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PUBLIC OWNERSHIP OF HOUSING COULD BE CLOSER THAN YOU THINK  
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Mindy Isser
February 15, 2024
In These Times
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_ Forget private developers—cities and states could just build
their own housing to solve the crisis. In New York, now there’s a
bill to do it. _

The Brooklyn Basin development. , Jane Tyska/Digital First Media via
Getty Images

 

The housing crisis in New York is the worst it’s been in over five
decades, and low-income residents are being hit the hardest. As
a result, homelessness is on the uptick and working-class families
are being forced out of the city at an alarming rate. In the midst of
this emergency, an array of progressive politicians and organizers are
joining in an effort to move away from private sector development as
the sole tool to address the severe housing shortage. 

In early February, New York State Assemblymember Emily Gallagher and
State Sen. Cordell Cleare introduced a bill to create the Social
Housing Development Authority. This proposed agency would be tasked
with developing permanently affordable, union-built social housing,
which would be owned by the public — not private developers.
While social housing hasn’t yet caught on in the modern United
States, examples of this approach can be found all over the world, and
housing activists believe it may be the only way to actually meet
tenants’ needs.

Gallagher and Cleare’s bill would establish a state-run Social
Housing Development Authority (SHDA) as a public benefit corporation,
which would increase the supply of permanently affordable housing in
the entire state, both through the construction of new housing and
through the acquisition and rehabilitation of existing properties. 

Cea Weaver, the Campaign Coordinator of Housing Justice for All, tells
_In These Times, _​“a public authority has all sorts of powers
that you can’t really reach through the private sector: like the
ability to issue bonds, to override zoning, and to basically take
profit out of the equation and re-invest money back into the authority
so that it can expand itself.” 

Bill supporters say
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the proposed authority would be more efficient than existing housing
agencies because it would be responsible for nearly all aspects of the
housing process, such as acquiring land and properties, along with
dealing with zoning, financing and construction. And because the SHDA
won’t be driven by the same profit motive as private developers, the
authority would be able to reinvest excess funds back into creating
even more housing. As a result, the SHDA’s initial price tag stands
at $5 billion — which would be funded by a combination of bonds
and state subsidies — an amount that supporters say pales in
comparison to losses the state has faced from 421-a, a now-expired
and controversial tax exemption for developers. 

According to Andrew Schustek [[link removed]],
a housing researcher and writer, ​“Brad Lander, our city
comptroller, just put out a report that said in 2022
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missed out on nearly $2 billion — just in a year — on
421-a.” While developers see 421-a as an incentive
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for residential development, opponents argue that it was the city’s
most expensive tax break, from 2007 until its expiration in 2022.

At its core, the idea behind social housing is to provide
publicly-owned and operated housing for everyone by building more
stock, keeping rents low and stabilizing the construction industry to
provide a steady rate of new housing.

It is no secret that New York is facing an extreme housing crisis.
According to the Coalition for the Homeless
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homelessness in the city has reached its highest levels since the
Great Depression. More than 90,000 people sleep in shelters, including
more than 33,000 children. (This number does not include the thousands
of people who sleep on the street, in subway stations, or elsewhere.)
The Coalition points to a lack of affordable housing as the primary
cause of homelessness, which is not news to housing activists who
believe that private developers build too much luxury housing
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and not enough for those who need it most. 

Across the country, the story is much the same
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record levels of homelessness and soaring eviction rates, alongside an
all-time high of renters who are cost-burdened (those who spend more
than 30% of their income on rent and utilities). 

At its core, the idea behind social housing is to provide
publicly-owned and operated housing for everyone by building more
stock, keeping rents low and stabilizing the construction industry to
provide a steady rate of new housing. In addition, social housing can
benefit both the labor and environmental movements by embracing
unionized construction and energy efficiency. And, advocates say, such
an approach can help cut against long-standing discriminatory
practices in the private housing market. 

Sen. Cleare, who represents Harlem, is concerned about gentrification
and displacement, and how it has affected the Black community. At the
SHDA’s launch earlier this month, she said, ​“As a lifelong
resident of Harlem, the Harlem that my parents fought to build through
organizing and sweat equity, it has broken my heart to see how the
policies of the past not only failed us, but fast-tracked extreme
gentrification and the displacement of Black people. Fourth and fifth
generation Black households are wondering how much longer they can
hold on, and our young people, after they graduate college, do not
even bother to try and come home because the rent is too damn high!”
Black and Latino New Yorkers are disproportionately affected
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by homelessness: nearly 60% of homeless shelter residents are Black
and 31% are Latino.

