EVERY NEW YORKER DESERVES A SAFE AND AFFORDABLE PLACE TO LIVE
The City’s diverse housing options accommodate people from every imaginable background. That diversity drives economic growth, as employers locate here to take advantage of the city’s vast talent pool. Maintaining and expanding these opportunities depends on addressing the housing crisis. Simply put, at a time when economic mobility is far too limited around the country, the opportunities in New York City can help people get ahead — but only if they have adequate housing they can afford.
Housing affordability remains an enormous challenge for many residents, particularly low-income New Yorkers. Lack of affordable housing can force residents to make stark choices, such as putting up with substandard housing conditions that negatively impact their health and well-being. Low-income families might be forced to make difficult trade-offs between food, heating, and other basic needs. Some might be forced to leave the City altogether, while others may become homeless. The long history of housing discrimination that limited access to housing and economic opportunity all too often means the communities hit hardest by today’s crisis are those that have suffered in the past. And increasingly, our housing challenges are intertwined with those of the surrounding region, because the region overall is providing too
few affordable housing options.
