Mayor Adams announced record-breaking achievements in creating and connecting New Yorkers to affordable housing for the second consecutive year. The administration financed the most new affordable homes in history, including supportive housing and housing for formerly homeless individuals. These efforts are part of the “City of Yes for Housing Opportunity” proposal, aiming to produce up to 108,850 new homes over the next 15 years, addressing the city’s housing crisis and making housing more accessible and affordable for all New Yorkers.
NYC Mayor Adams Celebrates Consecutive Record Years in Affordable Housing Creation and Access for New Yorkers
– New York City Mayor Eric Adams today announced back-to-back record-breaking years for producing and connecting New Yorkers to new, affordable homes. For the second year in a row, the city has produced the most supportive housing and housing for formerly homeless New Yorkers. As the city faces a generational housing shortage and an affordability crisis, the administration, this year, financed the most new affordable homes in history. Following decades of disinvestment, the city also converted 3,678 New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) apartments into newly renovated residences. The Adams administration additionally moved a record number of homeless New Yorkers into permanent housing through the highest usage of City Fighting Homelessness and Eviction Prevention Supplement (CityFHEPS) housing vouchers, affordable housing through the city’s housing lottery program, and placing formerly homeless households into permanently-affordable housing. In total, city agencies financed a combined 28,944 affordable and public housing units in Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 through new construction and preservation initiatives.
“Over back-to-back years, our administration has faced a housing crisis head-on by building and connecting more New Yorkers than ever to affordable housing,” said Mayor Adams. “These record-breaking years are the result of countless city agencies coming together to make sure all New Yorkers — from our formerly homeless to families at the edge of poverty to those just struggling to make ends meet — have access to safe, stable housing. While today we celebrate our progress, tomorrow we get back to work and aim even higher. ‘City of Yes for Housing Opportunity’ is another tool we have to produce over 108,000 new homes that our city needs and deserves in the next 15 years. Today, I’m calling on all of our partners in government to come together and say ‘yes” to helping the city build its way out of this crisis.”
“I am proud that for the second consecutive year, the Adams administration has set record-breaking milestones in creating and connecting New Yorkers to affordable housing,” said First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright. “Our administration has achieved unprecedented levels of new supportive housing, while also delivering more affordable housing construction than ever before in our city’s history. We are committed to ensuring every New Yorker has a place to call home and we will continue to use every tool at our disposal to address this generational housing crisis.”
“Our housing agencies, with the mayor as our biggest housing champion, have made incredible progress in addressing our housing crisis over the last fiscal year,” said Deputy Mayor for Housing, Economic Development, and Workforce Maria Torres-Springer. “Faced with our near-zero housing vacancy, Department of Housing Preservation and Development, Housing Development Corporation, NYCHA, and Department of Social Services heeded the call and produced historic results. From the record amount of affordable new construction and supportive housing, to NYCHA’s work with tenants in developing their communities, this has been an enormous team effort. By building and preserving record amounts of affordable housing year after year, this administration is demonstrating its unwavering commitment to ensuring that all New Yorkers can thrive in our city.”
“Every New Yorker deserves a permanent home,” said Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Anne Williams-Isom. “Since the start of our administration, we’ve made progress towards that vision by connecting more New Yorkers than ever to supportive housing, shortening the path between shelter and stable housing, and increasing the number of people accessing CityFHEPS, among other items. Over just the last two years, in sum, we’ve produced more affordable housing and connected more New Yorkers to housing supports than any time in our city’s history. While we continue to build more housing, we’re bringing relief to New Yorkers in need today, and making strides to tackle the structural challenges the city faces with a 1.4 percent vacancy rate, and more than half of New Yorkers being considered rent burdened. We will continue to deliver support as we fight for long term change to make our city more affordable for all.”
“Today’s announcement reflects the power of city government to directly support working families and young adults by addressing the affordable housing crisis,” said Deputy Mayor for Strategic Initiatives Ana J. Almanzar. “By using all of the tools at our disposal, the Adams administration is immediately helping New Yorkers today and laying the foundation for lower housing costs for future generations.”
