Fighting for Affordable Housing

About

New Yorkers are increasingly unable to afford to live in their own city. As rents and housing prices rise, our neighborhoods are becoming more segregated, homelessness continues to rise, and people are being pushed out of their communities. There is a significant lack of deep and permanently affordable housing opportunities developed for lower income new Yorkers, and particularly for the nearly 30% of households considered extremely low income. We are all in danger of losing the diverse city we love. 

Why This Matters

While the government acknowledges the affordable housing crisis, local policies and programs too often continue to serve the needs of private developers and the private market over the actual needs of New Yorkers, especially, our lowest income families. Additionally, as we have learned from the current expiring use crisis—we cannot afford to keep losing the affordable housing we develop and preserve; public investment in affordable housing should permanently serve the public interest.

What We're Doing

ANHD is fighting to create fair and affordable housing throughout New York City that prioritizes those most in need and least served by the private market.

We believe New York’s affordable housing policies and investments must be driven by the needs of our people, and not by the real estate industry or private developers. Our work attempts to shift housing resources and policies to focus on the lowest income New Yorkers. 

ANHD’s goal is for all affordable housing developed with public resources to be permanently affordable, avoiding the current time-limited affordability requirements that have left the city scrambling to preserve subsidized housing created in earlier eras with public dollars. We also want deep affordability, which ensures those at the lowest end of the income spectrum have housing opportunities in our city.

Check out the associated projects below for more information on how we are fighting for affordable housing.  

Recent Blogs and Media

Blog
April 1, 2024
ANHD urges Albany to not undermine the transformative Tenant Protection Act of 2019 and reject the Local Regulated Housing Restoration Adjustment legislation (S6352/A6772) being pushed by CHIP, RSA, REBNY, and others in the real estate lobby.

Related Resources

In this two-pager, ANHD breaks down the City’s proposed zoning changes for medium and high-density residential districts under City of Yes, Zoning for Housing Affordability.
In this two-pager, ANHD summarizes Mayor Adams’ proposed zoning changes aimed at increasing housing supply throughout the city. The proposal could lead to 58,000 to 109,000 new units over 15 years, with 15-20% being affordable.
In this two-pager, ANHD explains the citywide aspects of the City of Yes, Zoning for Housing Opportunity proposal. Find out more by downloading the two-pager today, offered in both English and Spanish.
In this two-pager, ANHD summarizes the City’s proposed zoning changes for low-density residential districts under City of Yes, Zoning for Housing Opportunity. Find out more by downloading the two-pager today, offered in both English and Spanish.
ANHD's 2024 Housing Risk Chart highlights and ranks 18 indicators of demographics and housing risk in each of New York City's 59 community districts to inform targeted, neighborhood-level action.
Though a recent deluge of articles have rung the alarm bells because citywide vacancy has dropped to 1.41%, our analysis demonstrates that our true crisis lies at the bottom of the market, where vacancy is lowest and renters most need housing.
ANHD's 2023 Risk Chart Shows Displacement and Increasing Rents in Communities of Color
Instead of relying on a misleading metric, NYC should build for households that need housing the most.
The AMI Cheat Sheet shows maximum household incomes and rents for three-person households, using 2022 AMI calculations, and estimates the share of renter households and rent-burdened households at each AMI level in New York City.

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