In 2024, the New York City Progressive Caucus’s Homes Now, Homes for Generations budget campaign won $2 billion in capital spending on affordable housing and $140 million for two vital affordable housing programs.
Our Homes Now campaign galvanized support from community boards, religious leaders, and union members across the five boroughs. We won these funds after the Mayor’s Executive Budget included no new capital funding for affordable housing – which would have exacerbated the city’s housing crisis. These dollars will support permanently affordable, community-controlled housing that will provide stability and equity-building opportunities for low-income and working-class New Yorkers.
Homes Now Program Investments
The $140 million investment relaunches HPD’s Neighborhood Pillars, an essential program to rehabilitate rent-stabilized housing and ensure those units stay rent stabilized into perpetuity. Our work also more than doubles the funding for HPD’s Open Door program. This initiative provides affordable homeownership options like limited-equity cooperatives, which offer wealth-building opportunities to New Yorkers – especially those who have found homeownership out of reach – while also keeping housing affordable for future generations.
While Homes Now won much needed dollars for these prorgrams, we know that New York needs far more funds for permanently affordable housing. We will continue fighting to scale up these vital programs. By increasing investments in affordable housing even further, New York can remain a city where the cost of entry isn’t a 6-figure salary.
Homes Now Supporters
We are proud to have built a broad coalition of support for the Homes Now plan. What initially began as an initiative of the Progressive Caucus became a priority of the New York City Council writ-large and was included in Speaker Adams’s Preliminary Budget response. In Executive Budget Hearings, the Council reiterated their support for Homes Now.
Beyond the Council, our coalition included grassroots advocates, labor, community development corporations, community land trusts, electeds across NYC, faith leaders, and more. Advocates made their support publicly-known because they know we need more affordable housing in NYC:
- 6 major unions sent a letter to Mayor Adams in support of the Homes Now Plan
- 70+ faith leaders across NYC urged Mayor Adams to fund the Homes Now Plan, following the Rent Guidelines Board final vote to increase rents
- 25+ community-development corporations sent a letter to Mayor Adams in support of the Homes Now Plan
We continue to work alongside these groups for more affordable housing in NYC, where working and middle-class people can thrive.
Homes Now in the News
Op-ed | NYC can act on affordable housing as Albany balks on greater reform
Council Members Amanda Farias and Pierina Sanchez for AMNY
May 3, 2024
“As proud Bronx elected officials, we are fighting to fill the gaps and ensure the City remains affordable for low-income and working-class New Yorkers. To improve the livelihoods of residents and keep our communities strong, we call on the Mayor to fully fund the Homes Now plan in the Council’s Preliminary Budget Response with an additional $2.5 billion over the next five years to preserve and build permanently affordable rental and homeownership opportunities.”
Council Pushes for More Housing Funds As City Budget Negotiations Enter Final Weeks
City Limits
May 21, 2024
“With the extra funds they’re asking for, the Caucus says, the city could create an additional 3,100 new homes for families under the Open Door program and rehabilitate and preserve 9,000 rent-stabilized units through the Neighborhood Pillars program.
‘We believe and want to see the promise of this program of Neighborhood Pillars realized,’ said Sanchez. ‘We had some success, but we never funded it fully.’”
New York City Budget Would Produce Fewer Affordable Homes, Critics Say
The New York Times
May 17, 2024
“’It boils down to a very simple reality — New Yorkers’ No. 1 concern is housing affordability, homelessness, tackling this crisis,’ Pierina Sanchez, a Bronx Democrat who chairs the housing committee on the City Council, said in an interview. ‘We need to make sure that the way we’re spending city funds is reflective of a city that’s trying to meet that challenge.’”
City Council calls for more affordable housing and infrastructure funding
Spectrum News NY1
May 15, 2024
“’To put it simply, we have a mayor who ran on a platform of housing affordability,’ Chair of the City Council’s Committee on Housing and Buildings, Pierina Sanchez said. ‘He said he was going to dedicate $4 billion per year to the development and preservation of affordable housing. And we are still a far cry from that.’”
NYC Council pushes for more spending on affordable housing in Adams budget
NY Daily News
May 15, 2024
“’It’s not rocket science — one obvious and big way to get started reducing homelessness, driving down rents and helping working families thrive is to build more housing,’ Brannan said in a statement.
Council Members on ‘Community-Controlled’ Affordable Housing
The Brian Lehrer Show
March 21, 2024
“NYC Council Members Carmen De La Rosa, chair of the council’s labor committee, and Pierina Ana Sanchez, chair of the council’s housing committee, share details of their campaign for a capital investment that would direct more money toward permanently affordable housing.”
El Diario
12 Marzo, 2024
“’Los costos de la renta de los apartamentos son absurdos! ¡Están expulsando a la clase trabajadora y a los pobres de Nueva York! ¡No hay inversión en viviendas asequibles!’
Las tres afirmaciones anteriores, fueron el centro este lunes de una concentración conformada por líderes electos del caucus progresista de Nueva York, en su gran mayoría hispanos, organizaciones pro-vivienda y afectados por la monumental crisis de vivienda de la Gran Manzana, quienes lanzaron una nueva coalición con la campaña ‘Viviendas Ahora: Hogar para las próximas generaciones.'”
$2B sought for affordable housing
Politico
March 11, 2024
“New York City must build on its legacy of permanently affordable housing — and $2 billion in capital investments over four years is a good start, left-leaning elected officials will announce today with a ‘Homes Now, Homes for Generations’ campaign, Playbook has learned.
Sanchez and Progressive Caucus members will be joined by the city comptroller, the public advocate, housing groups and labor unions today at City Hall to urge capital commitments this budget cycle to expand the Open Door and Neighborhood Pillars programs that finance moderate-income homeownership and rent-stabilized units, respectively.”
City comptroller discusses new campaign for affordable housing
Spectrum News NY1
March 11, 2024
“City Comptroller Brad Lander joined NY1 political anchor Errol Louis on “Inside City Hall” Monday to break this down.
‘We need an all hands strategy,’ he said about the plan. ‘What this would do is focus on housing in mostly outer borough neighborhoods that working people can afford.'”
AMNY
March 11, 2024
“The campaign comes at a time when the city is facing its worst housing affordability crisis in more than a half-century, with few affordable rental apartments available to tenants. According to the city’s most recent vacancy survey just 1.4% of units across the five boroughs are available to rent in 2023. For those renting below $2,400-a-month, less than 1% were open.”