“As New Yorkers continue to confront the unprecedented housing demand, our commitment to creating quality, accessible, and affordable homes remains unwavering,” said New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) Commissioner Adolfo Carrion Jr. “Today’s announcement demonstrates our effective efforts to meet that challenge with ingenuity, creativity, and empathy. Through the dedication of our team and our sister agencies, our collective work has resulted in an impressive surge of new homes and successful housing placements that will help lift up and steady communities across our city. Our dedication to equitable development and preserving and expanding affordable housing options underscores our belief that every New Yorker deserves a safe, stable place to call home. Through strategic partnerships, innovative approaches, and record-level investments in our housing budget, our administration is transforming the city’s housing landscape to make sure it is advancing the needs of individuals and families of all backgrounds and incomes, ensuring that our efforts today lay the foundation for further success.”
“Much of NYCHA’s work is focused on using every tool at our disposal to deliver much-needed renovations to our housing stock — in the face of decades of federal disinvestment and mounting physical needs — to improve the quality of life for the New Yorkers we serve,” said NYCHA Chief Executive Officer Lisa Bova-Hiatt. “We’re very proud of the work we’ve accomplished, working in close partnership with empowered NYCHA residents over the course of the last city fiscal year. During this time, we conducted NYCHA’s first-ever votes at Nostrand Houses and Bronx River Addition, with residents electing to join the Trust in both cases, unlocking hundreds of millions of dollars to be invested across both campuses. We also reached a pivotal milestone with the PACT, having surpassed 20,000 units converted to Project-Based Section 8 through the program, representing an impressive $5.68 billion in capital repairs to the homes of NYCHA residents across the five boroughs. We thank the Adams administration for their steadfast commitment to housing affordability in New York City, their ongoing partnership, and their continued prioritization of NYCHA residents.”
“With another year of record affordable housing production and connections to housing, the Adams administration is again demonstrating its commitment to addressing the city’s housing crisis head-on while supporting our vulnerable and working-class communities,” said New York City Department of Social Services (DSS) Commissioner Molly Wasow Park. “We continue to prioritize connections to housing by expanding access to subsidies and streamlining related processes. These efforts have allowed us to, again, significantly increase the number of households exiting shelter to permanent housing, and, for the second consecutive year, helped us connect a record number of New Yorkers to affordable, permanent housing with city funded CityFHEPS vouchers. While the data shows we are on the right path, we know there is more work to be done, and we need every level of government to come together and provide the resources necessary to create a more equitable and affordable city.”
“From its beginning, our administration has not only focused on the creation and preservation of affordable housing, but on what it takes to get New Yorkers from all communities better access to affordable housing — achieving those goals are major takeaways from today’s housing production announcement,” said New York City Executive Director for Housing Leila Bozorg. “We are delivering record numbers of new affordable housing construction, as well as housing for the homeless, those in need of supportive housing, seniors, and extremely low-income New Yorkers. Meanwhile, we’re connecting a record number of New Yorkers, and homeless people specifically, into affordable housing. With new tools to create affordable housing from Albany, new capital in the adopted budget, and our efforts to build a little more housing in every neighborhood through ‘City of Yes,’ we’re only going to build on this success.”
“Today’s announcement marks significant progress in addressing the city’s affordable housing crisis,” said New York City Housing Development Corporation (HDC) President Eric Enderlin. “I am proud of the collaboration of the many city agencies involved in implementing Mayor Adams’s housing blueprint, including HDC, HPD, NYCHA, and DSS. Together, we have delivered a record number of new affordable homes to New Yorkers and brought essential new investment to preserve our city’s public housing stock. HDC looks forward to building upon this momentum to further expand its affordable housing production in the coming year, while continuing to advocate for additional resources in order to meet the affordability challenges faced by our city.”
“New Yorkers feel the impacts of our housing crisis every day, with rising rents and limited inventory making it harder for residents to stay in their homes and communities. That’s why we’re working to tackle this crisis head-on by making record investments in affordable housing and advancing the most pro-housing zoning proposal in New York City history,” said New York City Department of City Planning (DCP) Director Dan Garodnick. “By working across government, we can create the homes New Yorkers need and ensure there are affordable, stable housing options in every neighborhood.”
