Advocates Warn Against 'For-Profitization' of Affordable Housing

City officials say nonprofit developers are getting about a third of the deals to build affordable apartments under Mayor de Blasio's housing plan.

But a new report from the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development, which represents nonprofits and community development groups, argues they should be getting more.

The report says nonprofits build more housing that's affordable to the poorest New Yorkers. It also says those apartments are likely to stay affordable for longer because nonprofits don't have as much incentive to sell their buildings when their city contracts end. 

"There’s a meaningful difference between the depth and the type of community benefit that is generated by for-profit developers and is generated by not-for-profit developers," said Benjamin Dulchin, the association's Executive Director. "For-profit developers play an important role in the affordable housing development ecosystem, but at the end of the day for-profit developers are factoring in their individual personal bottom-line to their development decisions where non-profits are not."

But officials within the de Blasio Administration are pushing back. They say the report relies on outdated and incomplete data, focusing only on the administration's first two and a half years in office and including deals that were struck during the previous Bloomberg Administration. They say the administration, not developers, decide how affordable the apartments are under the Mayor's plan, choose developers based on their merits, and for-profit and nonprofit groups often work together to build and preserve affordable housing.  

"We need all our partners to solve the affordable housing crisis," deputy press secretary Melissa Grace said in a statement, adding that inclusion of both sectors has allowed the administration to "finance a historic 78,000 homes," so far.