The City Council speaker, Christine Quinn, is attempting to prevent middle-class New Yorkers from leaving the city by proposing to offer them money for down payments and closing costs, housing assistance previously reserved for lower-income families.

In her first State of the City address, Ms. Quinn yesterday said she wants to raise the income ceiling of the city’s homeownership programs to allow families of four earning less than $92,000 to be eligible for the funds. Currently, a family of four must earn less than $56,720 a year to receive assistance when buying a home.

“Families will, of course, have to invest their own savings to match the city’s contribution, but together we’ll connect the dream of home ownership to a lot more New Yorkers,” said Ms. Quinn, who, in her blue suit, white pearls, and fiery orange bob matched the colors of the city flag beside her almost to a tee.

In her address, she focused on the plight of tenants and proposed legislation that she said “will mark a new era of tenant empowerment in our city.”

Ms. Quinn vowed that the City Council would pass a law giving tenants greater rights when fighting harassment from delinquent landlords, and she proposed cracking down on such landlords by dispatching the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development to dilapidated buildings to make essential repairs, ensure proper maintenance, and then charge landlords for the work.

The speaker was a tenants’ rights activist earlier in her career, and her press office told some reporters on Wednesday that she wants to give the city’s lowest-income renters a $300 tax credit as early as 2008.

Mayor Bloomberg did not come out strongly in favor or against Ms. Quinn’s tax credit plan. He said everyone would like lower taxes, and that money should be taken out of people’s pockets only for things that are absolutely necessary for the government to do.

Ms. Quinn also addressed the city’s inability to save money from year to year, which she said resulted from a law enacted when New York was on the verge of bankruptcy in the mid-1970s. She said state Senator Diane Savino and Assemblyman Herman Farrell, Jr. would sponsor legislation in Albany to create a rainy day fund for the city.

“Families do it, businesses do it, even squirrels save nuts for the winter,” Ms. Quinn said to an estimated 500 people in council chambers at City Hall. “New York City may be the only entity — human, governmental, or animal — that is literally prohibited from saving its own money.”

The deputy director and chief economist of the Fiscal Policy Institute, James Parrott, called Ms. Quinn’s rainy day fund proposal “sensible,” but cautioned it is not a silver-bullet solution to the city’s financial ups and downs.

By setting money aside in flush years, however, the city could avoid cutting programs and raising taxes during downturns in the economy.

“You’d rather have the authority to do that, than not have the authority,” he said.

A spokesman for the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, Neill Coleman, said the department is cooperating with the council on Ms. Quinn’s proposals and noted that the city already runs an emergency repair program to fix serious problems, such as lack of heat and hot water.

“Tenants who have issues with landlords not making repairs, they call 311. We send out our housing inspectors to inspect the conditions and write violations if necessary,” he said. “The legislation the speaker is talking about is a way to target some of the worst buildings.”

In her speech, Ms. Quinn also called for the city’s campaign finance system to be strengthened to restrict contributions from people who do business with the city and close loopholes in the regulations barring corporate contributions.

She also announced the creation of a middle school task force, proposed creating a team of so-called school navigators who would advise parents during the middle school and high school application process, and said she wants to open 10 new primary care health centers.