CLAVES DEL ÉXITO E IMPACTO EN LA SOCIEDAD
DESAFÍOS ENFRENTADOS
ESCALABILIDAD Y REPLICABILIDAD
New York State is amid the worst housing crisis in over a century. A majority of New Yorkers are rent-burdened, spending more than 30% of their paycheck on rent; a record-breaking 131,940 New Yorkers sleep in homeless shelters, with thousands more living unsheltered and doubled-up in the homes of others; everyone from teachers to tech workers are struggling to continue to afford to live in the city; and with median home prices at $785,000, the American Dream of homeownership is slipping farther out of reach, further exacerbating the racial wealth gap. Yet, there is a solution to the housing crisis hiding in plain sight.
From 1927-1975, New York City’s labor movement built 40,000 units of limited-equity cooperative housing in developments like the Amalgamated Houses and Co-op City in the Bronx, Penn South in Manhattan, Amalgamated Warbasse in Brooklyn, and Rochdale Village, Electchester, and Big Six Towers in Queens. This led to the creation of the Mitchell-Lama program, which built an additional 55,000 units of affordable cooperative and rental housing. This legacy of labor-sponsored cooperatives continues to provide the backbone of New York City’s affordable housing and a foundation for the future.
UHAB (Urban Homesteading Assistance Board) was founded in 1973 during New York City’s economic crisis to help residents without stable housing reclaim abandoned buildings in New York City and help rehabilitate those buildings as their homes.
During the next four decades (1973-2013), New York City’s low- income resident-run and resident-owned housing cooperatives have grown from several dozen to more than 1,300 buildings, providing homeownership and permanent affordability to more than 30,000 households, most of them small buildings redeemed from abandonment. This is unique and unprecedented in the U.S. and is a significant chapter in New York City’s story.
UHAB realized that while self-help rehabilitation using sweat equity was a catalyst for revitalization and growth, there was still a need to address the issue around foreclosure of physically deteriorating buildings in the city’s poorest neighborhoods. Turning the buildings over to community control was the idea that sparked the Tenant Interim Lease (TIL) Program. The program allows tenants in city-owned and tax-foreclosed buildings to form an association to manage and then purchase their buildings as limited-equity cooperatives.
For nearly 40 years, New York City contracted with UHAB to provide technical assistance to income-restricted cooperatives going through TIL. Programs for accounting and bookkeeping assistance, pre-paid legal assistance and training and education programs from how to run a heating system and boiler to how to run an efficient meeting were developed. More recently, UHAB has developed programs towards climate and social justice goals through access to share loans and expanded use of renewable energy in low-income communities and communities of color.
Today, New York City has the largest community of shared- equity housing cooperatives in the country (over 50% of the nation’s portfolio in this category). Share Equity and Housing Cooperative Ownership Models have been a successful form of affordable housing for over 100 years starting in municipalities.
New York City has led the development of U.S. affordable cooperative housing providing not only homes but community engagement and support for tens of thousands of families over generations. Cooperative homeownership maintains an essential workforce, an inclusive and representative population, and supports economic wellbeing by using its long-established and proven models.