New York State SmartTranscripts:

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: Good afternoon, everyone. Sorry for the late start, but the previous labor meeting ran over. We took a short break between hearings. And this is the second hearing of the day. My name is Gary Prello. I'm the chairperson for the New York State Assembly's Ways and Means Committee. Today, we're convening the twelfth in a series of 14 hearings conducted by the Joint Fiscal Committees of the legislature to consider the governor's proposed budget for fiscal year 2627. These hearings are conducted pursuant to the New York State constitution and legislative law. Today, the Assembly Ways and Means Committee, together with the Senate Finance Committee chaired by the senator Liz Krueger, will hear testimony regarding the governor's proposed budgets that pertain the budget that pertains to housing. I'd like to introduce the members of the assembly that are participating in this hearing. Today, we have our chair housing chairperson, Assemblywoman Rosenthal. And with us, we have Assembly members Simon, Otis, Levenberg, and Torres. Actually, my colleague, Alec Brook- will introduce And Burdick wants to be heard. And Assemblyperson Chris Burdick.

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: Okay.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Sorry. Oh, good afternoon, everyone. And I am just going to list out the senators who are here with us right now. Senator Kavanaugh, our housing chair Senator Clear, I believe I saw oh, there you are, Senator Clear. Thank you. Senator May, appreciate seeing you. Again, I'm Liz Krueger. And Senator Weber is the fill in ranker for Senator O'Mara, who had to leave. And he will introduce Senate Republicans.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: J. We have to

[Senator Bill Weber (Ranking, Senate Finance — filling in for Sen. O’Mara)]: J. You, Senator Krueger. We have Senator Jack Martins, who's the ranker on housing. And we also have Senator Mattera here as well.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: And I'll send Assemblyman Fitzpatrick will introduce his members. He's the he's the ranking member on the housing committee, but he's sitting in for the minority leader today.

[Assemblymember Michael J. Fitzpatrick (Ranking Member, Assembly Housing)]: R. Thank you, Gary. With me today is Assembly Member Michael Novakhov, Brooklyn Keith Brown of Long Island, and Lester Chang of Manhattan.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: No, Brooklyn.

[Assemblymember Michael J. Fitzpatrick (Ranking Member, Assembly Housing)]: Oh, Brooklyn. I'm sorry. And Dan Norber

[Senator Jack M. Martins (Ranking Member, Senate Housing)]: as well.

[Assemblymember Michael J. Fitzpatrick (Ranking Member, Assembly Housing)]: There he is. He's back.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: Thank you. R. Okay. Thank you. Here are the rules of the hearing. Governmental witnesses, of which we have one, will have ten minutes to testify. And the chairs of the Senate and the Assembly committees will also have ten minutes to ask questions. The chairs of Ways and Means and Senate Finance will have ten minutes to ask questions. Both entities have the availability of a three minute follow-up. All other members will have three minutes, with the exception of rankers on the housing committee, which will have five minutes and no follow-up. Everyone that wishes to ask questions, please be advised that there are time clocks spread throughout this entire room. When you see a yellow light, that means that there are thirty seconds left for your time. Your three minute time includes both question and answer. So please don't ask a question when there's nine seconds left on the clock and expect an answer because I will unfortunately and it breaks my heart to do this but shut you down and move on to the next witness. With that, to all participants well, if anyone needs to register, please do so now and to make sure that you're on our agenda. With that, I'd like to introduce our first governmental witness, Ms. Ruth Ann how do you pronounce that?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: D. Viznauskas.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: D. Yeah, Viznauskas. Viznauskas. D. You all heard that. Okay.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: J. Can I just say something quickly, Ruth Ann? J. D. J. D. Just to clarify, I'm the meaner of the two of us. So this is mostly to address my colleagues up here. We are starting an hour and a half late and it's a longer testifier less than we thought it was going to be, which we do want to hear from all of you. So we're asking the legislators, please don't repeat each other's questions. If one person got the answer, that should be satisfactory. And two, if you're here to testify, but you know you've got a last train you have to get on and you're looking at the clock going, yeah, this isn't happening, we have everyone's testimony. Everyone's testimony is already up online on the Assembly and the Senate website. So please don't think you're offending anyone if you decide to rush to get on the train and skip your three minutes. Because all you're getting is three minutes. Just want to let you know. So it's really what matters is what you wrote down and gave us, because we all have it and can see it. In fact, all 20,000,000 New Yorkers can see it, even if you're on the train home at that time. Thank you. Thank you.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: J. Thank you. J. Commissioner? J.

