Opinion: Council progressives call for rentals within reach

Almost exactly 100 years ago, then-First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt spoke at the ribbon cutting of the first NYCHA development. She stressed how public housing could reshape the tenement buildings that defined early 20th century life, saying, “for the first time the rentals are within the reach” of the residents who lived in the notorious slums. 

With an urgent affordability crisis confronting our city, the New York City Council Progressive Caucus is focused on activating the deeply affordable housing controlled by the City of New York that is stunningly sitting vacant. Through our Rentals within Reach initiative, we could house over 20,000 working class New Yorkers by repairing vacant public housing and supportive housing apartments. 

Today, a record number of NYCHA and supportive housing units are vacant and in disrepair. With a heartbreaking 100,000 homeless people sleeping in our shelter system and on the streets, and Rikers Island’s status as the state’s largest psychiatric provider, we’ve propped up transitional shelter and the carceral system while the prospect of permanent housing slips further out of reach of more and more New Yorkers. If fully funded with $248 million, Rentals within Reach would help ensure NYCHA and supportive housing are key pillars of our city’s safety net. 

With a backlog of over 6,200 vacant units, representing more than the entirety of Queensbridge and Red Hook Houses combined, the city currently prepares apartments for occupancy at a rate of just 390 per month. The city needs new resources to meet the moment. Members of the Council Progressive Caucus are demanding that NYCHA repair 1,000 units per month. Our campaign calls for $170 million to expedite vacant unit repairs in NYCHA – consisting of $100 million in capital and $70 million in expense funding.

Just as Mayor Zohran Mamdani filled over 100,000 potholes in the first 100 days of his administration, we are calling for that same urgency to renovate an ever-growing number of NYCHA vacancies. We estimate this vacant unit blitz would house 21,000 New Yorkers over the next 12 months. 

The second prong of our advocacy this year centers on $78 million to renovate 1,000 vacant supportive housing units and permanently preserve an additional 325 underutilized units. We’re calling for a $13 million flexible expense pot to allow for repairs to city funded supportive housing, so providers can swiftly provide  apartments to homeless New Yorkers. Additionally, we join the Supportive Housing Network of New York in calling for $65.3 million to permanently preserve 325 units as part of the City’s supportive housing initiative. 

Council Progressives recognize this is a lean year, but this proposal will also include significant savings on shelter costs and jail avoidance costs. In this new era of city politics, we cannot return to the austerity years of Eric Adams and we appreciate the progress made in the Mayor’s Executive Budget proposal. Rentals within Reach is a smart investment that will provide over 20,000 of our struggling neighbors with stable, accessible housing and the wrap-around services they deserve.