Bronx News: Red Alert in Bronx Affordable Housing Market

Affordable Housing’s Slow-Motion Financial Collapse  

Nonprofit groups say swelling operating costs exceed the rent they collect for more than one in five of their apartments, housing some of the city’s most vulnerable tenants. 

This article originally appeared in The City.

By Samantha Maldonado 

Bronx Voice 

October 23, 2025

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BRONX NEWS - More than a fifth of New York City’s core affordable housing stock is in the red or close to it — putting tenants at risk.

That’s according to a new report from the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development, which finds that at least 63,700 apartments receiving a government subsidy and operated by community development corporations and other nonprofit groups are financially distressed. That means the buildings’ operating costs exceed the money coming in.

“Some people are operating at thin margins. The piece of this that really moves it to being a crisis and a real fever pitch is some people are operating month-to-month at a loss, and you can only do that for so long,” said Barika Williams, ANHD’s executive director. “Because you can't continue to run a building without paying the mortgage and without paying your insurance.”

With both housing owners and tenants feeling a financial squeeze as building costs rise, the stability of the apartments that house some of the city’s lowest-income and most vulnerable residents are at risk.

When owners can’t afford their expenses, they may skip maintaining their buildings or dealing with disrepair. The conditions may become uncomfortable or unsafe for tenants, whose housing could become threatened by vacate orders or foreclosure.

A study found that residents of Bronx neighborhoods with a large share of subsidized housing are among the most vulnerable in the city, Jan. 25, 2022.

ANHD — a member organization of housing and other community groups — analyzed city Department of Finance records of 112,000 subsidized properties with at least 10 apartments, representing less than 40% of the city’s total privately operated subsidized housing stock. In total, New York City has about 290,000 subsidized rentals, according to Furman Center data the report cited.

AHND’s analysis comes on the heels of a separate report released earlier this week that found more than half of affordable housing developments financed by Enterprise Community Partners and the National Equity Fund — including almost two-thirds owned by nonprofits — don’t generate enough income to cover their expenses.

“We are at a pivotal moment for New York City’s affordable housing stock,” said Patrick Boyle, Enterprise’s senior policy director. “The fact that a number of prominent affordable housing organizations are urgently elevating issues around distress in our affordable housing stock right now should signal to policymakers that we need solutions imminently.”

Deferred Repairs

According to the ANHD report, the neighborhoods most at risk are those with the biggest share of subsidized housing that are also home to some of the tenants with the lowest incomes and highest rent burdens. Among them: Crotona, Fordham and Melrose in The Bronx, East Harlem in Manhattan, East New York in Brooklyn and Far Rockaway in Queens.

The organization found that insurance premiums have doubled in four years, along with utilities and maintenance costs, which went up by 25% and 20%, respectively, since 2019. The share of billed rent owners managed to collect from tenants has also dropped from about 95% to as low as 70% in some cases.

Similarly, the report by Enterprise and the National Equity Fund found that overall operating expenses for affordable housing operators increased by about 40% since 2017.

Tenants, also squeezed by rising costs, are falling behind on rent, which limits the amount of cashflow housing operators have. The Enterprise and National Equity Fund report found rent collections fell to less than 91% last year, down from 95% in 2017. 

Jim Buckley, executive director of the University Neighborhood Housing Program, said the reports reflect the experience with a portfolio of affordable housing in The Bronx.

“We’ve got a lot of things going south at the same time in terms of people’s ability to pay — in terms of the tenants — and substantially rising operating costs,” Buckley said. “The financial problems here ultimately end up translating to problems in the buildings that the tenants will recognize.”

Rents are low, around $1,000 on average, which is still a stretch for some tenants. Rent collections have dropped from 95 to 98% pre-pandemic down to 90% after. Buckley said the lack of cash means UNHP must skip out on certain projects, like adding solar power or battery storage, that would reduce its costs down the line.

Arielle Hersh, director of policy at the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board, who has been involved in organizing tenants in financially distressed buildings, said she has seen larger deferred repairs that result in “cascading issues,” such as ongoing leaks that create mold. Tenants have also faced utility outages, rat infestations that go unchecked and inconsistent heat because of lack of boiler maintenance.

Reluctance to Raise Rents

Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani, the race’s frontrunner, has made freezing the rent on regulated apartments a signature part of his campaign. He also committed to building 200,000 affordable apartments over a 10-year period.

Many landlords of properties that don’t receive government subsidies have warned against freezing rent, saying it could send struggling buildings even further underwater. Those buildings, especially those outside the core of Manhattan, consist mostly of rent-regulated apartments and even any market-rate apartments they do have can only command so much rent to offset freezes or strict caps on rent hikes. 

Hersh said financial distress and its effects are common among subsidized affordable housing and privately owned, non-subsidized housing alike.

“The difference here is that the private actors that are now going through foreclosure and seeing significant amounts of distress are also portfolios where we've seen a history of very risky lending practices,” Hersh said. “Whereas, in the affordable housing, multi-family market, the lending practices are much more regulated and much less risky but it's a lot harder to get financing.”

For her part, Williams of ANHD said raising rent for struggling tenants isn’t a viable solution.

“We have to find a way to recognize where people are and what they can afford and how much it costs to live and rent in New York City in this moment in time, which is tremendous and growing constantly,” Williams said. “It's not feasible to make up the entirety of what buildings need to operate on the backs of tenants.”

Some solutions ANHD floated include more funding for housing owners’ operating costs and for forms of rental assistance like vouchers, as well as innovative strategies for lowering insurance premiums.

Most of all, Williams and other housing advocates emphasized the urgency of preserving current subsidized apartments. Replacing them, the report said, would cost between $10.2 billion and $26.8 billion.

Building new housing has become a central push of the administration of Mayor Eric Adams, but new housing may not help many lower-income New Yorkers. The AHND report found that just about 17% of the almost 40,500 new apartments built in 2024 were affordable to those making no more than $104,000 for a household of two.

“The units being created through new construction or through any new development projects are a fraction of what’s existing out there and are at risk of sort of failing,” said Brendan Mitchell, director of real estate at UNHP. “If there’s a triage of what to focus on, it's the units that are already out there, housing families.”