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Opinion

Seizing the Opportunity to Create New Affordable Housing at Reduced Cost


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Housing (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


In Governor Cuomo’s State of the State this week, he announced support for plans to convert underutilized commercial buildings into supportive and affordable housing, saying, "The housing problem in our cities has gotten worse. But the crisis of growing vacancies in our commercial property provides an opportunity. We should convert vacant commercial space to supportive and affordable housing and we should do it now."

The governor is right, and this could not come at a more critical time. With an economic downturn and real estate devalued, some buildings – especially hotels and class B and C offices – are distressed, creating an opening for owners willing to sell at a discount and for nonprofit developers to purchase buildings and transform them into desperately-needed housing.

Nonprofits like Breaking Ground are ready to jump on these opportunities and will need investment capital from government partners to move them forward, with the potential to unlock thousands of new housing units that can be brought online quickly. It can also be done much more efficiently and affordably: repositioning old hotels into housing can be done at nearly half the cost of ground-up new development. New construction of supportive housing costs nearly $500,000 per unit on average and often takes at least two years to build and open. However, the conversion of distressed hotel properties to SRO supportive housing could cost just $300,000 per unit and be ready in as quickly as 12 months.

There are many formats the new housing can take, from traditional affordable and supportive housing models where each unit has its own private kitchen, bathroom, and living area, to reinvigorating the older concept of SROs, or single-room occupancy. 

Converting legacy hotels to SROs would fill an immediate need and help provide more flexible forms of housing in the continuum that serves people experiencing homelessness and people in need of a deeply affordable place to live. With on-site services – including meal options and education around simple and healthy cooking for units that cannot be equipped with kitchens – this housing would be especially attractive and suitable for seniors, youth, and other single adults. 

Today, more than 18,000 single adults utilize New York City’s congregate shelter system, and thousands more sleep on the streets and in the subways. By creating new SROs, we could reduce this number significantly and fast.  

We know this model works. Breaking Ground has led successful conversions of multiple hotels in the city including our flagship 652-unit Times Square location – which opened 30 years ago and is still the largest supportive housing residence in the country – and the Prince George hotel in the Flatiron District. Breaking Ground also has a current hotel renovation underway: 90 Sands in Dumbo which will bring nearly 500 units of affordable and supportive housing to one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the country next year. Thousands of previously underserved men and women have built lives of dignity and security in our supportive housing sites, including repurposed hotels.

It’s a win-win. Public dollars can be leveraged now in a way that was not possible just a few months ago, and this period likely will not last.

More often than not, we lament over not investing in smart real estate opportunities at the right time – this moment should not be one of those times, especially as New Yorkers continue to suffer from the loss of jobs and income, and with the looming threat of the loss of housing. With support from government partners, we can fast-track the creation of new deeply affordable housing for the formerly homeless and low-income New Yorkers.

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Brenda Rosen is Breaking Ground President & CEO. On Twitter @BrGround.

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We Need Joe Biden to Become the Climate President, and for Chuck Schumer to Help Get Him There


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Joe Biden with solar panels (photo: Christopher Dilts/Biden for President)


Climate change poses an existential threat to humanity. Global warming and extreme weather are accelerating.

We need Joe Biden to be the Climate President, especially after the four lost years under  climate-denier Donald Trump. This begins with Biden taking comprehensive executive action on climate change on day one.

A number of large coalitions (e.g., ClimatePresident.org) have outlined a comprehensive list of executive actions the president can take without the need for congressional approval. It includes setting a goal of moving to 100% clean electricity by 2030 (though that sector accounts for only a quarter of carbon emissions). It embraces a commitment to environmental justice and a just transition to ensure that all individuals benefit from the changes.

Most importantly, it calls to keep fossil fuels in the ground, including a halt to new fossil fuel infrastructure and a ban on fracking. Other countries have shown that a dramatic increase in renewables does not necessarily result in major cuts in greenhouse gas emission.

Biden’s support for rejoining the Paris climate accords is a welcome common-sense step. The head of the United Nations has pleaded with countries to declare a climate emergency – and act accordingly. Just like America did after Pearl Harbor, we need a society-wide mobilization of all resources and brainpower to solve the climate crisis.

Many scientists sugarcoat the realities of climate change, worrying that the truth would lead to despair and a sense of hopelessness. Yet the present approach is falling far short of the needed climate action; saying climate change is real is not a solution. Young people have become our climate leaders, rejecting the timid, go-slow approach of our political leaders.

The IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change) has consistently underestimated the speed and severity of global warming. The warming that has already taken place in the Arctic has exceeded what scientists thought wouldn’t happen until the end of the century. The IPCC’s warning that we have 11 years left for unprecedented worldwide action on climate is overly optimistic; we must do everything we can immediately, not propose 30-year deadlines.

A decade ago I helped the Green Party initiate the first call in the United States for a Green New Deal. It combined a rapid ten-year transition to 100% renewables, zero-emissions with an Economic Bill of Rights (guaranteed living wage jobs, universal health care, housing, education) as FDR had called for in his last State of the Unions.

Congressional Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Sunshine Movement two years ago elevated the Green New Deal to a new level of public awareness. Unfortunately, subsequent Green New Deal versions have weakened it, dropping the ban on new fossil fuel infrastructure. Democrats have pushed the deadline for “net-zero” emissions to 2050 and too often just use the term Green New Deal to highlight that investing in renewables is a job-creation strategy. They promote carbon capture, an expensive and speculative technology designed to allow the continued use of fossil fuels.

