Testimony of the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development to the New York City Council Committee on Housing and Building

March 24, 2026

FY 2026 Preliminary Budget Hearing

Opening

Chair Sanchez, Chair Lee, members of the Committee, thank you for having me today. It is a privilege to be here for the first time as the new Commissioner of HPD.

I have been working in affordable housing for many years, but a few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to hear testimony directly from tenants at the Rental Ripoff hearings in the Bronx and in Queens.

Several of the residents I met came from buildings where I had been a community organizer more than 20 years ago.

It was striking, that despite the passage of so much time, the same groups of landlords were being called out, and the tenants' stories were basically unchanged.

Refusals to make repairs, overcharges on rent, and disregard for tenant safety. It has been more than two decades, and yet there are a small group of landlords who continue to wreak havoc on a new generation of tenants.

My takeaway was clear. We need to do better.

We must be the ones to end this cycle, to ensure that future generations of tenants will not have the same stories to tell 20 years from now. This will not be my only priority while leading HPD. But it will serve as a daily reminder for how I plan to approach this work.

When it is clear that our strategies are not working, we have to change course.

We need to remind ourselves that there is urgency to our work.

And we cannot let the shortcoming of our past limit our vision for what is possible for our future.

A New Era in Tackling the Housing Crisis

I have held this position for little more than ten weeks. But in that short time, I have marveled at what this agency accomplishes every day and at the incredible potential that lies ahead.

Already several key priorities have come into focus.

First, we must build more housing - across every neighborhood, in every borough and we must do so at a faster pace. It will take a multi-pronged approach: bringing all parties to the table-labor, tenants, developers, and the Council-who must work together to build housing faster, more cost effectively and without compromising quality or safety.

Second, we must preserve and stabilize the existing affordable stock. We will not build our way out of this crisis if we do not preserve and protect the affordable housing that already exists. We must tackle rising expenses and find additional ways to assist tenants in making sure they can afford their rent.

Third, we must fix what is within our reach. Whether that's how we contract and pay our non-profit partners

or how we handle marketing and lease ups, we know that these problems are fixable and they are within our control. Where there are duplicative steps, we will eliminate them and where we have let government make things too complicated, we will find ways to simplify.

Finally, we must do more to protect our residents. HPD will use its entire array of enforcement tools to put willful bad actors out of business, once and for all. We will empower tenants to be our partners in code enforcement, and we will create avenues to connect well-intentioned landlords and homeowners to the resources they need to succeed.

HPD Budget Overview

I believe that these goals are achievable, but we are sober about the current climate we are in.

Federal funding is under attack. Construction prices have skyrocketed, and operating expenses are strangling property owners. The Mamdani administration has inherited a difficult financial situation,

and a staffing shortage due to the last administration's hiring freeze. That is the environment we are in - and it is hard reality.

HPD's total expense budget under the Fiscal Year 2027 Preliminary Plan is just over $1.4 billion. Nearly three-quarters of that funding comes from the federal government through Section 8, CDBG, and HOME.

Our federal funding is irreplaceable, and it must be maintained.

On the capital side, our current budget for FY 2027 is just over $2.9 billion, $1.9 billion for our direct pipeline, and a Ten-Year Plan totaling $22.6 billion.

Behind all of our work, there are roughly 2,400 people, our staff, who show up every day to do this work with dedication and determination.

That includes 345 staffers on our development teams. 324 code inspectors out in the field. And 421 public servants connecting New Yorkers to housing and rental assistance.

HPD has 431 open positions right now - a 15% vacancy rate. We are actively working to meet our vacancy target, at which point we will no longer be subject to the 2-1 hiring freeze, offering us a renewed path forward.

Creating More Affordable Housing

And despite these very real challenges- the teams at HPD continue to deliver for New Yorkers every day.

In calendar year 2025, HPD financed or supported the creation and preservation of almost 30,000 affordable homes, including more than 13,000 newly constructed units through our capital and tax incentive programs.

This includes construction starts of 1,900 units of supportive housing, and more than 2,500 units that serve extremely low-income households.

With respect to as of right programs, 485-x is now operational, and we have 188 projects in our pipeline.

And under the Universal Affordability Preference we have already closed on more than 1300 units.

We continue to advance homeownership particularly in under-served communities.

Through our Homeowner Help Desk we have connected New Yorkers to critical resources like our HomeFirst Down Payment Assistance program and our HomeFix rehabilitation program.

We've reached nearly 9,000 people, provided assistance to 2,900 homeowners and stabilized 471 families.