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: Afternoon Chair Krueger, Pretlow, Kavanaugh, and Rosenthal, and distinguished members of the legislature. I want to thank Chair Kavanaugh. Just a quick note of thanks for your leadership and my time as Senate chair. It has been my privilege to work with you on affordable housing issues. My name is Ruth Ann Bosnauskas. I'm the commissioner and CEO of New York State Homes and Community Renewal. Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today on Governor Hochul's fiscal twenty twenty seven executive budget and to share progress on HCR's efforts to increase housing affordability across New York State. Over the past year, under the governor's leadership, HCR has continued to deliver results for individuals, families, and communities across the state. We have implemented the $25,000,000,000 housing plan with urgency and with focus. And I'm pleased to report that as we near the final year of the plan, HCR will have financed the creation and preservation of more than 78,000 affordable homes. And we are firmly on track to the 100,000 goal. Our continued housing investments strengthen communities. They provide opportunity. They provide long term stability for all New Yorkers, for seniors, for those who need services to live independently, for families, and for individuals. We make New York a more affordable and desirable place to call home with every dollar that we invest. And as I do each year, I have the pleasure of traveling around the state to see these investments take shape and to stand alongside many of you senators, assembly members, as well as municipal officials and our partners in the housing community as we welcome residents to their new homes. I can say without hesitation that these developments are making an enormous difference in the lives of New Yorkers and in the communities that make up this great state. And I'm happy to say that our success also goes beyond the construction and preservation of affordable housing. For example, more than 400 municipalities have been certified as pro housing communities under Governor Hochul's leadership, with more certified each month. The program provides certified communities with exclusive access to $750,000,000 in state discretionary funding. This includes $100,000,000 specifically dedicated to localities to address their infrastructure needs, such as water and sewer upgrades that also support housing development. The funds awarded to date support the creation of up to 20,000 homes statewide. In addition to these capital dollars, certified municipalities were eligible to apply for $5,000,000 in technical assistance grants to support pro housing related activities aimed at increasing housing supply. This included creating master plans, conducting market studies and zoning analysis, streamlining building permits, and similar actions that give localities concrete tools to grow their housing stock. In addition to our promising community work, I would like to highlight two new initiatives from the past year that we are doing to expand our impact. This year, we established New York's Housing Acceleration Fund. The first of its kind program in the state provides low cost construction financing to help accelerate the development of shovel ready mixed income rental projects across New York. It was one of the governor's key housing proposals from her twenty twenty five State of the State. And with support from the legislature, it's expected to result in 1,800 homes statewide. This year, we also launched Move In New York, an innovative program to increase new affordable homeownership options for New Yorkers. The program focuses on factory built housing and was successfully launched with the creation of three starter homes sited in Schenectady and Syracuse and Newcomb the town of Newcomb in the Adirondacks. We have expanded the pilot program to a statewide initiative, and we expect to help build 200 additional starter homes this year and to do so at half the cost of traditional construction and twice as fast. Shifting to this year's proposals, the governor is again laser focused on housing affordability and making sure government works on behalf of New Yorkers. Prices are rising. People are struggling to afford rents, to buy homes, and to pay for life's necessities. The governor continues to find innovative ways to tackle these challenges. And that promise is reflected in her ambitious state of the state and executive budget proposals. To start, the governor is proposing her landmark Let Them Build agenda, a series of reforms designed to speed up and reduce the cost for housing and infrastructure development. The main pillar of Let Them Build is a modernization and update to the State Environmental Quality Review Act, SIGRA. As you and your constituents can likely attest, housing developments and infrastructure projects are often subject to long and expensive process of analyzing environmental issues, only to uncover that there are no concerns. Meanwhile, time goes by, costs go up, and New Yorkers are left without housing. To remedy this, the governor is proposing to exempt housing from seek review if it meets certain criteria. This housing will still be required to comply with the crucial state regulatory and permit requirements governing water use, air quality, environmental justice, and protection of natural resources. This proposal will not supersede local land use requirements. And on the contrary, it removes the source of unnecessary delay for the development that localities need and support. This change will allow localities to move forward in a way that prioritizes smarter housing growth and ensures we continue to preserve our environment and conserve our national resources.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Last week, I was with

