Social housing is permanently affordable, prioritizes community ownership and democratic control, and is protected from market forces. Social housing includes limited-equity co-operatives, publicly stewarded rental housing, and community land trusts.

New York State has long been a pioneer of social housing, building out the first public housing in the nation and hundreds of thousands of other permanently affordable rentals and limited-equity coops through programs like Mitchell Lama, the Urban Development Corporation and the Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFCs). Other cities in countries across the world from Vienna to Singapore have built out ambitious social housing programs that have vastly improved access to affordable, quality housing for their residents.

The Permanently Affordable Social Housing for New Yorkers (PASHNY) Act, introduced in 2024 by State Senator Cordell Cleare (S5674) and Assemblymember Emily Gallagher (A06265), would create a New York State Social Housing Development Authority [SHDA]. The SHDA will be a new public authority tasked with constructing high-quality, permanently affordable, union-built, energy efficient mixed-income housing across New York State. With the ability to directly finance and construct new housing as well as to acquire and rehabilitate existing housing, the SHDA is designed to use public funds as efficiently and productively as possible, producing housing at a scale, speed and depth of affordability that can’t be achieved with our current patchwork system of affordable housing production.

Housing built by the SHDA is for everyone: it is affordable to people with a range of incomes, including teachers, nurses, construction workers, social workers, students, seniors and other working-class New Yorkers. All residents of SHDA properties will pay no more than 25% of income on housing costs. At least 25% of homes created by the SHDA will be affordable to low- and no-income households. Unlike housing built with tax incentives, for which affordability and tenant protections often expire after a set period, this housing would stay permanently affordable, allowing residents to set long-term roots in their communities.

The SHDA could build or convert existing housing to rentals and coops in a range of housing types, from rehabbed and retrofitted single family homes and townhouses, to new construction mixed-use multi-family buildings, depending on local need.

The SHDA will have the ability to build new carbon-neutral, all-electric housing in walkable, transit-rich neighborhoods. And it can quickly acquire and rehabilitate old, dilapidated housing, financing capital repairs, electrification and weatherization upgrades in homes across the state. With sustainable design, construction techniques and building materials, the SHDA will be a leader in meeting sustainability goals in affordable housing in NYS, and would create scaled-up demand for innovative green building technologies, leading to increased availability and lower costs.

Residents will have empowered tenant associations with control over their building’s management, as well as seats on the SHDA board—alongside labor and affordable housing representatives.

The SHDA has flexible guidelines for the types of housing it creates and processes for community input. It can focus on local conditions and meet housing needs for every community, from acquiring and rehabilitating aging, deteriorating housing in upstate cities to building new, low-cost housing in rapidly gentrifying areas in New York City.

House the Future is the statewide campaign to pass the Permanently Affordable Social Housing for New Yorker’s Act, led by tenants, homeless people and advocates for an equitable solution to the housing crisis. It has been endorsed by:

• The Housing Justice for All coalition and its member organizations
• New York Working Families Party
• Building Construction Trades Council of Greater New York
• New York City District Council of Carpenters
• United Federation of Teachers
• UAW Region 9a
• New York City, Mid-Hudson Valley, Buffalo and Long Island Democratic Socialists of America Chapters
• Mason Tenders’ District Council of Greater New York & Long Island

Local representatives: The PASHNY Act is co-sponsored by State Senator Michelle Hinchey and Assemblymember Sarahana Shrestha.