On Friday, Governor Cuomo and leaders of the NY State Legislature announced a budget deal with significant new funding for affordable housing. New York Housing Conference thanks Governor Cuomo and members of the NY State Legislature for $2 billion in new funding for a comprehensive statewide housing plan to combat housing affordability and homelessness.
With big ticket items like minimum wage, paid family leave and income tax breaks being negotiated down to the wire, lawmakers funded a new housing plan but could not reach agreement on details of this new initiative. Therefore, funding will be subject to a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Governor, Assembly and Senate. New PACB and ESDC approvals for “volume cap” proposed in the Governor’s Executive were not included in the final budget. This is good news as we believe they would have been detrimental to affordable housing and were advocating to exclude new approvals from the budget.
While we don’t have too many details on the Governor’s 100,000-unit, 5-year affordable housing plan, we expect significant budget increases for many existing programs listed in the chart below. We hope Governor Cuomo will release his comprehensive vision for affordable housing preservation and development in New York State in advance of the MOU talks to facilitate discussion around the housing needs of New York State.
Budget Highlights
- More than $1 million in settlement funds have funded housing and homeless programs over the past year since NYHC issued analysis on availability of funds from bank settlements. In this budget, $590 million of the $2 billion in new housing capital is funded by settlement funds. NYHC analysis of accumulated settlements was helpful in establishing the availability of these funds for housing.
- Low Income Housing Trust Fund, Homes for Working Families and the Rural and Urban Community Investment Fund Program all see increases. In addition, significant funding in the new housing plan will be allocated to producing supportive housing as the Governor has committed to 20,000 new units over the next 15 years.
- It is unclear if a new Affordable Senior Housing Program will be funded out of the $2 billion housing plan this year although there certainly was great interest in senior housing in Albany thanks to our advocacy partners who helped us reinforce the need to plan for our State’s growing elderly population.
- Unlike last year, NYCHA has not been appropriated $100 million this year, which we have been advocating to go towards new roofs. Given the financial needs of the housing authority and the serious consequences of mold to tenants’ health, we hope $100 million will be funded out of the $2 billion housing plan to ensure NYCHA buildings are safe and healthy homes for their residents.
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