Supportive housing across New York’s five boroughs will get a $1 billion infusion from the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, with a portion allocated to preserving the city’s stock of more than 30,000 affordable rental units that provide services to tenants at risk of homelessness and other challenges.
The Supportive Preservation Program launched Tuesday will target only existing supportive housing stock for assistance to address financial needs and grant residential real estate tax exemptions, as well as provide below-market loans and modify existing HPD loans to encourage conventional lenders, according to the announcement.
The supportive housing movement in New York took hold in the 1980s, when federal, state and local programs combined to subsidize investments in low-income housing and buildings with existing single-room occupancy units. Many of those same buildings still provide supportive housing today, but are in need of repairs and infrastructure upgrades, according to Patrick Love, Deputy Commissioner of Development at HPD.
“With this new term sheet, it will hopefully touch supportive housing developments across the entirety of the city, it’s touching stuff the city financed 20, 30, 40 years ago,” Love said.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s housing plan released last month highlighted the push to preserve tens of thousands of supportive housing units, setting a goal to build 200,000 new affordable homes and preserve 200,000 more over the coming decade.
“New York City has been at the forefront of the supportive housing movement since its inception more than forty years ago. We are proud to once again lead the way with the Supportive Preservation Program, a new initiative which will help stabilize and preserve our supportive housing stock,” Housing and Preservation Commissioner Dina Levy said in a statement.
The initiative will help Rachel Levine, Executive Director of Nazareth Housing, manage and maintain the building at 406 East 184th Street in the Bronx’s Belmont neighborhood, where HPD announced its plans. The Park Avenue Thorpe building has a bevy of aging infrastructure challenges that would benefit greatly from the funding, according to Levine.
“It’s going to be the facade, the windows, the lintels around the windows, a new roof, a new boiler, a heating system,” she said. “It’s really the structural issues that keep me up at night. To be honest, every time it rains, every time the weather changes, I’m a little anxious about what my boiler is going to do to me.”
Upgrading to more energy-efficient infrastructure will provide more stability for the building’s operating budget, allowing Levine to add maintenance staff, build up reserves for emergency repairs and have flexibility to address issues proactively.
“The amount of work that needs to be done here is several million dollars,” Levine said.
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