Testimony: Social Housing’s Role in a Just Housing Recovery
Oksana MironovaSamuel Stein
Thank you for the opportunity to offer comments on the State Fiscal Year 2021-2022 Housing Budget and a new five-year capital spending plan for affordable housing. Our names are Oksana Mironova and Samuel Stein and we are housing policy analysts at the Community Service Society of New York (CSS), an independent nonprofit organization that addresses some of the most urgent problems facing low-income New Yorkers and their communities, including the effects of the city’s housing affordability crisis.
Before March 2020, many low-income New Yorkers were already living on the edge, with rent eating up a substantial portion of their earnings. The pandemic has intensified an ongoing crisis. According to the latest data from the New York State Office of Court Administration, more than 225,000 tenants have been sued for eviction across New York State, as of this month. They will be on the brink of losing their homes, if New York State’s eviction moratorium is allowed to expire in January 2022. Nearly 92,000 people across the state are already unhoused.
The combined impact of the pandemic and the state’s ongoing housing crisis has not been distributed evenly. We know that low-income tenants and tenants of color have fared far worse, with Black and Latinx tenants in particular much more likely to fall behind on rent, a precursor to eviction.
For a Just Recovery, a Historic Investment in Social Housing
During our most recent housing crash, in 2008, federal, state, and local governments relied heavily on the real estate industry to resolve a crisis of its own making. After a period of decline, rental markets are now heating up again across the state. We cannot fall into the same pattern, with underfunded local governments handing control of the recovery to real estate actors who will then use the opportunity to consolidate the rental market at the expense of tenants’ livelihoods and the stability of our neighborhoods.
For a just recovery, we need New York State to use one of its most powerful tools–its budget–to incentivize social housing conversions, while disincentivizing housing speculation.
By social housing, we mean housing in the public domain, operated through a combination of government, nonprofit and resident ownership, regulation and management. Its three key features are: deep affordability (or promoting social equality); decommodification (or insulating housing from market forces); and democratic management (or enabling residents to exercise control over their housing).
Social Housing Toolbox
New York State has a rich social housing history, with developments like Co-op City continuing to provide affordable housing to tens of thousands of New Yorkers. Examples of New York State’s social housing include its early and robust public housing program, Mitchell-Lama, and low-income cooperative development through HPD’s Department of Alternative Management. The state can build on this legacy by, first and foremost, committing funding in its five-year capital plan to a new vehicle for social housing development and financing, including the acquisition of commercial and residential properties that have fallen into distress because of the pandemic. This commitment would complement last year’s passage of the Housing Our Neighbors with Dignity Act (HONDA), which supports the conversions of distressed hotels and office buildings into permanent affordable housing. Given the opportunities present in the current commercial market, and the interest in facilitating these conversions in municipalities around the state, we believe funding for this important program should be significantly expanded and made available statewide.
To ensure that social housing serves the widest range of incomes, including those New Yorkers most in need, a capital commitment is not enough. All successful housing models–from Vienna to Singapore–rely on some version of an ongoing government-provided operating support. The Housing Access Voucher Program (HAVP), introduced by Senator Kavanagh and Assemblymember Cymbrowitz (S.7628/A.9657) is a step in the right direction and should be implemented by the State, whether or not the federal government commits additional voucher funding. The pairing of rental assistance with social housing helps ensure that the State’s housing investment benefits the public in perpetuity, rather than building wealth for a private landlord.
HAVP is also a crucial tool in the fight to end our state’s historic homelessness crisis. We estimate that it would cost $543 million to house every homeless New Yorker with an HAVP voucher. Given that the program is designed to be distributed half to people experiencing homelessness and half to rent-burdened low-income tenants, an expenditure of $1 billion would universalize rental assistance and end homelessness, while retaining the power to function as an operating subsidy for social housing.
Public Housing, a Legacy Social Housing Program
For the state’s long-term recovery, it is just as important to preserve our legacy social housing programs like public housing, Mitchel-Lama and HDFC cooperatives, as it is to develop new ones. And, it is no secret that public housing in particular is in dire crisis in New York State. The New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) had a $40 billion capital backlog across its 178,000 units. Other public housing authorities across the state have capital needs that parallel NYCHA’s, given a similar history of federal, state, and local disinvestment. For example, Poughkeepsie’s 359 units require $7 million of capital work, Syracuse’s 1,800 units need $21 million, while Buffalo’s four priority developments need $137 million, to reach a base level of day to day habitability.
Until we hear further from Washington on the fate of the public housing component of the Build Back Better infrastructure bill, we continue to ask Albany for $1.5 billion a year for NYCHA capital improvements, to be matched by the city, and additional funding for other public housing authorities across the state. Once the federal commitment is settled, we might modify the state ask. We also look forward to NYCHA Task Force, under the lead of Lieutenant Governor Benjamin, as an opportunity to address any further capital gaps as well as deal with other outstanding NYCHA-related concerns.
Tenants’ Rights Are a Foundation for Social Housing
While a significant funding commitment to social housing is the most important step the state can take toward a just housing recovery, laws that expand tenants’ rights form an important foundation for social housing development. Protection from unjust evictions, the right of first refusal during the sale or foreclosure of a property, access to attorneys during eviction proceedings all play a role in limiting the speculative potential of a property, preventing its acquisition price from ballooning. Tenant protection laws also encourage tenants to organize and exercise their rights, building capacity for cooperative ownership. This is why we call on the state to pass:
- Good Cause Eviction Protection (S2892, introduced by Senator Salazar/A05030, introduced by Assemblymember Hunter).
- Statewide Right to Counsel (S6678, introduced by Senator May/ A7570, introduced by Assemblymember Joyner).
- Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (S3157, introduced by Senator Myrie/ A5971, introduced by Assemblymember Mitaynes).
Solutions to the State’s housing and homelessness crises will require substantial investment and a significant reorientation of the State’s tax policy. One potential place to start is to abolish the 421a tax abatement (S7238, introduced by Senator Myrie/A01931, introduced by Assemblymember Rosenthal). Also known, paradoxically, as Affordable Housing New York, it cost the city $1.7 billion in foregone tax revenue in Fiscal Year 2021 and has shown, time and time again, to be extremely inefficient in supporting the State’s housing affordability goals.
Thank you again for the opportunity to offer our comments. For more information or if you have any questions, please contact Oksana Mironova at omironova@cssny.org or Samuel Stein at sstein@cssny.org.