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: the governor touring some housing developments in the city of New Rochelle, where you can see firsthand the value of building more homes faster. Housing of all types affordable and market rate, homeownership and rental were supported by the city, and the results speak for themselves. New Rochelle permitted just 39 homes annually in 2017. Since 2020, that number has rose to nearly 1,000 homes a year, resulting in a 5% decline in rent growth and a time when rent growths elsewhere are increasing by double digits. When we build more housing and remove barriers, housing is more affordable for everyone. The secret process today adds more than $82,000 per home in New York City, dollars 35,000 per home in cities like Rochester and Buffalo, dollars 40,000 per home in the Mid Hudson region, and $45,000 per home on Long Island, according to a report by the Citizens Budget Commission. These added costs drive rents and housing costs up for everyone at a time when New Yorkers can least afford it. As the governor has made clear, she is steadfastly committed to addressing the state's housing crisis and wants to do so by building a wide variety of housing to meet the diverse needs of New Yorkers. This proposal is a critical step to partner with localities in achieving that essential goal. To be clear, the proposed changes do not weaken standards. They modernize them. And we're proud that this innovative approach has earned the backing of the New York State Association of Counties, the New York State Association of Towns, the New York State Conference of Mayors, the Regional Plan Association, along with New York City Mayor Mamdani, and dozens of other local elected officials. This diverse coalition demonstrates its wide appeal and its extraordinary potential. To properly invest in New York's housing and local development needs, we continue to rely on a comprehensive strategy that reinforces successful programs while also directing resources towards new programs that can solve the problems of today and tomorrow. To this end, the governor's budget proposes two fifty million dollars in funding to accelerate the construction of thousands of new affordable homes, dollars 100,000,000 for the Move In New York Homeownership Program to leverage innovative technology to build new homes twice as fast and at a lower cost, $50,000,000 for the Resilient and Ready program to help homeowners recover from and better prepare for extreme weather events $5,000,000 for a new manufactured home park revolving loan fund to finance improvements to critical infrastructure $50,000,000 for the Housing Access Voucher Pilot Program, consistent with the pilot designed to provide rental assistance for individuals and families who are homeless or facing imminent loss of housing $40,000,000 for the Homeownership Protection Program, to provide legal assistance and housing counseling to help preserve homeownership and protect at risk homeowners from foreclosure, and $20,000,000 for lead abatement programs to protect tenants from lead hazards in areas of high risk outside New York City. In addition to that, the governor is proposing to increase the eligibility for two important New York rent freeze programs the senior citizen rent increase exemption and the disability rent increase exemption, also known as SCRE and DRE. The income eligibility limits would increase from $50,000 to $75,000 which will ensure that the most vulnerable New Yorkers are protected from rent increases. We're also reauthorizing J51 for the next ten years, a crucial tool for allowing owners of rent stabilized buildings and co ops to make capital investments in their buildings without increasing costs for residents. The governor's proposal expands the universe of eligible buildings, makes it easier for owners to apply, and increases the total benefit. While these examples represent only a fraction of the governor's housing and community initiatives, they reflect many of the bold steps we're taking towards meeting the housing and community revitalization needs of our vibrant and diverse state. And I look forward to your support. The challenges we face are significant, but so is the progress we have made and will continue to make together. I want to thank the legislature for your ongoing support and your shared vision and commitment to addressing housing affordability. Together, we have delivered measurable results, 78,000 of them so far. Thousands of new homes, renovated homes, homeownership opportunities, stronger communities, and a cleaner, greener environment. I'm confident that we will continue to be a model for the nation and how government works for the people. I want to thank you. And just before I take your questions, I'd also like to thank not only the staff of mine who is sitting behind me here today, but also the 1,000 strong HCR staff who help HCR carry out our mission every day. And with that,

[Senator Cordell Cleare]: I'm ready to take your questions.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Thank you very much. I see we've been joined by Senator Jackson. And our first questioner will be the housing chair from the assembly, Assembly Member Rosenthal. Oh, I'm sorry. The Ways and Means Committee got called out to a meeting, so that's why my colleague here has disappeared temporarily.

[Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal (Chair, Assembly Housing)]: Okay. Thank you, Senator. Hello, Commissioner. Hello, Commissioner staff behind her. Thank you all for your work. At the top, you mentioned a large number of units, like 78,000. You said preservation as well as construction. How many were preserved? How many were constructed?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: I can get back to you on the exact split, but we generally look for a balance across the state between new construction and preservation of rental housing. But we obviously are demand driven, so as people bring us projects, we try to make sure that we are balancing that. But I'm happy to get back to you with an exact

[Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal (Chair, Assembly Housing)]: split. Right. Because, I mean, the governor puts a lot of emphasis on building, which is great. But it's equally important to preserve because we can't build fast enough as we need to. And the people who are in apartments that which is why J51 is great, which will help rehab them. Can you provide any insight into the timing of when a building is generally accepted into J51 this is about the MCIs versus when the MCI increase could start? There was a process with a waiver, and what would start first.

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: I'm not totally sure I understand your question.

[Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal (Chair, Assembly Housing)]: Okay. In 2003, the J51 program required recipients to waive collection of any MCI for the work covered by J51. This would delay the waiver of the MCI increase until a building is actually accepted into J51. So what is the rationale behind that?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: So the new program, which is enacted, as you know, by the state but administered by the city of New York, doesn't propose to change that structure to balance between an MCI and a J51. Obviously, an owner can make a choice as to whether which program they want to undertake. And they're both a little different. I think as we go forward in the reauthorization of a new ten year program, I think if we want to engage in changes to the way J51 and MCI interact with each other, we'd be happy to talk about that.

[Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal (Chair, Assembly Housing)]: Okay. We know that in the past, developers, one of whom is deceased, did not abide by the rules of J51 and left apartments out of rent stabilization. Do you expect HPD will more closely supervise all of that? And do you know how?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: I can't really speak for HPD. I would say, however, that there is certainly a robust task force that operates between the city housing agency, the state housing agencies, the attorney general's office that is often working on buildings or owners of interest to make sure that if there's any sort of patterns or any sort of significant not following of the rules, as it were, that that is being investigated, whether it's by HPD or the Tenant Protection Unit, HCR, or the attorney general's office.

[Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal (Chair, Assembly Housing)]: Okay. Moving into HIVP, Housing Access Voucher Program, which so many people fought for. And we were incredibly happy that the governor agreed to invest in it. However, it was only for $50,000,000 In order for the state to maintain and serve its residents when there is chaos at the federal level, it's critical that we expand HIVP to $250,000,000 Could you tell us I know the program begins March 1, which is just around the corner. It was also intended to serve the entire state. So could you explain just a little bit about what you envision happening March 1?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: J. Sure. So the program is divided into administration at the city level by HPD and administration for the rest of the state by HCR. We have spent the last year contracting with a series of local administrators who are working with the counties to get vouchers issued. And the city has its own process for that. We also had to procure technology to have a separate technology process. So we are working closely with our local administrators, some of whom cover multiple counties, be to able to take people off the wait lists who are currently experiencing homelessness and provide them with a voucher that they then go search for an apartment.

[Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal (Chair, Assembly Housing)]: Okay. And you expect that beginning March 1, these vouchers will start rolling out? Is that what we should anticipate?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: We have already begun issuing vouchers. Sorry? We have already begun issuing vouchers.

[Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal (Chair, Assembly Housing)]: Okay, across the state. Maybe after this, we can get into some more details. Do you know if any of the projects funded through City of Yes that you're partnering with the city on?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: Since the administration is new there, we're still working with them as they get up to speed on a plan for the City of Yes funds.