“New York City had another banner year in creating affordable housing and addressing the housing crisis,” said New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) President and CEO Andrew Kimball. “As NYCEDC works to advance housing initiatives throughout the city, including at Willets Point and on the North Shore of Staten Island, I applaud Mayor Adams and the entire administration for doubling down on their support for building housing and making New York City a great place to live, work, learn, play, and do business.”
“One of our most pressing missions here in city government is the promotion and facilitation of affordable housing development,” said New York City Department of Buildings Commissioner Jimmy Oddo. “Since day one, Mayor Adams and our administration have been focused on cutting red tape and opening up development opportunities, to get as many safe affordable units into the construction pipeline as possible, and that work is getting results for New Yorkers with record numbers for the second year in a row.”
“This year’s record-breaking delivery of affordable housing is a direct result of our city’s all of government approach, including financial commitments, legislative action, and administrative efficiency,” said Get Stuff Built Executive Director Rob Holbrook. “We continue to create more tools and remove barriers to affordable housing production, including removing outdated exclusionary zoning rules, that will continue to drive more affordable housing production for future New Yorkers and secure housing for those that need it now.”
“Expanding affordable housing options helps older adults manage the high cost of living in New York City, making it one of the primary age-inclusive policies we can pursue. These efforts ensure older New Yorkers can continue to stay in the city and in the communities they helped build,” said New York City Department for the Aging Commissioner Lorraine Cortés-Vázquez. “We celebrate the city’s record-breaking achievements in affordable housing under the leadership of Mayor Adams, and look forward to continuing this vital work and witnessing the positive impact it will have on everyone who continues to call New York City home.”
“Today’s critical announcement is welcome news for the countless New Yorkers who are all too familiar with the struggle to find quality affordable housing,” said New York City Councilmember Rafael Salamanca, Jr, chair, Committee on Land Use. “The demand for safe, affordable housing is an issue that my district has experienced firsthand, and it’s an issue that I’ve made a pillar of my tenure in the City Council. Last year alone, the 17th Council District created more new, affordable housing than 26 council districts combined, which is more than half of the City Council. In the midst of one of the worst housing crises the city has experienced, the record-setting FY24 numbers the Adams administration has overseen, on the back of an equally impressive FY23 haul, sends a symbolic message to New Yorkers everywhere: when faced with great adversity, New York City is answering the call! I thank Mayor Adams and his team for understanding the severity of the issue, and as chair of the Committee on Land Use, I look forward to continuing to work with the administration on behalf of the City Council to promote the production of new, affordable housing.”
Building a Historic Number of Affordable Housing
As New York City faces a 1.4 percent rental vacancy rate, with half of all New York renters paying more than 30 percent of their income in rent, the Adams administration is delivering them a more affordable city by building a record amount of affordable housing to meet the moment. HPD and HDC financed 25,266 affordable homes, with a record 14,706 in newly constructed homes, 2,155 in permanent supportive housing units and 4,085 units of housing for formerly homeless New Yorkers. Additionally, the Adams administration produced 5,401 421-A standalone affordable units and 3,255 permanently-affordable inclusionary housing — both the most in the city’s history. HPD produced 2,130 homeownership units, more than double from the previous fiscal year. Finally, the city produced the second most homes serving older New Yorkers, as well as the second most city-subsidized units for extremely low-income New Yorkers.
Connecting a Record Number of New Yorkers to New, Affordable Housing
City agencies broke records connecting New Yorkers to new, critically-needed affordable housing in FY24 as well.
The Adams administration is continuing to prioritize transitioning homeless New Yorkers from streets, subways, and homeless shelters into stable, permanent housing. In FY24, the city built the highest ever count of supportive homes and homes for the homeless in the city’s history, and increased production of housing for the formerly homeless by 15 percent.
More New Yorkers are being connected to affordable housing at a faster rate. HPD approved 9,550 households for new housing lotteries, connected 3,990 homeless households to permanently affordable homes, and marketed a record 315 housing lotteries through Housing Connect. HPD exceeded its fiscal year completions target by more than 40 percent, completing a total 21,159 units of affordable housing.
