New York, NY, May 26, 2026 – Enterprise Community Partners (Enterprise) issued the following statement today on the announcement of New York City’s “Block by Block” housing plan.

“With today’s release of Block by Block, the City has put forth a comprehensive plan to tackle our most pressing housing challenges. In particular, we applaud the focus on preservation and stabilization of our existing housing stock, an urgent need Enterprise drew attention to in last year’s widely publicized Distress in New York’s Affordable Housing Stock report.

The additional resources, preservation pathways, and new strategies to reduce costs announced by the City today will be critical for reversing very troubling trends in our affordable housing stock, in both expenses, which are rising sharply, and rent collection, which is declining. We specifically look forward to further details on the City’s plans for reducing Housing Court actions and for delivering more upstream rental assistance resources, which Enterprise’s Home 4 Good program is demonstrating is a win-win-win for tenants, owners, and the city. We also applaud the announcement on reducing rental burden for extremely low-income households to 25% of income, which will help our most vulnerable New Yorkers achieve housing stability.

While affordable housing preservation is a huge challenge that deserves to be center stage, we must not turn our focus away from robust housing supply and new construction efforts. Building off the City’s recent SPEED report recommendations to streamline the development process, this plan matches process improvements with bold goals on unit production and additional capital resources to keep the pipeline moving. We also applaud proposed ideas around a revolving loan fund, new mixed-income strategies, and strategies to support emerging developers to help reach those unit goals. In particular, we want to give a heartfelt thank you to the city for recognizing Enterprise’s successful Faith Based Development Initiative with a new $1 million commitment.

Between all of these measures, as well as other important initiatives on transit-oriented development, supporting public-private partnerships to bolster public housing, code reform, and much more, there is enough in Block by Block to keep policymakers and advocates busy for years. We look forward to working with the City and the affordable housing industry at large in the implementation of these ideas, and to leveraging our collective responsibility to ensure accountability.

Coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic, our city’s affordable housing challenges in some ways feel more daunting than ever. Physical and financial distress in our existing housing, more acute economic pressures on residents, increasing development costs, and persistently high homelessness rates are at the forefront of our minds. We applaud Mayor Mamdani, Deputy Mayor Bozorg, and all of the City agency folks and stakeholders responsible for this appropriately bold plan. Now the work begins.”
– Kim Darga, vice president and New York market leader of Enterprise Community Partners

To speak with Enterprise Community Partners about key aspects of New York City’s new Block by Block plan and affordable housing issues – including details related to affordable housing preservation, marketing and lease-up of NYC’s affordable housing stock, proposed funds and tools for streamlining development and keeping tenants stably housed -- please contact Carla Pisarro.