ALBANY — Lawmakers in the thick of budget negotiation season rallied in the state Capitol on Wednesday for $200 million for seven programs to expand homeownership across New York and tackle the looming housing crisis in rural and upstate communities.
Housing advocates from several organizations including the Catskill Mountain Housing Authority, Rural Housing Coalition and the Greater Mohawk Valley Land Bank joined Sens. Michelle Hinchey, D-Saugerties; and Legislative Commission on Rural Resources chair Rachel May, D-Syracuse; Assemblywoman Carrie Woerner, D-Round Lake; in the state Capitol on Wednesday pushing for the $200 million proposal in the 2022-23 state budget that deadlines April 1.
“We need housing — we need all kinds of housing, but we especially need affordable and workforce housing,” Hinchey said during the rally, held outside the Senate chambers Wednesday. “We need to rehab it, we need to build it and we need to make sure we are keeping people in their homes. However, rural and upstate communities are consistently left out of the conversation. We need to be talking about broader housing solutions.”
Advocates and lawmakers alike said the affordable housing crisis, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, requires an urgent response, and must be addressed in the upcoming spending plan. The Senate and Assembly are poised to release their one-house budgets in the coming days, or rebuttal to Gov. Kathy Hochul’s executive budget proposal released in January.
Hinchey called on the Legislature to include $200 million in the budget to fund seven housing programs, including the Affordable Housing Corporation, the Rural Preservation Program, The Community Land Trust Revolving Acquisition Fund and the Restore Access to Home Program.
“These are all programs that make home ownership affordable for upstate New Yorkers,” she said. “They implement accessibility and safety repairs on existing homes so that seniors and people with disabilities can remain living in their homes. They turn zombie properties into new homes that will remain affordable in the long-term.”
Michael Borges, executive director of the Rural Housing Coalition of New York, said he believes each rural area across the state is experiencing an affordable housing crisis.
“It’s contributed by both regional and national factors, ranging from weather disasters that impacted the supply of housing to the migration of New York City residents migrating to the Hudson Valley,” he said.
Borges also noted wealthy investors buying second homes — on the uptick nationwide — has contributed to the lack of affordable housing in the upstate region.
“Rural New York is facing the proverbial perfect storm of a housing crisis,” he said.
Local residents and workers continue to feel the squeeze from rising housing costs and transplants moving into the region.
“Upstate New York is quite literally on the frontlines of this housing crisis,” Hinchey said during the rally. “Before the pandemic, a world-renowned destination hotel in Ulster County had over 300 job openings. There are workers, people who would work in that incredible institution, who could not find housing that was affordable to them.”
The small upstate cities of Kingston and Hudson ranked as one of the top places in the country to attract new residents during the pandemic, the senator said.
“That’s a challenging reality for the people that live in our communities,” she added. “For local, full-time residents, this has been catastrophic. Our businesses can’t expand because they can’t find employees to live here.”
The median price of a home in Greene County sold for $287,325 in 2021, up from $170,000 in 2017, according to a recent housing market report from the Center for Housing Solutions and Community Initiatives.
“We’re seeing houses sell for upwards of $300,000 over the asking price,” Hinchey said of upstate housing Wednesday. “Many of these are, or will become, second homes, while people who actually live in our community — even those who are making good salaries — can’t afford to find homes in the communities where they work.”
Upstate communities need attention in the state’s housing plan, the senator said.
Gov. Hochul included a $25 billion, five-year housing plan to create and preserve 100,000 affordable homes statewide in her executive proposal.
“Our fragile housing supply has been pushed to the brink by the pandemic,” Hinchey continued. “It’s been pushed to the brink by people discovering how great upstate New York is, gentrifying it and displacing the people who make our communities so special.”