In this role, Bray helped develop and implement the mayor’s “Turning the Tide on Homelessness in New York City” plan to transform the city’s haphazard shelter system and improve homeless services citywide. The Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants will spearhead the city’s anti-harassment initiatives, enhance interagency enforcement, and closely engage with tenants and advocates.

The office will:

• Serve as central point of contact for advocacy groups and tenants to raise issues and get results from agencies;
• Lead policy development to strengthen tenant protections and better target problematic buildings and owners;
• Bring government and advocate task forces together to address challenges;
• Convene and coordinate activities of key city agencies including Department of Housing Preservation and Development, Department of Buildings, Human Resources Administration, Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, Law Department, Department of Finance, Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement, the Commission on Human Rights, and the Mayor’s Office of Data Analytics;
• Strengthen the Tenant Harassment Prevention Task Force; and
• Track outreach efforts across agencies and metrics at a building and neighborhood level.