Leading NYC Mayoral Candidates Promise to Double Housing Spending

Eight leading candidates for mayor have promised to double New York City’s budget for housing

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Eight leading candidates for mayor have promised to double New York City’s budget for housing to $4 billion total, as recommended by United for Housing, a coalition of more than 80 groups from across the ideological spectrum and representing New York’s City’s leading policy experts and practitioners.

In a groundbreaking report released in December, United for Housing called on the next mayor to invest $4 billion to fund a comprehensive affordable housing plan during his or her mayoralty. This figure is roughly double the city’s current expenditure on housing.

The coalition, which was convened by the New York Housing Conference and includes members with a wide array of expertise on homelessness, transportation, real estate, finance and more, has directly engaged with the leading mayoral candidates to discuss their housing visions. The eight leading contenders for City Hall, each of whom participated in a televised forum hosted by United for Housing alongside the NYU Furman Center and Spectrum News NY1 last Thursday, have promised to double the city’s housing investment if they are elected:

“It is critical that the next mayor double down on solving the housing crisis because millions of New Yorkers deserve bold solutions that actually meet the scale of the problem, and we have thus far failed to provide them with a comprehensive, holistic plan that works,” said Rachel Fee, Executive Director of the New York Housing Conference, which convened United for Housing and authored the report. “It is encouraging that each of the top candidates recognize that we need to rethink the way we approach housing, and we need to do it now.”

United for Housing is tracking candidate housing commitments on its website. All eight candidates have also agreed to support the five guiding principles that shaped its report. United for Housing in 2019 began developing comprehensive policy recommendations across five policy areas: public housing, new construction of affordable housing, preservation of affordable housing, housing poverty and homelessness, and homeownership.

The specific recommendations can be found in the full report, which is accessible here.

About the United for Housing Coalition

Convened by the New York Housing Conference, the United for Housing coalition recently released a groundbreaking new report with housing policy recommendations for New York’s next mayor. The coalition consists of more than 80 groups with expertise in a wide array of issues including housing, homelessness, community development, criminal justice, finance, real estate, health care, and more.

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