Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Tuesday that his administration will complete its ambitious affordable housing agenda, Housing New York, two years ahead of schedule. When de Blasio took office in 2014, he made a promise to create and preserve 200,000 units of affordable housing by 2024. Now that goal will be achieved in 2022.
“We’ve kept our promises to New Yorkers, and now it’s time to go farther and faster. Like Mayor Koch before us, we are building an engine that will keep families in safe, decent and affordable homes for decades to come,” de Blasio said in a statement. “We will keep this a city for seniors, veterans, working families and the middle class.”
Since the affordable housing goal will now be achieved earlier than anticipated, the de Blasio administration has now set a new goal of 300,000 affordable apartments by 2026.
How exactly will this goal be achieved? The city plans to invest an additional $150 million each year to make this happen. These efforts will be pushed forward by several new programs. One such program is the newly unveiled Neighborhood Pillars program. This $275 million public-private partnership will particularly work to protect rent-regulated buildings in rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods.
Through this program, the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Housing Development Corporation will provide non-profits with funds to purchase rent-regulated buildings, and keep them affordable. The de Blasio administration is hopeful that this will preserve about 1,000 affordable units annually.
Along with its announcement today, the de Blasio administration is also touting its many achievements on the affordable housing front. So far the city has secured 77,651 affordable homes, which serve about 200,000 New Yorkers.
More than 40 percent of the affordable homes secured last year were for families of three making less than $33,500 or $43,000 annually. However a report published in September says this still leaves out families making less than $25,000 annually.
The de Blasio administration also praised its efforts in creating the Mandatory Inclusionary Housing policy, adding more affordable housing to existing projects like the Domino redevelopment in Williamsburg, and creating a bigger network of non-profits providing affordable housing.
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