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33 HOUSING AND HOMELESSNESS
Response
Challenge
In 2024, Robin Hood’s grantmaking expanded access to affordable housing, provided pathways out of shelters to permanent housing, and prevented evictions while keeping New Yorkers in their homes. Advancing this work, Robin Hood CEO Richard R. Buery, Jr., is chair of the City’s Charter Revision Commission, an appointed, temporary, independent body that is reviewing the City charter’s land use rules to make it easier to build more housing faster and more affordably. The Commission’s recommendations will appear on the November ballot. In 2024, as part of our “New Stories” initiative, we cut the ribbon for a new mixed-use development including a new public library and 174 deeply affordable apartments—20% of which are earmarked for families leaving shelter. Our funding—made possible through the generosity of the Rosenblatt family in honor of their parents, Joesph and Sheila Rosenblatt, unlocked $90 million in public funding and financing to make the project possible. We are already working on the second New Stories development in the Bronx, and with your support there will be more to come.
For many New Yorkers, finding an affordable place to live represents the central challenge of life in the City. New York City’s rental vacancy rate is the lowest it’s been since the 1960’s. Competition for housing, especially affordable housing, units, is fierce. Rental prices are escalating and the poorest New Yorkers are now spending as much as 72% of their cash income on rent alone. The City’s poorest residents pay more than two-thirds of their cash income on rent alone. Eviction rates are rising and a record number of New Yorkers are living in shelters for longer stays. New York City’s housing crisis is at its breaking point.
Research tells us that stable affordable housing is key to reducing poverty.
Our advocacy produced
IN 2024
g Greater, more efficient density for housing. g New tax incentives for new and convertible affordable housing. g Construction of smaller rental units on lots of existing homes. g New protections for low-income renters. g Strengthens housing discrimination laws.
GRANTS TOTALED $10.2 MILLION
Here’s What You Made Happen
The poorest New Yorkers spend 72% of their cash income on rent.
37,000 NEW YORKERS received legal assistance or access to rental assistance programs.
6,000 FAMILIES saved from eviction—and since 2021, your contributions have prevented 30,000 evictions, keeping families safely housed and financially stable.
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