Chair Sanchez round 2: city-backed insurance program and water assistance

Okay, with respect to the city-backed insurance program and water assistance programs, but starting with the insurance program, so the plan talks about $100 million over three years.

You mentioned in your opener that you have received 22 responses to the RFEI.

Can you talk to us about the scale of this program, how many buildings you are hoping to reach within the first year, two, five?

And what the goal is of the administration with respect to an impact on the insurance market or anything else?

What do you anticipate will come for this outside of the buildings that directly benefit?

Yeah, I mean, it's an excellent question.

I think the first is to just reiterate what we've said publicly and what we are committed to, which is working to, once we have the partner and the program is operational,

it's hard to say number of buildings because we're targeting a unit count, so it really depends how big or small the buildings that join.

The program will be, but the goal is to get to 20,000 units insured by the end of next year.

So that would be the end of 2027.

And then 100,000 units by the end of 2030.

We do expect to see, once we get to scale like that, we will be helping to drive, hopefully, the competitive market downward, which is really critical.

So we do think an ancillary benefit of this is if we're offering affordable insurance premiums through this new city-backed initiative, other providers will have to either match us or beat us, which is what we would like to see.

And I will just say this is becoming more and more of a focal point for us.

The insurance premiums are one of, if not the biggest driver of distress amongst both affordable housing providers and privately owned rent-stabilized landlords.

Thank you.

That's helpful to hear.

With respect to the multifamily water assistance program, this is a DEP program, so let me know if you're equipped to respond to it, but timeline and scope of that expansion and which buildings would be prioritized?

I do have to defer since it is not a program run by...

By HPD, but we are very glad to see the increase in support for this program.

We know it's hugely important and that water bills are also a stressor, both on individual tenants and on building owners.

What we know from them is I think that they intend to serve 75,000 residents next year, which is up.

From about 50,000 in past years.

So that's a market increase.

And that's targeting affordable properties as well?

I think it's an income-based program.

Thank you.