Manhattan Council Member Harvey Epstein is heading into 2026 with affordability at the top of his agenda, pushing legislation to convert empty office space into affordable housing while also taking aim at the hidden fees hitting New Yorkers in their wallets.
Epstein represents the Second Council District, a stretch of lower and mid-Manhattan that runs through Greenwich Village, the Lower East Side, the East Village, Union Square, Gramercy and Murray Hill. In a recent Q&A with PoliticsNY, he laid out his priorities for the year and described how his office works on behalf of the tens of thousands of constituents who live across that district.
“The cost of housing in this city is outrageous,” Epstein said, “and it is driving low-and-middle income communities of color out of New York.”
His response to that crisis includes legislation to establish an Office of Conversion Assistance, a proposal that would create a dedicated city resource to help developers and community organizations navigate the process of turning vacant commercial space into affordable residential units. The idea has taken on new urgency as Midtown and other business corridors continue to see office vacancy rates that were unimaginable before the pandemic reshaped how and where people work.
Epstein chairs the Council’s Consumer and Worker Protection Committee, and he has used that post to push on a separate but related affordability front. His office has worked with the city’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection to crack down on junk fees at hotels, those add-on charges for amenities guests never asked for that can drive up the final bill by dozens of dollars. He says more is coming on that front, including expanded resources to help New Yorkers get through tax season without getting gouged by fee-heavy filing services.
Consumer protection may not have the profile of housing policy, but Epstein argues the two fights belong in the same conversation. When families are nickeled and dimed at every turn, the math on staying in New York City gets harder.
His constituent services operation is substantial. Staff handle thousands of cases each year, fielding calls and walk-ins from residents dealing with housing disputes, broken infrastructure, questions about public safety, transportation complaints and social services navigation. The office also runs community events throughout the year, including coat drives, document shredding days, a pet event, an annual Black History Month gathering and a Women’s History Month celebration.
On aging, Epstein made a direct commitment when asked whether he would support increasing the share of the city budget dedicated to the Department for the Aging. He said yes, and pointed to his seat on the Subcommittee on Senior Centers and Food Security as evidence that he is already engaged on that fight. His position is straightforward: older New Yorkers who spent decades building their communities should be able to stay in them, and the city has an obligation to fund the services that make that possible.
The pressure on that commitment will intensify as Mayor Adams and the Council negotiate the fiscal year budget in the months ahead. Advocates for older New Yorkers have argued for years that DFTA is chronically underfunded relative to the demand for its services, and with the senior population in the city continuing to grow, the gap is only widening.
Epstein’s district is a useful lens for understanding the contradictions that define New York right now. It includes some of the most expensive real estate in the country alongside public housing developments and rent-stabilized buildings where longtime residents are fighting to hold on. The political geography requires a Council member who can speak to both constituencies without losing sight of which one needs city government more.
Whether the office conversion legislation advances this year will depend partly on buy-in from the Adams administration and partly on whether the real estate industry sees opportunity in the proposal or a reason to resist it. Epstein has not been shy about his skepticism of developers who talk affordable housing while lobbying against the policies that would actually produce it.
The work, as he describes it, is about whether New York remains a place where working people can afford to live. That question is not new. But the urgency around it is.
