Assembly Member Lee Pushes New Model of Affordable Housing
State Assembly member Grace Lee (right) is co-sponsoring a proposed law that will, if enacted, create a new State agency, the Social Housing Development Authority (SHDA), which would utilize public funds, borrowing capacity, and, in some cases, publicly owned land to create permanently affordable housing. “We need to take bold and innovative action to address New York’s housing crisis and bring relief to the approximately three million families across the state that are currently housing insecure, including the thousands in Lower Manhattan,” said Ms. Lee, a longtime Lower Manhattan resident who serves as a member of the Assembly’s Housing Committee.
The bill seeks to create affordable housing distinguished by three factors. First, people living in SDHA developments would pay no more than one fourth of their income, regardless of how much they earn, toward rent (or ownership, in the case of cooperative or condominium developments). Second, a quarter of the units in these developments would be set aside for residents earning 30 percent or less of the area median income (AMI), currently around $38,000 for a household of three. And third, no more than 30 percent of the units could be allocated to residents earning more than 100 percent of AMI (now approximately $127,100, also for a household of three). In this way, SHDA would create not only affordable housing, but economically integrated developments, where low-income, middle-class, and some affluent residents would live side by side.
“Pathways to Social Housing in New York,” a 2022 report from the Community Service Society (CSS), a nonprofit that engages in policy research and advocacy to reduce urban poverty, defines social housing as “housing in the public domain… usually operated through a combination of government, nonprofit and resident ownership, regulation and management.”
“Three key features of social housing,” the report continues, include, “deep affordability (or promoting social equality); decommodification (or insulating housing from market forces); and democratic management (or enabling residents to exercise control over their housing).”
“When social housing is newly built,” CSS adds, “it typically requires public land and financing so that tenant, labor or community groups can afford the cost of construction and keep rents low. The government can also facilitate the conversion of for-profit buildings to social housing, transferring them to a group of tenants or a nonprofit, who agree to repair and operate the housing under strict regulatory agreements.”
The measure, introduced on February 6, would authorize SHDA to acquire and upgrade existing housing stock, and convert it to the model described in the CSS report. The agency would also be empowered to develop new housing. It is envisioned as a successor to other State programs that created affordable housing, such as the 421-a tax abatement (which expired in 2022), and the Mitchell-Lama program (which many legacy buildings have exited in recent years, thus diminishing the inventory of moderately priced dwellings). In this way, the bill aims to aid the one-third of New York City tenants who spend at least half of their income on rent. The bill co-sponsored by Ms. Lee would differ from both of those earlier programs, however, by mandating permanent affordability, rather than the eventual expirations provided for in 421-a and Mitchell-Lama.
“As lawmakers, we have a responsibility to identify strategies that move us towards these goals,” Ms. Lee added. “It has become increasingly clear that we cannot rely solely on the private sector. Instead, we need a toolkit that includes public sources of funding and authority. The SHDA is a highly encouraging housing development model that has the potential to produce tens of thousands of affordable homes for working-class New Yorkers. It represents one piece of a multidimensional housing approach we need to take to tackle our state’s housing crisis.”