Finally, DSS helped 16,902 households move out of shelter and into permanent housing over FY24, 12,526 of which were placed into subsidized permanent housing — a more than 20 percent increase over FY23. DSS had back-to-back record-breaking years connecting New Yorkers to housing using CityFHEPS vouchers.
Empowering NYCHA Residents and Unlocking Billions
The Adams administration has worked with NYCHA to directly engage with residents and empower them to decide on the future of their developments.
NYCHA conducted the first two historic votes in which residents were able to have a say in the future by deciding whether to join the Public Housing Preservation Trust, the Permanent Affordability Commitment Together (PACT) program, or remain in Section 9 housing. Residents of the first two developments to hold votes — Nostrand Houses and Bronx River Addition — both elected to join the Trust, a fully-public entity that is in the process of transferring both campuses to Project-Based Section 8 funding. As a result of residents’ selection of the Trust at both developments, a total of 1,376 apartments across 18 buildings are in pre-development and will be renovated to address hundreds of million of dollars in 20-year capital needs.
In FY24, NYCHA converted 3,678 apartments to Project-Based Section 8 housing through the PACT, representing $1.35 billion in capital repairs for nearly 7,600 residents. To date, NYCHA has used the PACT program to convert 21,696 apartments at 87 developments, representing over $5.68 billion in capital repairs across the city. Another 16,155 apartments at 52 developments are in active planning and are slated for comprehensive repairs and upgrades. Overall, over 37,851 apartments across 139 developments are in pre-development, under construction, or have completed renovations through the PACT program. This effort represents nearly $13.23 billion in building upgrades for public housing.
The Adams administration is in the middle of public review for “City of Yes for Housing Opportunity,” the most pro-housing zoning proposal in New York City’s history. DCP estimates that the Adams administration’s City of Yes plan could produce as many as 108,850 new homes over the next 15 years. In addition to the City of Yes plan, DCP is advancing several robust plans that, if adopted, would deliver more than 50,000 units over the next 15 years in the Metro North station area in the Bronx, Central Brooklyn, Midtown South in Manhattan, Long Island City, and Jamaica in Queens.
Since the start of his administration, Mayor Adams has made record investments towards creating and preserving affordable housing. Last month, the Adams administration delivered an on-time, balanced, and fiscally-responsible $112.4 billion FY25 Adopted Budget that invests $2 billion in capital funds across FY25 and FY26 to HPD and NYCHA’s capital budgets. In total, the Adams administration has committed a record $26 billion in housing capital in the current 10-year plan as the city faces a general housing crisis. Just this month, Mayor Adams, New York Governor Kathy Hochul, and New York City Comptroller Brad Lander announced a landmark $500 million investment from the Battery Park City Authority’s Joint Purpose Fund to build and maintain affordable housing. This spring, thanks to Mayor Adams’ vision and leadership, the city celebrated the largest 100 percent affordable housing project in 40 years with the Willets Point Transformation.
Further, the Adams administration is using every tool available to address the city’s housing crisis. Earlier this year, Mayor Adams and members of the administration successfully advocated for new tools in the 2024 New York state budget that will spur the creation of urgently needed housing. These tools include a new tax incentive for multifamily rental construction, a tax incentive program to encourage office conversions to create more affordable units, lifting the arbitrary “floor-to-area ratio” cap that held back affordable housing production in certain high-demand areas of the city, and the ability to create a pilot program to legalize and make safe basement apartments.
Under Mayor Adams’ leadership, the city is fulfilling its 2024 State of the City commitment to build more affordable housing, including being ahead of schedule on advancing two dozen affordable housing projects on city-owned land this year through the “24 in ‘24” initiative, reopening the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program waitlist after being closed to general applications for nearly 15 years, and creating the Tenant Protection Cabinet to coordinate across agencies to better serve tenants. The city has also taken several steps to cut red tape and speed up the delivery of much-needed housing, including through the “Green Fast Track for Housing,” a streamlined environmental review process for qualifying small- and medium-sized housing projects; the Office Conversion Accelerator, an interagency effort to guide buildings that wish to convert through city bureaucracy; and other initiatives of the Building and Land Use Approval Streamlining Taskforce.
