Housing First! Hails Executive Budget's $400 Million Housing Opportunity Fund

NEW YORK, NY (01/22/2008)(readMedia)-- “Housing First!, which represents advocates statewide, strongly supports Governor Spitzer’s proposal for a new $400 million Housing Opportunity Fund,” the organization's coordinator David Muchnick said after release of the Executive Budget in Albany today. “We urge the legislature to support the Fund as an opportunity to improve the quality of family and community life in the state’s urban, suburban, and rural communities.”

Housing First! is a broad alliance of more than 300 diverse organizations who are united by their dedication to developing and sustaining affordable housing for all New Yorkers. During the 2006 gubernatorial campaign, Housing First!’s state platform called for $1.3 billion in new annual state investment in the creation and preservation of affordable and supportive housing.

“The Spitzer administration clearly recognizes that capital investment in affordable housing is central to the state’s economic development, smart growth, and infrastructure policies,” said Housing First!’s co-chair Denise Scott, the director of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation’s New York Program. “And with a national economic down-turn on the horizon, the Fund is especially timely now to stimulate the state’s economy and create jobs.”

“The Fund’s $400 million, first-time budget represents an extraordinary expansion of the State’s commitment to addressing the diverse affordable and supportive housing needs in upstate and downstate cities, suburbs, and rural areas,” added Housing First! member Ted Houghton, the executive director of the Supportive Housing Network of New York. And, the Fund provides a mechanism for additional annual funding in future years.

After enactment, affordable and supportive housing developers and the state’s housing agencies should have the capacity to expeditiously assemble a $400-million pipeline of projects that address the state’s substantial needs – for low-, moderate- and middle-income housing in downstate cities, suburbs and rural retirement and vacation communities ... for demolition, preservation and rehabilitation in upstate cities and rural places with declining populations, increasing vacancies, and shrinking tax bases ... for supportive housing and housing for homeless and at-risk families, and .... for units adapted to foster independent living by persons with a disability or other special needs.

Given the diversity of these needs at the local level, Housing First! hopes the Governor will reconsider $4.9 million in proposed budget reductions for non-profit Neighborhood Preservation and Rural Preservation Companies in his “twenty-one day” amendments.

“Sustaining the development capacity of these community-based agencies is crucial to affordable housing preservation and revitalization projects in city neighborhoods and rural communities neglected or overwhelmed by conventional market forces,” said Housing First! member Michelle de la Uz, president of the board of directors of the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development (ANHD).

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