To expedite the building of new affordable housing and preserve existing affordable housing, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has introduced “Block by Block: The Housing Plan for a New Era.”
The program is built on eight pillars, each of which is focused on addressing a specific area of the affordable housing crisis.
1. Empowering Tenants and Strengthening Enforcement
This pillar envisions tenants as active monitors of their neighborhoods, able to meaningfully report building issues and compel improvements through enforcement mechanisms. Tactics in this pillar include:
- Strengthened code enforcement
- Strategies to reduce eviction cases and secure repairs faster in Housing Court
- Increased tenant and civic participation
2. Preserving Affordability and Improving Housing Quality
Approximately 365,000 housing units in New York City are “publicly supported, City-financed, and governed by long-term regulatory agreements.” This pillar is focused on ensuring those units can remain affordable despite rising costs and that needed improvements can be made. This includes:
- Lowering the cost of operating existing buildings
- Expanding the speed and scale of preservation programs
- Leveraging new tools that can ensure affordability, preservation and quality
- Supporting local legislation to establish new forms of social housing, like the SAFER Homes Act and Community Opportunity to Purchase Act (COPA).
3. Securing the Future of the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA)
NYCHA may seem like one of those New York City institutions that will always exist, but it is vulnerable to rising costs and funding constraints just like any other institution. Given that NYCHA houses 1 in 17 New Yorkers, it is imperative that NYCHA continue to operate at a meaningful level. This involves:
- Addressing major capital improvements and supporting Section 9 housing operations while also increasing accountability to residents
- Delivering repairs through the Permanent Affordability Commitment Together (PACT) program and the Public Housing Preservation Trust
- Re-engaging NYCHA as a developer and exploring new development models
- Developing programs to help residents become more economically stable and experience growth
4. Building Neighborhoods for Working People
Affordable housing can also help New Yorkers who are “rent-burdened,” meaning they pay more than 30% of their pre-tax income toward rent. This includes educators, nurses and hospital staff, and transit workers. When realistically affordable housing is not available, working people live farther out, experience longer (and often expensive) travel, and do not participate in the communities in which they work because they are already facing long commutes. This pillar aims to create robust, affordable communities by:
- Building 200,000 new affordable homes, with fair wages and benefits for workers
- Implementing ambitious zoning and planning actions to create more working-class housing
5. Expanding and Stabilizing Home Ownership
The City wants more people to have the opportunity to own their own home, so this pillar focuses on economic tools to make that possible as well as protections for potential homeowners against scams and fraud. Tactics include:
- Delivering deep investments in new affordable homeownership opportunities in all five boroughs
- Providing comprehensive support for existing homeowners, like creating the Office of Deed Theft Protection
6. Reducing and Preventing Homelessness
By May 2026, over 100,000 New Yorkers had slept in City shelters this year, and many, many more are living in unstable housing. This pillar aims to lessen the number of people who lose their homes, connect more unhoused people with permanent housing, and improve the shelter systems by:
- Keeping New Yorkers in their homes, primarily through legal representation and Homebase, the City’s homelessness prevention program
- Accelerating pathways from shelter and street to housing
- Strengthening sheltering as a bridge to permanent housing – not a replacement for it
- Expanding specialized supports for New Yorkers with complex needs
- Improving partnership and accountability across systems
7. Investing in Strong Jobs and Innovation
The Block by Block program will generate thousands of construction and operations jobs, and this pillar focuses on guaranteeing equitable access to those jobs and strengthening career pathways. This pillar includes:
- Supporting workers and the supply chain through things like the Construction Justice Act and Project Labor Agreements for targeted City-financed projects
- Advancing construction safety
- Reforming building, construction, and housing codes to increase accessibility, lower costs, and allow for more housing options
8. Achieving Public Excellence
The City aspires to shift the perception of public housing from inferior to on par with privately funded housing. This includes the physical housing as well as the experiences of obtaining and living in a home or unit. To this end, Block by Block proposes to:
- Follow Streamlining Procedures to Expedite Equitable Development (SPEED), a program created by Executive Order on Mayor Mamdani’s first day in office
- Accelerate vacant unit readiness at NYCHA
- Reduce vacancies in supportive housing
- Invest in technology and systems that connect homeless New Yorkers to housing
The full plan, which has been endorsed by the New York Building Congress, can be read in full on the NYC.gov website.
