Chair Riley asks about administration's homeownership plan

I'm going to go into a question on homeownership.

Then I'm going to go into second round.

Chair, you know how I feel about homeownership.

Ownership is extremely important.

We want to keep New Yorkers in New York City, but I think we focus a lot on rental units, which is extremely important to address the affordability crisis.

But there are families out there who want to purchase property and actually keep property here to pass down to their families.

What is the administration's plan on addressing home ownership?

And that could be an HPD and DCP question.

Sure, I can start.

You know, HPD is expanding and adding new funding to all of our homeownership programs as part of the Block by Block plan.

We have a multi-pronged strategy for addressing homeownership.

First is to retain and stabilize existing homeowners.

So that looks like our investments through the Office of the Homeowner Advocate, the Homeowner Help Desk Preservation Programs to support HDFC

and Mitchell Llama Co-ops, support for homeowners like HomeFix, which provides loans to keep people in their home and keep existing homeowners there in their homes today that might face displacement pressure.

We're also looking at increasing access to homeownership, primarily through our down payment assistance program, and we're doubling our commitment to that program as well to try to reach...

What's the number you're trying to reach?

I think it's 300 homeowners a year, up from around 100.

And we've also increased the eligibility from 80% of the area median income to 100%.

120% AMI to also have broader reach through that program.

And then on the last side is creating new opportunities.

We do that primarily through our open door program, which funds the construction of

New construction, affordable co-ops.

We're doubling our production goals on that program from 150 to 300 units a year.

And we're also going to be rolling out a new program soon called Our Home.

We spoke about it in the housing plan.

This would fund the creation or the preservation of existing buildings that are rental now and converting them into co-ops.

Okay.

Just to think about it, in the Bronx, it's less than 10% of homeownership.

Is there a target area that you guys are looking for when you're going to be implementing a lot of these programs?

We do want to focus our homeownership investments in the areas with the lowest rates of homeownership.

So the Bronx is on that list.

Okay.

I'll stop right there.

I'll go into second rounds of questions.