How New York Sold Out Families for Hotels

New York City’s Local Law 18 didn’t fix housing; it crushed short-term rentals so fiercely that middle-class and working-poor homeowners—squeezed by rising property taxes and record-high rents—lost their only lifeline in an economy rigged against them. Citywide median asking rent hovered around $3,500 in mid-2025, with peaks closer to $3,700. That is the context in which lawmakers stripped away a vital survival tool.

When the City Council passed Local Law 18 unanimously in January 2022, it was pitched as a way to crack down on corporate landlords. Instead, it slammed shut the doors of one- and two-family homeowners—the very New Yorkers leaders claimed they were protecting. Even supporters later admitted the law had unintended consequences for small homeowners. Yet when the fallout arrived—foreclosures climbing, families losing homes—elected officials went silent.

Onerous Rules, Selective Enforcement

Since enforcement began in September 2023, the Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement (OSE) has wielded Local Law 18 like a sledgehammer. The rules are not just restrictive—they are humiliating. To legally host a short-term rental, owners must:

• Remain physically present in the home throughout every stay.
• Allow no more than two guests, whether in a two-bedroom apartment or a five-bedroom house.
• Keep internal doors unlocked so guests have “free access” to every room and exit.

Violations carry fines up to $5,000, and platforms are required to remove unregistered listings.

For working families, renting out a spare room wasn’t greed—it was survival. Yet enforcement has been complaint-driven, often sparked by neighbor disputes, with small homeowners buried in penalties while hotel occupancy and revenues surge. In 2024, hotel room rates surpassed 2019 levels by more than 25%, and occupancy was nearly back to pre-pandemic highs by spring 2025. Hotels flourished while families fell behind.

A Personal Reality

For me, this isn’t abstract. I’m Tony Lindsay, president of New York Homeowners Alliance and a small homeowner in East New York. I also own a rental property in Bushwick where, as a result of the COVID eviction moratoriums, my tenants have lived rent-free for nearly five years. During that time, I covered the mortgage, taxes, heat, and water—while collecting nothing.

Short-term rentals in my East New York home weren’t a side hustle. They were oxygen. They helped me stay afloat when every other door was slammed in my face. Local Law 18 ripped that oxygen away overnight.

And I am far from alone. It’s the grandmother in East New York deciding between medication and her mortgage. It’s the immigrant family in Flatbush working double shifts and still one late payment from foreclosure. It’s the janitor in Corona who saved for decades to buy a home—only to see the city strip away the one tool that could help keep it.

Meanwhile, the numbers tell the story: Brooklyn foreclosures jumped 11% in Q2 2025, while the citywide vacancy rate sank to a historic low of 1.4%. Not a single new unit was freed up by Local Law 18. Rents and hotel prices only went higher.

Equity for Whom?

What makes this worse is the rhetoric. Lawmakers cloaked Local Law 18 in the language of equity. But what kind of equity punishes small, working-class homeowners while padding hotel profits? What kind of justice forces a homeowner to live with strangers, bans locks on bedroom doors, and caps them at two guests in their own home?

These are not protections. They are humiliation rituals—rules designed to grind down the very people the law was supposed to protect. And they may even flirt with constitutional violations, raising serious questions about privacy in the home and the erosion of property rights.

A Path Forward

The solutions aren’t complicated. Bills like Intro 948 and Intro 1107—which would expand the guest limit and end the unlocked-doors requirement—are already on the table. They sit stalled, blocked by hotel lobby pressure and a Council reluctant to admit its mistake.

New York doesn’t need more scapegoating. It needs accountability. It needs lawmakers to stop punishing families who use their homes to survive and start targeting the corporate forces truly driving the housing crisis.

Local Law 18 must be reformed or repealed. Enforcement must end against small homeowners. And the constitutional line must never be crossed again.

Because this fight isn’t about greed—it’s about survival. It’s about whether New York will remain a city where working families can build stability and generational wealth, or whether it becomes a playground for corporations and tourists while its people are pushed out.

The choice is here, now. And it will define New York’s future for generations.