Back-to-Back Years of Building More Housing and Making Our City More Affordable

by Mayor Eric Adams

| Photo by Andreas M on Unsplash

If there is one issue that unites New Yorkers from every walk of life, it’s housing.

Our city’s rental vacancy rate is at a historic low of 1.4 percent, which shows how few homes are available for rent. Half of all New Yorkers pay more than 30 percent of their income on rent. The numbers do not lie: our city faces a housing shortage crisis that affects the cost of living and must be addressed as swiftly and aggressively as possible.

The solution is simple: to build more new, affordable homes and get more people into our existing housing. I’m proud to say we have done just that and more AGAIN this past fiscal year. To meet this moment head-on, our administration has achieved back-to-back record-breaking years of creating and connecting New Yorkers to affordable housing.

For the second year, the city has produced the most supportive housing and housing for formerly homeless New Yorkers. This year, our administration also financed the most affordable new homes in history.

Following decades of disinvestment, we have converted 3,678 New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) apartments into newly renovated residences. We have delivered on moving a record number of homeless New Yorkers into permanently affordable housing through the highest usage of City Fighting Homelessness and Eviction Prevention Supplement (CityFHEPS) housing vouchers. Our city agencies financed 28,944 affordable and public housing units in fiscal year 2024 through new construction and preservation initiatives.

It is a game changer for working people, families, immigrants, young people, and others in need.

“We have delivered on moving a record number of homeless New Yorkers into permanently affordable housing through the highest usage of City Fighting Homelessness and Eviction Prevention Supplement (CityFHEPS) housing vouchers. Our city agencies financed 28,944 affordable and public housing units in fiscal year 2024 through new construction and preservation initiatives.

While today we celebrate our progress, tomorrow we need to get back to work and aim even higher. Our ‘City of Yes for Housing Opportunity’ initiative is another tool we have to produce over 108,000 new homes that our city needs and deserves in the next 15 years. Additionally, we have advanced several robust planning efforts to 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, and Long Island City and Jamaica in Queens. As we work to advance each of these bold proposals, we are calling on our partners at the City Council to help us solve this housing crisis by saying “yes” to more affordable housing.

Last month, with Speaker Adams and the City Council, we invested a historic $2 billion in capital funds in the Department of Housing Preservation and Development and public housing at NYCHA. It brings our investment in affordable housing over the current 10-year plan to more than 26 billion dollars—a new record level. I know the City Council understands the importance of taking action and looks forward to our work together.

But while the numbers are impressive, more importantly, behind each record-breaking number is a human impact and story. I know what it is like to live without the security of housing. Growing up on the edge of homelessness, my siblings and I had to take trash bags full of clothes to school because there were days when we couldn’t be sure where we would sleep that night. That is why, from day one, our administration has been committed to making this city more affordable and livable.

Every day, we fight to ensure that New Yorkers don’t have to go through what I did by building more homes and connecting more New Yorkers to the homes we already have. Together, we can and will make a city that is more affordable and accessible for all.

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