DSS Has Back-to-Back Record Years Connecting New Yorkers in Shelter to Permanent Housing
New York City Mayor Eric Adams today announced back-to-back record-breaking calendar years producing critically-needed affordable housing across the five boroughs as the city faces a generational housing crisis. The New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) broke the following city records in 2024:
- Back-to-back years of most units produced for formerly homeless, with 4,623 total units.
- Back-to-back years of most supportive units produced, with 2,761 total units.
- Back-to-back years of most senior units produced, with 2,966 total units.
The announcement comes as the Adams administration has aggressively tackled a generational housing crisis head-on by advancing landmark housing projects, continuously breaking records in affordable housing creation, and passing historic pro-housing legislation — all in an effort to bring down the cost of rent for working-class New Yorkers.
“A home is more than just four walls and a roof; it’s the key to unlocking the American Dream, a path towards stability, and an opportunity that’s been out of grasp for too many for too long,” said Mayor Adams. “Since day one of our administration, building housing and bringing down the cost of living has been one of our top priorities. Thanks to our team, working alongside advocates and everyday New Yorkers, we have moved the ball forward — and the numbers show it, with the most units produced for formerly homeless New Yorkers in city history, the most supportive housing units produced in city history, and the most senior housing units produced in city history! Behind each of these stats are real New Yorkers who found the housing they needed to live in the greatest city on the globe. To meet our affordable housing crisis head on, we must continue to be bold and ambitious, looking anywhere and everywhere to build the housing New Yorkers need and deserve.”
“This administration has fired on all cylinders to address the city's housing crisis. A second calendar year in a row of broken records for housing production and connecting New Yorkers from shelter to permanent housing shows how we're constantly moving forward,” said First Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer. “We never sat on our hands last year to get new tools to create, preserve, and place New Yorkers in housing. Our talented public servants and leadership at City Hall, HPD, the New York City Housing Development Corporation, the New York City Housing Authority, and the New York City Department of Social Services housed the most vulnerable, while expanding the number of our city's affordable homes.”
“New York City broke affordable housing records, once again, in 2024 — an impressive feat that means the lives of many New Yorkers will become tangibly better and more affordable,” said New York City Executive Director for Housing Leila Bozorg. “Last year, we saw, again, countless signs of New Yorkers' support for our aggressive housing agenda and we continued to deliver, using every tool we gained to build, preserve, and place New Yorkers into housing. Back-to-back record-breaking years are not mere statistical victories — they are signs that New Yorkers are able to live in an expanding amount of safe, quality, and affordable housing.”
Today’s new data shows that the Adams administration — for the second year in a row — continued to break records on both creating and connecting New Yorkers to affordable housing. In addition to the records listed above, HPD produced the most 421-A standalone units in a calendar year, with 5,931 units. Finally, HPD and the New York City Housing Development Construction (HDC) closed on financing for the creation of 27,620 affordable homes, including 14,145 in newly constructed housing and 13,475 in preservation of existing homes.
HPD directly connected more New Yorkers to homes than ever before in 2024, bringing nearly 14,654 households into affordable units this calendar year. Of that record number, 10,054 were through Housing Connect lotteries and 4,600 households left shelter to move into HPD homeless set aside units.
Thanks to the advocacy efforts from the Adams administration in Albany to create the Public Housing Preservation Trust and support for the Permanent Affordability Commitment Together (PACT) program, NYCHA has been able to invest in critically-needed repairs while simultaneously empowering residents. In 2024, NYCHA converted 3,887 apartments to Project-Based Section 8, enabling PACT partners to deliver $1.7 billion in capital repairs. Residents at Nostrand Houses, Bronx River Addition, and Coney Island I (Site 1B), also known as Unity Towers, totaling 1,597 apartments across 19 buildings, opted into the Public Housing Preservation Trust, which will unlock hundreds of millions of dollars for critical capital repairs.
Thanks to concerted rehousing efforts and the Adams administration’s wide-ranging reforms to strengthen access to City Fighting Homelessness and Eviction Prevention Supplement (CityFHEPS) vouchers, the New York City Department of Social Services also connected a record number of New Yorkers in shelter to subsidized permanent housing. More than 14,600 households moved out of shelter using a variety of rental subsidies, reflecting a 24 percent increase year over year. The majority of these households used CityFHEPS to obtain stable housing, reflecting a 40 percent increase in shelter exits using city-funded rental assistance. Finally, more than 4,400 households used CityFHEPS vouchers to stay in their homes and avoid shelter.
This year, Mayor Adams doubled down on his commitment to building more affordable housing. In his fourth State of the City address last month, Mayor Adams unveiled the “Manhattan Plan,” which will create 100,000 new homes in the borough, bringing the total number of homes in Manhattan to 1 million over the next decade. Additionally, Mayor Adams and HPD celebrated a $82 million investment to put homeownership within reach for more New Yorkers by expanding the HomeFirst Down Payment Assistance Program. Finally, the Adams administration has advanced several bold, forward-looking projects, including reimagining Gansevoort Square to build mixed-income housing, building 100 percent affordable housing at the Grand Concourse Library in the Bronx, and kicking off public review on Midtown South Mixed-Use plan to create nearly 10,000 homes — all follow-up announcements to this year’s State of the City.
Since entering office, Mayor Adams had made historic investments toward creating affordable housing and ensuring more New Yorkers have a place to call home. 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. In June 2024, City Hall and the City Council agreed to an on-time, balanced, and fiscally-responsible $112.4 billion Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 Adopted Budget that invested $2 billion in capital funds across FY25 and FY26 to HPD and NYCHA’s capital budgets. In total, the Adams administration has committed $24.5 billion in housing capital in the current 10-year plan as the city faces a generational housing crisis. In July 2024, Mayor Adams announced back-to-back record breaking fiscal years in both creating and connecting New Yorkers to affordable housing. This past spring, the city celebrated the largest 100 percent affordable housing project in 40 years with the Willets Point transformation.
Finally, Mayor Adams and members of his administration also successfully advocated for new tools in the 2024 New York state budget that will 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.
