Facing the dual issues of skyrocketing housing and affordability costs, pockets of New York City’s Black and Brown small homeowners are calling for critical changes to the short-term rental (STR) laws. This allows them to better use booking platforms, like Airbnb, Vrbo, and Booking.com, to rent out their homes.
Last month, Queens homeowners and housing advocates rallied around Councilmember Farah Louis’ bill Intro. 1107. The bill would amend the short-term rental law for one- and two-family homes by allowing locks on doors, permitting up to four guests, and allowing rentals while homeowners are on vacation. Advocates say the changes would help locals maintain their homes while promoting tourism.
“New York City as a whole is a renter majority. But when you look at an area like Southeast Queens, the vast majority of the residents are homeowners. And so we’re often placed in a tight situation because a lot of the policies, a lot of the laws that are passed aren’t necessarily done so with us in mind because we are not the majority in New York City,” said Candace Prince-Modeste, president of the NAACP’s Jamaica Branch.
Prince-Modeste’s home was passed down to her by her family. She wants above all else to see Black communities thrive. She travels often and would consider making extra income with a short-term rental to put towards the mortgage, insurance, property taxes, utilities, and building upkeep if she could.
“A lot of my colleagues, a lot of my neighbors, they are landlords,” continued Prince-Modeste. “Just by reading the news, you’d think that landlords are like the worst things. Landlords are not necessarily folks who own or operate multi-unit buildingings. Oftentimes, they’re someone who has maybe a two-family home, or four-family home. They’re literally just trying to do what they need to do to make the mortgage payment and put a little aside for a rainy day.”
Mayor Eric Adams, with support from labor and union advocates, fought against a legal challenge from Airbnb to get Local Law 18 (or the Short-Term Rental Registration Law) passed in 2022. The law required homeowners to register first with the Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement (OSE) otherwise booking platforms couldn’t process their transactions.
“With a vacancy rate of a mere 1.4%, New York City cannot afford to have housing units siphoned off for illegal short-term rentals,” said Adams in a statement. “Every unit of permanent housing saved is a unit that can house a New York City family. We’re the most pro-housing administration in city history and that’s because we continue to use every tool we’ve got to connect New Yorkers with homes as we make sure our city is the best place to raise a family.”
The debate over regulating short term rental laws in the city actually stretches back decades.
According to the OSE, the city’s laws have restricted rentals of less than 30 days in homes to two guests staying with permanent residents since the late 1960s. Short-term rentals were not required to be registered until the law passed in 2022, which stopped tens of thousands of property owners and big tech companies from violating these longstanding laws. The intent back then was cracking down on “illegal” rentals that weren’t up to code, increasing rents, inflating home prices in residential neighborhoods, and depleting available housing stock.
Enforcement was uneven and there were still tens of thousands of listings around the city.
In the latest annual report from OSE, active short-term rental listings citywide have dropped from over 38,000 in 2023 to about 3,000, said the report. Over 4,300 applications were not in compliance with the city’s STR laws and required denial. OSE also rejected more than 550 applications for STRs in rent-regulated units.
“For decades, short-term rentals have been a lifeline for immigrant and working families — a way to make ends meet, manage mortgages, and preserve homes in neighborhoods too often left behind by policy decisions,” said Elsie Saint Louis, CEO and executive director of Haitian Americans United for Progress (HAUP) in a statement. “HAUP stands with the coalition in urging the City Council to pass Intro 1107, because fairness demands that our families have access to the same economic opportunities as the rest of New York.”
In a recent 2025 poll, conducted by the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, New Yorkers in general are widely frustrated with housing affordability and the severity of current short-term rental regulation. The poll also found that 82% of New Yorkers felt that the 2022 law has not accomplished its stated goal of improving affordability.
Airbnb is in huge support of the coalition urging the City Council to pass the bill Intro 1107 and repeal parts of the short term rental law.
“So since the law has come into effect two years ago, rents across the city are up 8%, the vacancy rate has remained virtually unchanged, and everyday New Yorkers are dealing with increases in costs that amount to a 72% higher cost of living than anywhere else in the country,” said Airbnb policy chief Michael Blaustein. “And quite frankly, who’s paying the brunt of these price increases? It’s people in the outer boroughs … It’s Black and Brown New Yorkers who are longtime New Yorkers. They’re being forced out of the city in record numbers due to the affordability crisis that Local Law 18 has made worse.”
Correction: An earlier version of this story mistakenly noted the state policy on short term rentals in a 2010 law. In actuality the reference is to a 2022 law.