We are also carrying out Mayor Mamdani directive to use our public land for public good. Since 2014, HPD has financed construction of 26,000 new homes on public land.

And through the Mayor's Executive Order 4, agencies across the city will identify public sites to support an additional 25,000 new homes over the next ten years.

We must continue to expand our development capacity and make sure that every neighborhood in every borough is building their fair share of affordable housing. In partnership with DCP we will be putting forward the Fair Housing Framework and our strategic equity analysis, to assess housing needs across the city, and to name specific production targets for every community district.

Preservation and Stabilization

At the same time, we are mindful of the need to increase our preservation efforts. This will also require multiple strategies.

We know that responsible landlords are struggling and we must address the challenges related to rising expenses, particularly insurance, and the need to improve rent collection.

We know that most often when a tenant does not pay their rent, it is because they simply do not have the means.

We must do more to intervene early and connect residents with resources to ensure the stability of our citizens and our housing stock.

In 2025 we preserved over 16,000 affordable homes.

Over the past 10 years we have invested $1.1 Billion to preserve our Mitchell Lama housing, and we are currently working with 15 Mitchell Lama projects to provide financial restructuring and major capital improvements.

We know there is more to do here, and we are actively looking at ways to increase our preservation efforts for our 92 Mitchell Lama projects.

Through the ANCP program, there are 40 resident-controlled cooperatives now under active construction, putting the promise of homeownership finally within reach.

There are still 64 buildings totaling just over 1,100 units under City ownership, and we are working to find ways to move these projects to closing more quickly.

We know they have waited long enough.

And finally, we are actively working with our colleagues at HDC and the Mayor's Office to Protect Tenants to identify interventions to preserve our privately owned rent-stabilized stock, particularly those in physical and financial distress.

Whether through intervening in bankruptcy and foreclosure proceedings - as we did in the Pinnacle case - or by bringing aggressive legal action to stop harassment and disinvestment - as we did in the A&E portfolio - this administration will ensure that rent-stabilized tenants get the protections and the housing they deserve.

Connecting New Yorkers to Homes

We are also deeply committed to improving how New Yorkers get connected to the housing that we create.

Through our rental assistance programs, HPD administers subsidies to more than 44,000 households every year.

Last fiscal year, HPD connected over 10,000 households to affordable homes through our Housing Connect lottery system - and we moved more than 4,600 households out of shelter through our homeless set-aside program - a 15% increase over the prior year.

For each of those families, it may mean a shorter commute, a bedroom of their own, a place where they can finally exhale.

But these improvements are not sufficient, and we plan to revamp both our housing lottery and our homeless placement systems.

Incremental fixes here will not go far enough. We are taking a hard look at every part of the process, and if necessary, we will migrate to a more efficient and nimble system.

Protecting Tenants

Finally, we are committed to redoubling our efforts to ensure that tenants are protected once inside their homes.

In the last fiscal year, HPD's enforcement team issued over 870,000 code violations, initiated or joined more than 12,000 legal actions and resolved more than 22,000 code violations through comprehensive litigation.

We spent $25 million on Emergency Repairs impacting more than 177,000 units of

housing; and we discharged 199 buildings from the Alternative Enforcement Program.

With regard to tenant harassment, in FY 2025 we completed 1,000 site visits at almost 600 buildings and initiated 25 court cases related to those inspections.

Through our Partners in Preservation program, we support a network of grassroots community groups who have knocked on 21,000 doors in distressed buildings and organized new tenant associations in 86 properties.

And we are collaborating with Mayor's Office to Protect Tenants, with whom we share a vision for how organized residents can play a critical role in improving our code enforcement, and serve as a primary partner to local government in holding landlords accountable.

I would like to add that we know the overwhelming majority of property owners and managers in this city are working in good faith, that they care about their tenants, and that they are important partners for our agency.

But for the small group of landlords who have willfully ignored the law for decades, functioning in essence as professional slum lords, I would like to make sure that our message today is clear. Their time is up.

Closing

In closing, I would like to reiterate my admiration for the incredible staff at HPD and the magnitude of work they have accomplished during very difficult times.

It will be my honor to work alongside them as we set out to achieve the affordable housing goals laid out by the new Mayor.

Getting there will be hard, but our marching orders are clear - we have been tasked with realizing an affordability agenda for City of New York.

That mandate begins with the recognition that all New Yorkers are entitled to a decent, safe and affordable place to call home.

I look forward to building a strong partnership with the members of this Council and to working collaboratively to achieve our shared goals.

I thank you for the opportunity to present here today and I am happy to answer your questions.

Thank you.