Adams’s Budget Proposal Boosts Funding to Build More Supportive Housing

New York City Mayor Eric Adams plans to expand his housing ambitions in the upcoming executive budget to build more affordable and supportive housing around the city.

The mayor announced Monday that his administration would spend $24.7 billion for housing through a 10-year capital strategy that will also feed an extra $1 billion into the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity, which already has about $5 billion in city and state funding.

As part of the fiscal year 2026 budget proposal, the city will also expand a program originally known as the “15/15 Supportive Housing Initiative” — which aimed to create 15,000 units of supportive housing over the next 15 years when it was enacted in 2015 during the administration of Bill de Blasio — by pumping $46 million to build 5,850 supportive housing units, according to the administration.

The Adams administration is also siphoning $350 million to the Permanent Affordability Commitment Together and New York City Public Housing Preservation Trust, which will use the funding to renovate units in the New York City Housing Authority portfolio.

“With our administration’s upcoming budget, we are doubling down on these efforts — building thousands of new supportive housing units that will help get even more people into stable homes as well as investing billions of dollars over the next 10 years in new affordable housing,” Adams said in a statement. 

“The sweeping investments we are announcing today as part of the ‘Best Budget Ever’ will help so many New Yorkers, from vulnerable people living on our subways to families searching for their first home, and create a safer, more affordable city for the decades to come,” Adams said. The city has been in the midst of a housing crisis for the past several years, with rental units having historically low vacancy rates, and Adams has attempted to tackle that with a sweeping series of zoning changes called City of Yes.

The City of Yes was passed by the New York City Council in early December, but has become a topic of mild criticism from Adams’s political opponents, who claim the program would not meet the needs presented by the housing crisis.

Hot off a federal investigation into an alleged bribery scheme, charges related to which were permanently dismissed on April 2 under dubious circumstances and accusations of collusion with the Trump administration, Adams will face one of the nine challengers who win the Democratic primary in June.

Adams, running as an independent, will also have to go up against attorney Jim Walden and rematch Curtis Sliwa in the general election.

Zellnor Myrie released a proposal earlier this month to build 1 million new housing units over 10 years, with 85,000 in Midtown alone. Brad Lander said in March that if he will use emergency powers as mayor to build 500,000 housing units over 10 years, 50,000 of which would be on redeveloped public golf courses.

The frontrunner for the Democratic nomination, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, pitched a strategy to create 500,000 units over 10 years, but details were scarce and the campaign was criticized for its use of artificial intelligence in creating the proposal.

The other candidates running in the Democratic primary include former city Comptroller Scott Stringer; state legislators Zohran Mamdani and Jessica Ramos; former hedge fund manager Whitney Tilson; former Bronx Assemblymember Michael Blake; and New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams.

Mark Hallum can be reached at mhallum@commercialobserver.com.