“I am proud of my work in Albany to deliver the affordable housing New Yorkers need,” said New York State Assemblymember Jenifer Rajkumar. “This session, I helped pass historic bills to speed up the production of affordable housing. They include authorizing progressive design build, creating the 485-X abatement, lifting the FAR cap, incentivizing office conversions, and piloting legalizing basement apartments. This arsenal of solutions allows us to continue accelerating housing production and shave years off project delivery. Through my partnership with Mayor Adams, we have broken records for affordable housing production two years in a row, financing almost 30,000 units in FY24. In a city where half of tenants are rent-burdened, we will continue to implement every policy so that all New Yorkers have safe, affordable housing.”
“Under the leadership of Mayor Adams, over the past year, HPD has made historic progress in addressing the housing crisis by creating more than 25,000 new homes, including a record 5,400-plus homes created through the 421-A tax incentive and a record 2,465 homes under the mandatory inclusionary housing program,” said Rafael Cestero, chief executive officer, Community Preservation Corporation. “These results represent homes for our most vulnerable neighbors, and we look forward to the administration building on this success particularly as we begin to see the impact of the new 485-X program.”
“Combatting our housing crisis requires resources, creative capital and programming approaches, and the dedication of those in government responsible for shepherding projects through the process,” said Baaba Halm, vice president and market leader, Enterprise Community Partners. “Today’s announcement demonstrates all of the above, and we join in celebrating these milestones, which were accomplished despite a very challenging development and fiscal landscape. Increasing staff levels at important units at HPD, an increase in capital resources, and new programs meant to stretch subsidy dollars further — all of these approaches contributed to these numbers. We look forward to partnering with the city to continue these trends.”
“It’s exciting to see new, preserved affordable homes coming and remaining in the market, as expanding housing while maintaining what we have is absolutely critical to ending the housing crisis that’s driving up costs and widening the racial wealth gap,” said Valerie White, senior executive director, Local Initiatives Support Corporation NY. “A safe, affordable home provides the foundation necessary to seize opportunity and reach for the future.”
“HPD’s production numbers for FY24 are strong and indicate that our city is moving in the right direction. It is especially promising to see such high levels of housing for the lowest-income and formerly homeless New Yorkers,” said Brendan Cheney, director of policy and operations, New York Housing Conference. “We are grateful to Mayor Adams and the City Council for doubling down on their commitments to addressing our affordability crisis by delivering an additional $2 billion toward housing in this year’s budget. We look forward to continuing to work with Mayor Adams and City Council to pass the ‘City of Yes for Housing Opportunity,’ bringing more critically-needed housing to every neighborhood throughout the five boroughs.”
“The Adams administration is to be applauded for its solutions-oriented efforts to address the city’s housing crisis,” said James Whelan, president, Real Estate Board of New York. ”To meet the city’s housing goals, it is critical that the public and private sectors are firing on all cylinders producing new housing, particularly below-market rental units.”
“Today’s historic announcement of a record number of supportive housing units developed and preserved in a single year reaffirms New York’s leadership in the effort to end chronic homelessness,” said Pascale Leone, executive director, Supportive Housing Network of New York. “For over 40 years, New York has pioneered the model of combining affordable, quality housing with voluntary services. We applaud the city’s ongoing commitment to the most effective means of helping our most vulnerable neighbors live with dignity. This year alone, the city created a record 1,500 new homes and preserved an additional 649. The administration clearly understands that the only way to truly end chronic homelessness is by creating and preserving more supportive housing. We look forward to continuing to work with the administration on a reallocation plan that maximizes existing resources to create additional congregate units under NYC 1515, and to preserve our essential existing stock in order to maintain — and surpass — this year’s remarkable achievements and ensure tenants have the housing and services they need and want.”
“LiveOn NY applauds HPD for their work to create and preserve record levels of affordable housing in the face of New York City’s unprecedented housing crisis. Our new housing report ‘How Long Do We Have to Wait?’ shows that there are over half a million applications from older adults seeking affordable housing in our city,” said Allison Nickerson, executive director, LiveOn NY. “We look forward to continuing our work with HPD and this administration to craft an equitable housing strategy that ensures older New Yorkers are equitably included in our city’s housing policy.”
