The short and long-term impacts of the pandemic underscore the importance of solving New York’s housing crisis, but it also made it more challenging.
It did not just exacerbate housing insecurity for millions of New Yorkers across the state. It also put new financial constraints on local municipalities and on New York State itself that will make financing the policies needed to stimulate the development, maintenance, and preservation of affordable housing stock a more difficult task.
Creative
solutions are needed to provide relief to New Yorkers in need of a more
affordable home. One promising partnership in New York lies at the intersection
of the affordable housing industry and multi-faith coalitions who are developing
and maintaining housing on properties owned by religious institutions.
Many local
multi-faith organizations, including the Interfaith Assembly on Homelessness
and Housing and the New York State Council of Churches, are already doing the
work. They and their members capitalize on City and State programs and
initiatives to turn underutilized land into affordable housing. The potential
is huge: there are tens of thousands of units across the five boroughs at
stake.
A
partnership makes sense for several reasons. First, many religious institutions
are in dire financial straits and are seeking ways to generate revenue in the
post-COVID world. That makes many open to considering development on their
land. Second, developing affordable housing on religious land is consistent
with a mission of serving the vulnerable.
That is
why we are seeing a rise in this activity across the nation. This partnership is not just
limited to New York. A recent story in Bloomberg noted that religious groups
across the United States are looking to develop affordable housing. In fact,
religious groups are one of the largest landowners in the United States – land
that San Diego’s Yes in God’s Backyard believes “is supposed to be for the
services of the vulnerable.”
Back home
in New York, as Marc Greenberg and the Rev. Peter Cook wrote in a recent op-ed, religious leaders “see the impact
of the housing crisis every day”, with their parishioners suffering “under the
weight of soaring rents and unequal access to housing.” As community leaders
and servants, they wish to ease those struggles and can partner with our
industry to do so.
Reverend
Cook’s group is the organizer of the “Who is My Neighbor”
teach-in series, where the Council hosts seminars across New York that work
with parishioners to draw on theological foundations to find opportunities to
create affordable housing. The New York State Association for Affordable
Housing is proud to play a role in supporting these sessions.
The next
step will be for policymakers at every level to further cultivate these
initiatives as our industry continues to work with willing faith-based
partners. By continuing to work with a broad coalition of capable partners, we
can help deliver the housing New Yorkers need.
