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
June 15, 2022
Mayor Eric Adams' Housing Our Neighbors
We are thrilled that after years of ANHD-led advocacy, the Adams Administration has finally moved New York City away from the problematic affordable housing unit count goals of past housing plans. That metric led to a focus on so-called affordable housing solutions that simply chased after numbers instead of prioritizing the needs of struggling New Yorkers. Instead, we should be focusing on the outcomes our communities need – outcomes like ending homelessness, preventing displacement, eliminating rent burdens, and ensuring safe, healthy housing for all. In order to accomplish those goals, we need to look holistically at the full housing landscape in NYC, and we applaud the Administration for incorporating the full spectrum of housing, from homelessness to NYCHA to tenant protections to homeownership in the Housing Our Neighbors blueprint.

Related Resources

An analysis of the feasibility of building permanently affordable housing, incliding newly proposed models.
On June 26, 2015 after a long campaign by the tenant and affordable housing movement both he Rent Laws and the 421a Developer Tax Break were renewed in Albany. The results, on both fronts, were not...
A district-by-district analysis of what was lost, gained and remaining in affordable housing in areas rezoned for Vountary Inclusionary Housing under Mayor Bloomberg
An analysis of affordable housing production in 2015/16 based on Albany's 421a tax break decision
A comparative analysis of the Albany proposals for rent law reform & 421a developer's tax break legislation
An annual city-wide analysis of key threats to affordable housing broken down by neighborhood
ANHD today released the 2015 edition of our annual risk chart:  How is Affordable Housing Threatened in Your Neighborhood? Each year the chart takes a variety of indicators of threats to affordable...
An annual city-wide analysis of key threats to affordable housing broken down by neighborhood

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