Rachel Fee, executive director of the New York Housing Conference, will testify to the Joint Legislative Public Hearing on the FY2022 Executive Budget Proposal for Housing.

In the testimony, she supports Gov. Cuomo’s commitment of $250 million for another year of supportive housing production, extension of low-income housing credits for five years, codifying the sales tax exemption for affordable housing, and proposed changes to SONYMA to expand homeownership and support distressed homeowners.

However, with an enormous need for affordable housing and the urgency of economic recovery, she calls for further funding, including a new five-year $3 billion housing plan, including 7,000 units of supportive housing, investments to address housing poverty and homelessness and to preserve public housing, and lays out principles to take advantage of opportunities to convert hotels and offices to housing.

We detailed how a new five-year plan investment can be structured in a way that is both fiscally responsible and responsive to the urgent needs of New Yorkers throughout the state in our most recent policy brief. Interest rates are at extreme lows and the economy is in desperate need of stimulus, now is the time to double down on our investment in affordable housing.

Read her testimony here.