The New York Times reported today that President Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court was a passionate low income housing advocate as a board member of the state housing finance agency for New York.
Time and again, Sonia Sotomayor challenged her fellow board members at the State of New York Mortgage Agency, asking pointed questions about its work: What of the poor? As we help build new neighborhoods upon the rubble of the old, are we abandoning those with the lowest incomes?
Sotomayor served on the agency’s board before she was appointed as a federal judge.
“Ms. Sotomayor voiced her continuing objection to the rehabilitation of projects in low-income areas without providing for a higher component of low-income families,” according to agency minutes from March 1990. “She repeated her request for an analysis of the various economic groups in the neighborhood affected by the project.”
Sotomayor was appointed to the board by Governor Mario M. Cuomo.