“We commend HPD for preserving and creating over 2,100 units of affordable homeownership in New York City this year. This milestone, accomplished through a mix of new construction and preservation programs including Open Door, ANCP, HomeFix, and HomeFirst represents a significant and critical increase from the previous fiscal year,” said Christie Peale, executive director and CEO, The Center for NYC Neighborhoods, Inc. “We are grateful for the administration’s commitment to affordable homeownership, and look forward to continuing our collaboration with HPD and all our partners to expand pathways to homeownership for even more New Yorkers.”
“This record-setting year of affordable housing production is a testament to the commitment of the Adams administration and the hard work and creativity of the staff of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development,” said Moses Gates, vice president of housing and neighborhood planning, Regional Plan Association. “As New Yorkers continue to face record housing affordability challenges, this is a huge part of the solution along with needed land-use action to encourage more needed homes throughout all parts of the New York City and New York State.”
“As someone who has experienced homelessness firsthand, I can say without hesitation that lives are being saved,” said Shams DaBaron, housing and homelessness advocate. “The mayor’s focus on housing as a solution to homelessness has transformed countless lives. This administration’s openness to listening to those directly impacted by housing insecurity and homelessness, and offering us a seat at the table, has been a game-changer. From day one, I knew we were aligned in our vision to address these issues, and despite the naysayers, the data now clearly shows we are on the right side of things. Our achievements this year prove that by staying the course, we will continue to make history by doing the right thing. In FY24, there were historic achievements on housing and homelessness, and this fiscal year it’s even more. The data doesn’t lie. I remain committed to supporting this administration during this time of overwhelming need. A big shoutout to the entire administration, advocates, the development community, and all stakeholders committed to reversing decades of failed policies and thinking outside the box so we can give people stable, sustainable homes. ‘Stay focused, no distractions, and grind!’”
“As New Yorkers face higher rents and higher living costs, efforts to create and preserve truly affordable housing are critical to tackling our housing crisis head-on,” said Joe Kohl Riggs, principal, The Hudson Companies. “We commend Mayor Adams and his administration on their commitment to this issue, and we look forward to continuing to partner with the city in delivering deeply needed affordable housing for New Yorkers.”
“Congratulations to the city for this fiscal year’s remarkable accomplishment,” said Drew Popkin, founder and principal, Highpoint Property Group. “Recently, we are proud to partner with the city to deliver affordable housing to 80 New York City individuals and families in Hell’s Kitchen, a high-opportunity neighborhood. Our acquisition of four contiguous Manhattan buildings reflects our commitment to revitalizing neglected properties, and creating safe and valued housing. In collaboration with Services for the UnderServed and SMJ Development, this project addresses critical housing and quality-of-life concerns, offering both opportunity and high-quality living conditions. This project exemplifies the city’s values in developing quality affordable housing.”
“We’re thrilled to host today’s event celebrating the city’s housing accomplishments,” said Perry Perlmutter, president and CEO, Services for the UnderServed. “Melrose North is an affordable and supportive housing that is a testament of the city’s commitment to New Yorkers. At Services for the UnderServed, we believe that the solution to homelessness is homes. We’re grateful to Mayor Adams, Commissioner Carrión, HPD, HDC, NYCHA, DSS, and City Hall for building life-changing opportunities for New Yorkers in need.”
“This new milestone is a testament to what’s possible when industry, government, and non-profit partners work together,” said David Schwartz, co-founder and principal, Slate Property Group. “From ground-up developments that create quality housing to innovative projects that reimagine hotels and offices for urgently needed new homes, we are working hand-in-hand with Mayor Adams to chip away at New York’s housing shortage. We congratulate the administration and all of our partners on this latest achievement.”
“St. Nicks Alliance and greater community are thrilled to join with Hudson Companies to work closely with Mayor Adams and partner agencies to bring over 550 units of affordable housing to the former Greenpoint Hospital site in North Brooklyn,” said Frank Lang, deputy executive director for housing, St. Nicks Alliance. “Kingsland Commons truly demonstrates a community planning partnership with city and community”
July 29, 2024 New York
Sources: Midtown Tribune news, NYC.gov
Big New York news BigNY.com