The response to COVID-19 showed that it is possible to rapidly change day-to-day existence. The Green New Deal should be the core of our covid economic relief package, as Europe and South Korea have done. Newly-elevated Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York has highlighted that a green economic stimulus will be a major focus for him, along with 100% new renewable cars by 2035. He has formally co-sponsored the THRIVE agenda developed by Green New Deal organizers. Climate groups are looking for Senator Schumer to go bold and make 2021 a transformational moment. As usual, there will be fights over what fits into a sustainable green package. 

The world has slowly begun the long-overdue pivot to develop renewable energy. But we will not avoid climate collapse if we believe we can merely unplug our industrial societies from fossil fuels and plug into renewables. The American lifestyle, with its wasteful consumption of energy and resources, is not sustainable.

Pope Francis in his Climate Encyclical pointed out that the capitalist system and its focus on profits has failed humanity. Climate change will be solved only if we make the common good our top priority. Solving climate change means embracing a world based on sustainability and equality. Ecosocialism would enable us to democratically plan the economy to meet everyone’s basic needs within ecological limits. Having hedge funds get rich off of renewable energy won’t solve the climate crisis.

Far more attention needs to be paid to transportation, the largest source of emissions, and buildings, the fourth largest. We have to reject the use of natural gas as a bridge fuel; rather it is a gangplank to climate disaster. We need to heat/cool buildings by using geothermal or air heat pumps. We need expanded mass transit, not hundreds of millions of electric cars.

Biden’s call for climate action helped him win the election. His climate policies in the general election were significantly stronger than during the primary. The world needs him to continue his evolution to a climate champion.

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Mark Dunlea is a leader of the Green Education and Legal Fund. On Twitter @DunleaMark.

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Mend the Health Care Safety Net for LGBTQ New Yorkers


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The NYC LGBT Community Center (photo: LGBT Community Center)


LGBTQ New Yorkers are facing a unique and urgent health care challenge. We already experience significant health disparities, and as a result of COVID-19, the organizations that exist to address those disparities statewide are hanging by a thread. Lawmakers have worked with the community for years to ensure these organizations can serve the nearly 1 million of us who call this state home, but without greater public awareness of the outsized challenges that LGBTQ people have suddenly come up against and a renewed commitment from New York state government, our community’s safety net is at risk of disappearing. 

LGBTQ people are especially vulnerable to COVID-19 because we are more likely to be immunocompromised, and encounter barriers to accessing medical care that the pandemic has only exacerbated. For example, we are at higher risk for heart disease and cancer, and use substances at higher rates. LGBTQ people also experience discrimination from providers and staff, including being refused care. These disparities are compounded for Black people, who are less likely to receive appropriate medical care across the board, from pain treatment to hospital admission. As a result, many LGBTQ people are reluctant to seek care, even in urgent situations.

These challenges are part of why our community relies so heavily on the 70 organizations across New York State that make up The LGBT Health & Human Services Network. Network member organizations provide free and low-cost, affirming health-care services such as primary care, STI and HIV testing, patient advocacy, medication delivery, health education, mental health counseling, and more, in direct response to the needs they see across the state.

The Network’s most recent needs assessment, a survey of 3,800 LGBTQ New Yorkers, revealed that more than one in five have no primary care provider or have had to skip doctor visits due to cost. Nearly one-third cited a lack of LGBTQ-trained health professionals as a barrier to accessing care—and this shot up to 56% for transgender and gender-nonconforming respondents specifically. 

In addition to these year-round services, The Network is also responding directly to COVID-19. Fifty-one organizations have begun providing emergency services, such as offering covid testing, providing PPE and food pantry services, and converting medical facilities to care for COVID-19 patients. Later this month, The Network is launching a search engine to help LGBTQ New Yorkers more easily find affirming, affordable, safe health care services, including telehealth.

However, without access to emergency funding, these services cannot exist. Network organizations currently have a collective deficit of $12.6 million due to the financial strain the pandemic has caused. They face further losses in the hundreds of millions of dollars due to looming policy changes like the Medicaid Carve-Out Plan. The current deficit alone is enough to already do serious damage: Out Alliance, the only LGBTQ community center in Rochester, was forced to let go of all staff and temporarily discontinue operations for the duration of 2020. Eight more members have significant concerns about their organizations’ sustainability. Layoffs and furloughs caused by financial strain are rapidly shrinking the remaining organizations’ capacity to meet a growing need for services. 

Since the HIV epidemic, no other event has had such a profound, overarching impact upon our communities. Not only are individuals particularly vulnerable to illness and isolation; they are also increasingly less able to access affordable, affirming health care. Where are we supposed to turn in the midst of a pandemic if our safety net can’t catch us?

We need lawmakers to understand the crisis we are facing and to take action, by providing emergency funding to ensure sustainable access to life-saving and life-affirming services for our community. LGBTQ New Yorkers can’t do this alone.

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State Senator Brad Hoylman represents parts of Manhattan. Glennda Testone is Executive Director of NYC's LGBT Community Center. On Twitter @BradHoylman, @Glennda_Testone & @LGBTCenterNYC.

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