CITY HALL — City Council members and veterans groups are demanding that housing preference be given to returning veterans.

Speaker Christine Quinn, Council Member Gale Brewer and the council’s Veterans Committee chair, James Sanders Jr., yesterday announced a resolution calling on the state legislature to give priority admission in Mitchell-Lama housing developments to veterans of the Iraq, Afghanistan and Gulf wars, as well as to their widows and widowers, and to widowers of Vietnam-era veterans.

According to Quinn, veterans who served in the Vietnam War and their widows, receive preference in Mitchell-Lama developments, but veterans of the Iraq, Afghanistan and Gulf wars currently receive no such preference.

Council members were joined yesterday by Dr. Lee Bowes, CEO of America Works of New York, an organization that helps veterans find employment, and Lionelle Hamanaka, the mother of a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, whose son was unable to find affordable housing after returning from the war. Unable to find work, and lacking an affordable housing option, her son was forced to take a job as a civilian contractor and is now based back in the Middle East, while his wife and two children remain in the city.

Hamanaka reached out to the council about her son’s situation, and helped instigate the current effort to expand housing preferences for veterans.

“This Veterans Day, we remember the great sacrifices that our men and women in uniform make for our country every day,� said Quinn. “Unfortunately, too many of them return to find they cannot afford a decent home for themselves and their families. Decades ago we built a preference into the Mitchell-Lama program to help veterans returning from Vietnam find affordable housing. We owe no less to those currently returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, and I urge my colleagues in Albany to extend the same preference to them.�

“When America Works started to help Veterans’ find employment, we were pleased to see the numbers of Veterans who actually wanted to go back to work, but we were shocked to see the numbers of veterans living in homeless shelters,� said Bowes. “We applaud and commend the New York City Council for calling on the State of New York to allow this deserving population to live in Mitchell Lama Housing. We must do everything we can to help this population find appropriate housing after their dedicated service to defending this country.�

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