The Housing Crisis: Creating a Statewide Action Agenda for New York Funders

Liz McGiff, a longtime resident who fought displacement and won the right to remain in her home, reflected on her struggle-- “The system is broken. We need to build a better system.” Now a lead organizer for the City-Wide Tenant Union of Rochester, she is organizing residents to protect neighborhoods from predatory development through community land trusts, and to connect with statewide campaigns that are winning unprecedented victories in New York, and modeling what is possible in other states, and nationally.

During two webinars in July and August, funders heard from advocates, tenants, and experts about New York’s housing crisis, and efforts to strengthen tenant protections, prevent foreclosures, ensure tenants are represented by attorneys when facing eviction, and increase taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers to expand social programs. Calls for housing justice in New York State unite unregulated renters, mobile home residents, low income homeowners, and people without  permanent homes in rural, urban and suburban communities. Advocates from Rochester shared they are forming community land trusts to fight displacement, while families in New York City are navigating the complex shelter system to find permanent homes. What became clear through the conversation is, wherever you live in New York State, there is a housing crisis in your community.

The positive news is that New York State’s tenant movement is among the strongest in the country and growing. The opportunity to win policies that secure New Yorkers the right to safe, affordable, and healthy homes has never been greater. What is required, we learned from advocates, is a robust statewide effort that builds the capacity of local, community-led organizations to thrive, and to bring the expertise of people directly experiencing the housing crisis to the work of winning the changes they need. We hope to build off of the clear interest from funders to strategize together to find ways to increase or begin making investments to address the housing crisis.

We invite you to join us for a Funders Strategy Session to:

• Share what the housing crisis looks like in your city and region;
• Explore how local groups in your communities are connecting to statewide advocacy work;
• Identify where there are resource and capacity gaps;
• Consider what actions we can take together in response to what we learned in July and August.

What we hope to take away from the session:

• A better understanding of how funders are addressing the housing crisis in their localities; and
• An action agenda to align resources around local and statewide work.

This strategy session will be interactive - come prepared to participate, ask questions,  and strategize together. We will prepare materials to be shared beforehand that will review where there is momentum across the state for initiatives to address the housing crisis.

This event is hosted by NFG’s Democratizing Development Program and co-sponsored by Engage New York and Neighborhoods First Fund.