When Assemblymember Gallagher went to Vienna in fall 2022 to explore
that city’s extensive social housing projects
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she was amazed by what she saw. She tells _In These Times _that being
in Vienna ​“made me aware of the extent that housing insecurity
controls our society. When I spoke to tenants, [issues like] worrying
about where they would live, asking for repairs, thinking about
​‘their next move’ were so much less fraught. They were focused
on a life they wanted to live, rather than the life that was allowed
at the end of working and paying rent.” In Vienna
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3 in 5 people live in public housing and the municipality itself
serves as the largest landlord, maintaining around 800,000 housing
units. Sweden and Finland also each host their own
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social housing networks. 

New York is not a stranger to social housing — the city
actually has the most social housing in the country
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thanks to major investments made in the 20th century into projects
like Co-Op City in the East Bronx. 

“My union built and funded Electchester [a complex of 38 buildings
in Queens constructed in 1949 by Local 3 of the International
Brotherhood of Electrical Workers], social housing for the working
class,” says IBEW Local 3 member Gustavo Gordillo.

“It’s where we still have our own union meetings. The green social
housing bill [SHDA] is a way for workers to take control of our city
and our industry, and build what workers need, not just what the 1%
will allow.” 

In 2023, the rental vacancy rate in New York stood at just 1.4%
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With more renters competing for fewer apartments, landlords have even
more power over tenants, with the ability to raise rents and garner
other concessions. All of the important players in the housing
world — politicians, unions, the real estate industry and tenant
activists — are united around a need for more housing. But the
sticking point is what kind of housing. 

According to Weaver from Housing Justice for All, ​“All of the
tools we have now are all about incentivizing the private developers
to build. But they don’t have to build. You can incentivize them all
they want, but it’s still up to them, and it’s created a crisis
in the development of affordable housing. One little change in the
market and they’re like, ​‘we’re not interested in
this anymore.’”

The NYC Building & Construction Trades Council (BCTC) is frequently
politically aligned with the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY),
the city’s real estate trade association. Gary LaBarbera, who leads
both the city and state chapters of the BCTC, has called the
relationship between the union council and real estate board
​“symbiotic
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in the past, as both organizations are focused primarily on building,
which creates new work for union members. But while the REBNY has said
that Gallagher and Cleare’s social housing bill is based in
​“idealism and ideology
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the Building Trades Council has endorsed it. Kevin Elkins, the
Political Director of the NYC District Council of Carpenters (which is
a member of the Building Trades Council and has also individually
endorsed the legislation), says that New York needs to ​“realign
housing policy and housing construction towards the people living in
it and the people building it.” 

The BCTC’s support of this bill may represent a fissure in
a politically important coalition for the private real estate
industry. Avi Garelick [[link removed]], a housing
researcher and writer, tells _In These Times _that ​“creating this
divide between labor and tenants has been a big part of New York
politics for a long time, so this is really troubling from real
estate’s perspective.” Current union endorsers besides BCTC and
the Carpenters include UAW-Region 9 and the Mason Tenders’ District
Council of Greater New York & Long Island. Assemblymember Gallagher
says she hears ​“time and time again from unions how rarely 421-a
buildings are built with 100% union labor. Because the money to be
spent on union wages cuts into the profit for developers, if they can
get away with using something cheaper, they often do.” 

The proposed bill also represents a chance to build new, energy
efficient housing. Gallagher, one of eight democratic socialists
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serving in Albany, tells _In These Times_, ​“much of what is
holding back our climate goals is a cost versus profit analysis…
With green social housing, we can invest state capital in long term
solutions like energy efficiency and public renewable energy that lead
to all of our benefit.” 

New York is not the only state dealing with a housing crisis, which
legislators and activists around the country are working creatively to
solve. In Montgomery County, Maryland
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an affluent suburban area outside of Washington D.C., legislators
resolved to increase the affordable housing stock
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by using public money to create a revolving fund that would finance
the building of nearly 9,000 new units. It’s a relatively new plan,
passed by the Montgomery County Council in 2021, but so far it appears
to be working: the first publicly-funded project opened in April 2023,
and is 97% rented. And last February, voters in Seattle
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approved an initiative to create the Seattle Social Housing Developer,
a public development authority to create social housing in the city.

Of course, plans for the New York State Social Housing Development
Authority are much grander, as it would encompass the entire state,
not just one county or one city. Organizers, activists, and
legislators know this is an uphill battle, and may take years to
realize, but Elkins from the Carpenters union says it’s ​“a
fight worth having.” The bill currently has 11 sponsors in the
Assembly and 5 in the Senate, and supporters are unsure whether Gov.
Hochul would sign it even if it made it to her desk. But, Weaver
believes, ​“where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

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* Social Housing; New York City Housing; Public Housing History;
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