Through Pilot Program, Urban Homesteading Assistance Board Will Use $750,000 From Office of New York State Attorney General Settlements to Help Co-Ops Stabilize Finances, Resolve Arrears, Manage Renovations, and More
Pilot Program Builds on Adams Administration’s Ongoing Efforts to Support Homeownership and Make New York City Best Place to Raise a Family
New York City Mayor Eric Adams, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) Acting Commissioner Ahmed Tigani today announced a new pilot program to support struggling Housing Development Fund Corporation (HDFC) cooperatives in New York City and ensure they can continue to offer safe, affordable homeownership opportunities for low- and- moderate-income New Yorkers. Through the pilot program — called the HDFC Cooperative Technical Assistance Program (CTAP), and which is backed by settlement funds from the Office of the New York Attorney General — Urban Homesteading Assistance Board (UHAB) will provide HDFC co-ops in New York City with targeted technical assistance to help improve their financial, operational, and physical health. CTAP builds on the Adams administration’s ongoing work to help more families achieve and maintain homeownership, including by expanding the city’s HomeFirst Down Payment Assistance Program to help more homebuyers with their first down payment or closing costs and launching a new rent reporting pilot to help tenants build credit through monthly rental payments.
“Our administration works every day to make New York City the best place to raise a family, including by helping more New Yorkers buy and keep homes here in the five boroughs. With this new program, we’re doubling down on those efforts, bolstering a critical part of our city’s housing stock and helping more families find an affordable place to live,” said Mayor Adams. “Our thanks to Attorney General James for helping launch this program and for her steadfast support for working-class New Yorkers. Whether it’s shattering affordable housing records year after year, passing the first citywide zoning reform in six decades, or finding creative ways to build more family-friendly neighborhoods, there is simply no other way to say it: we are the most pro-housing administration in New York City history.”
“As New York City faces a housing crisis, we must do everything we can to preserve affordable housing and homeownership opportunities,” said Attorney General James. “This pilot program will help HDFC co-ops continue to provide safe, sustainable, and affordable paths to homeownership for low-income New Yorkers. I am grateful to Mayor Adams, HPD, and UHAB for their partnership in bringing this new program to life.”
HDFC co-ops are an important part of New York City’s affordable housing landscape and provide one of the most reliable paths to homeownership for low- to moderate-income New Yorkers. There are over 1,200 limited equity HDFC cooperatives in New York City. While most HDFC co-ops are financially stable and demonstrate the positive, multigenerational impact of affordable homeownership, some co-ops are struggling to manage their finances and maintenance needs. Many HDFC co-ops in New York City could benefit from technical assistance as well as support with governance issues, shareholder engagement, and legal matters impacting a co-op’s ability to sell units. CTAP will help directly address these challenges and strengthen selected co-ops.
During the two-year program period, HPD will work closely with UHAB to identify a priority list of struggling HDFC co-ops that could benefit from support. Together with HPD, UHAB will assess each HDFC co-op’s operations, governance structure, financial needs, and physical needs to create and implement an actionable stabilization plan tailored to the specific co-op. Participating co-ops will also have access to a low-interest, flexible financing fund offered for urgent financial or physical needs. This technical assistance program expands HPD’s existing work to provide training and technical assistance to limited equity co-ops, as well as financial assistance offered through HPD’s loan and tax exemption offerings. UHAB will assist approximately 20-30 HDFC co-ops through the pilot program and address various common issues, including:
- Address Municipal Arrears and Other Outstanding Payments: Enable the co-op to pay off any debt owed — such as bills that are past due to the New York City Department of Finance, New York City Department of Environmental Protection, and utility companies — through a sustainable repayment plan or by refinancing the arrears with a below-market loan product.
- Stabilize Finances: Take steps to improve the co-op’s financial health by increasing or restructuring maintenance fees, refinancing debt, identifying unnecessary expenses, hiring third-party property management companies, and implementing sustainable cost-saving measures.
- Support Renovations and Address Housing Violations: Help co-ops explore financing options to complete repairs, including bringing vacant units back online so they can be sold to prospective shareholders. Guide the co-op in addressing outstanding building violations that may prevent the co-op from moving forward with rehabilitation projects.
- Establish Good Governance Practices: Aid the co-op in resolving governance issues by establishing or updating rules and regulations.
- Support Estate and Probate Issues: Engage attorneys to help the co-op’s shareholders and boards with estate planning and probate issues.
This pilot program is funded by the Office of the New York State Attorney General as a result of the 2012 National Mortgage Settlement — which secured $25 billion from five of the nation’s largest mortgage services — and the 2013 Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities Working Group — which secured a $13 billion settlement from JPMorgan Chase for the company’s role in the mortgage crisis.
“A severely aged housing stock, an increasingly complex compliance landscape, skyrocketing insurance and utility costs, and the economic ripple effects of the pandemic on low-income New Yorkers have made the operations of affordable co-ops more and more challenging,” said Margy Brown, executive director, UHAB. “UHAB is grateful to see the New York State attorney general and HPD’s generous investment in skilled technical assistance to support HDFCs’ pathway to long term stability.”
Mayor Adams has made historic investments to create more affordable housing and ensure more New Yorkers have a place to call home. Earlier this year, Mayor Adams through its work to date. Mayor Adams also announced that, in Fiscal Year 2025, the Adams administration created the most affordable rental units in city history and celebrated back-to-back-to-back record-breaking years for producing permanently-affordable homes for formerly-homeless New Yorkers, placing homeless New Yorkers into housing, and connecting New Yorkers to housing through the city’s housing lottery.
In addition to creating and preserving record amounts of affordable and market-rate housing for New Yorkers, the Adams administration has passed ambitious plans that will create tens of thousands of new homes. Last December, Mayor Adams celebrated the passage of “City of Yes for Housing Opportunity,” the most pro-housing proposal in city history that will build 80,000 new homes over 15 years and invest $5 billion towards critical infrastructure updates and housing.
The Adams administration is also advancing several robust neighborhood plans that, if adopted, would deliver nearly 50,000 homes over the next 15 years to New York neighborhoods. In addition to the Bronx-Metro North Station Area Plan, the Midtown South plan, and the Atlantic Avenue Mixed-Use Plan — all of which have already been passed by the New York City Council — the Adams administration is also advancing plans in Jamaica and Long Island City in Queens.
Building on the success of City of Yes for Housing Opportunity, Mayor Adams unveiled his “City of Yes for Families” strategy in his State of the City address earlier this year to build more homes and create more family-friendly neighborhoods across New York City. Under City of Yes for Families, the Adams administration is advancing more housing on city-owned sites, creating new tools to support homeownership, and building more housing alongside schools, playgrounds, grocery stores, accessible transit stations, and libraries.
In addition to creating more housing opportunities, the Adams administration is actively working to strengthen tenant protections and support homeowners. The “Partners in Preservation” program was expanded citywide in 2024 through a $24 million investment in local organizations to support tenant organizing and combat harassment in rent-regulated housing. The Homeowner Help Desk, a trusted one-stop shop for low-income homeowners to receive financial and legal counseling from local organizations, was also expanded citywide in 2024 with a $13 million funding commitment.
Finally, Mayor Adams and members of his administration successfully advocated for new tools in the 2024 New York state budget that are already helping spur the creation of urgently needed housing. These tools include a new tax incentive for multifamily rental construction, a tax incentive program to encourage office conversions to create more affordable units, lifting the arbitrary “floor-to-area ratio” cap that held back affordable housing production in certain high-demand areas of the city, and the ability to create a pilot program to legalize and make safe basement apartments.
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