Dear Neighbors:

Last month, the Westchester County Planning Department released a Housing Needs Assessment for the County.  “This is a crisis in every corner of this county. This is not just a problem for the poor in one part of the county, but it’s a problem in every corner of the county,” said County Executive George Latimer upon the release of the report.

The County Planning Department’s assessment contained a community profile for each municipality in Westchester.  The assessment found that 25 Village of Croton households (including both renters and owners) lived in substandard housing (lacking complete plumbing or kitchen facilities),  20 lived in overcrowded housing (more than 1.5 persons per room) and 545 spent over 50% of their household income on housing.

At Monday’s meeting of the Board of Trustees, I stated my intention to form a citizen task force to study this issue.  This group would be tasked with reviewing the County’s assessment, setting goals for our Village and making policy recommendations about how best to achieve those goals.

If any readers are interested in volunteering on this task force, I ask them to send me a brief statement of interest via email to my Village account: bpugh@crotononhudson-ny.gov.  I would like to have this group formed by early January with the hope that it would report back to the Board of Trustees shortly after the adoption of the Village’s budget at the end of April.

Thank you,

Brian Pugh, Mayor