NYC Finances More Than 12,000 Affordable Homes in Mamdani’s First Six Months
Photo by Florian Wehde
NEW YORK — The Mamdani administration said Tuesday that New York City financed the creation and preservation of 12,491 affordable homes during the first six months of 2026, including more than 2,000 units intended for formerly homeless New Yorkers.
The city also said it connected 9,970 New Yorkers to affordable housing between January and June, including 4,370 people who had previously experienced homelessness.
More than half of the homes financed during the period are intended for households earning less than 50% of the area median income, the administration said. For a two-person household, that threshold is roughly $68,000 a year.
Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani said the figures reflect his administration’s effort to address the city’s housing shortage through a combination of new construction, preservation of existing affordable units and faster placement of eligible residents into apartments.
“Affordable housing is a lifeline for millions of New Yorkers, and we made it our responsibility to meet the housing crisis with the scale and urgency it demands,” Mamdani said in a statement. “In just our first six months, we financed more than 12,000 affordable homes.”
The announcement covers the second half of fiscal year 2026 and comes as the administration advances a proposed $22 billion capital investment in affordable housing over five years. City officials said the funding is part of Mamdani’s first budget as mayor and is intended to support an expanded housing-production strategy.
The administration’s Block by Block housing plan calls for the use of new financing mechanisms to make affordable development more efficient. Officials also cited proposed “SPEED” reforms, which they said could cut as much as two years from the predevelopment, permitting and lease-up timeline for affordable housing projects.
Deputy Mayor for Housing and Planning Leila Bozorg said the administration is pairing public investment with changes intended to reduce bureaucratic delays.
“We are making historic investments and cutting through red tape to deliver the housing relief that New Yorkers need, more quickly,” Bozorg said. “We will scale up this work in the years to come.”
Senior, supportive and public housing
The 12,491 homes financed in the first half of the year included 1,428 affordable homes for seniors and 1,287 supportive-housing units, according to the mayor’s office.
The city also provided preservation financing for 1,198 apartments in Mitchell-Lama developments, a state-supervised housing program that includes apartments for middle-income and moderate-income residents.
At New York City Housing Authority properties, the administration said NYCHA completed 32 capital projects at 29 developments from January through June. The work benefited more than 50,000 residents and included improvements to heating systems, elevators, roofs, facades, waste-management systems and community centers.
The administration also said it financed preservation work for more than 900 NYCHA apartments through the Permanent Affordability Commitment Together, or PACT, program. The program uses public-private partnerships to renovate public housing developments while maintaining long-term affordability protections.
NYCHA Chief Executive Officer Lisa Bova-Hiatt said investments in existing public housing are central to the city’s broader affordability strategy.
“Through meaningful investment in both new affordable housing opportunities and the preservation of our existing housing stock, together we are strengthening NYCHA communities across the city,” Bova-Hiatt said.
City agencies cite faster production goals
Department of Housing Preservation and Development Commissioner Dina Levy said the city is using initiatives such as SPEED and LIFT to expand production, including homeownership, senior and supportive-housing units.
Levy said the administration expects to build 50% more homeownership units and 40% more senior and supportive-housing units this year than the annual average over the previous four years. She also pointed to the administration’s stated goal of delivering 200,000 affordable homes over the next decade.
“New Yorkers are struggling with high housing costs — and bringing them down is this administration’s top priority,” Levy said.
Housing Development Corp. President Eric Enderlin said the city’s housing agencies would continue coordinating efforts to build and preserve affordable and public housing, particularly for residents with the greatest housing needs.
Department of Social Services Commissioner Erin Dalton described affordable housing as both a tool for moving people out of shelters and preventing others from entering the shelter system.
“It’s both the exit ramp out of shelter and the guardrail that keeps New Yorkers from falling into homelessness in the first place,” Dalton said.