NEW YORK—New York City plans to work with not-for-profit housing developers to acquire and rehabilitate 14 residential “cluster site” building. These buildings currently being used to house homeless families. This project will convert these structures into over 200 permanent affordable housing units for homeless New Yorkers.
The program will allow more than 200 homeless families to receive permanent affordable housing with rent-stabilized leases, regulatory protections, and rehabilitated apartments. Earlier this year, in the first completed conversion, the City financed not-for-profit developers’ acquisition of 17 such buildings, creating permanent affordable housing for more than 450 homeless families and preserving hundreds of additional units of affordable housing in the process.
“We’re making good on our promise to transform the shelter system and create more, high-quality permanent housing for New Yorkers in need. With these conversions, over 200 families will have homes of their own, setting them on a path to lasting stability for generations to come,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio.
Through this transaction, qualified locally-based not-for-profit housing developers will assume ownership and operation of the buildings as permanent, low-income affordable housing. Regulatory protections will be extended to the converted units to preserve their affordability for the long term, and the buildings will also undergo rehabilitation and renovation. As this transition takes place over the coming months, the cluster apartments will continue to be operated as a shelter for New Yorkers experiencing homelessness with funding and services provided by the City’s Department of Homeless Services. Homeless families residing at these locations who are prepared for housing permanency at the point of transition to not-for-profit ownership will be offered the opportunity to remain as tenants with a new rent-stabilized lease if they wish to remain in the building.
“This marks the next step in a transition that promises to uplift hundreds of more families in New York City, as we continue to convert cluster sites into permanent affordable housing urgently needed in our communities,” said Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Dr. Raul Perea-Henze. “Through the use of this innovative tool in partnership with local non-profit housing professionals who can support our families with services as needed, we continue to place homeless New Yorkers on the path to long-term stability and move closer to ending the ineffective stop-gap measure of cluster sites once and for all.”