[Assemblymember Anna R. Kelles]: Okay.

[Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal (Chair, Assembly Housing)]: Now there was $250,000,000 allocated for the next five year plan in the budget. What is that meant for without the plan being written or anticipated?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: So the two fifty million dollars in capital is intended to be spent in this fiscal year, so from April 1 till next March 31. And we would be using that to accelerate projects that are sitting in our pipeline that might be twenty twenty seven developments that we can now move into 2026 with this additional capital. So we are looking to produce sort of thousands of more units this year with the additional capital.

[Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal (Chair, Assembly Housing)]: We've seen New York City and other localities have good cause, have a robust system of rent regulation. But in other parts of the state, there is no such thing. Have you worked, or does your department work with different localities that say, help, how do we keep our residents here? We can't afford it. And one of the ways is to opt into ETPA. Have you had those kinds of interactions with folks?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: J. I mean, certainly we work very closely with mayors and supervisors across the state on their affordable housing needs. I think the current count is that there are 17 localities that have adopted good cause eviction around the state. ETPA has not been as widespread. Has been some localities have opted in and then are currently not in ETPA. So we work consistently with localities as they reach out to us for assistance on that.

[Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal (Chair, Assembly Housing)]: Do you think there might be an easier way? And we have some proposals about how to make it easier for localities to opt in.

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: JULIE I myself have not had localities express that they need it to be easier. I mean, as I said, the 17 that have done good cause eviction have done it on their gone through the process. And they report to us that they've done it. So we haven't received that as intel per se. At least I have not.

[Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal (Chair, Assembly Housing)]: Like ATPA?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: Yeah. I mean, have not had myself mayors come to me and say that they needed us to make it or you all to make it easier for them.

[Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal (Chair, Assembly Housing)]: Okay. So switching back to administrative. And I've heard this from constituents and other members that DHCR takes quite a while to acknowledge docket's filings, overcharges, opposition to MCIs, rent reduction. Why does it take so long? And I know it's historically taken a long time. But some are one, two years. I had one that was like ten years. How can that be sped up?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: J. So we get tens of thousands of cases a year. And we get them through a variety of different case types. And some case types are faster than others. On average, I think for some of our larger, more common case types, it takes about six to nine months to process those cases. So they are sort of long in nature. And because we act like an adjudicating court, our process requires notice to both parties. The parties are usually sort of in disagreement with each other. They're usually represented by counsel. There's multiple notice provisions. So it isn't a fast process in that sense that we are sort of, as I said, sort of acting like an adjudicator. We certainly do our best to speed up our processes. We are not in the business of having people wait to get decisions on whatever case types they are charging. I would say, certainly, in the last year, as folks may know, we have a new deputy commissioner in the Office of Rent Administration, Tony Tatano. And he has made it a very clear focus of his as he's come in to get backlogs down, to get case processing done quicker. And so we are very focused on that. Okay.

[Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal (Chair, Assembly Housing)]: We made some changes to IAAs in last year, I guess. At last year's hearing, you said there were about 200 applications. Do you have an updated number? What's been applied for over the past year?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: Are you asking about IAIs? IAIs. So IAIs now have two different case types, right? We have what used to be a $15,000 IAI is now a 30,000 And then we have the $50,000 We have pretty consistent applications in the $30,000 IAI from what the numbers were when they were $15,000 That number hasn't changed. The $50,000 one, I think in the last year, we've had 200 or so applications. That's a very narrow eligibility, right? You have to have your apartment been vacant for specific years and also a long term or a long term tenant. So we don't see as many of those IAI cases.

[Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal (Chair, Assembly Housing)]: Okay. And I guess I have just twenty eight seconds. But last year, I think it was you reported on the enormous number of an increase in the number of units that landlords were registering since the fine was up to $500 per have you seen that consistent?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: Yes, we are very appreciative of the fine change. We saw over 200,000 more units registered on time this year, which is great for transparency and for the system.

[Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal (Chair, Assembly Housing)]: 200,000?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: On time. More registrations that were done on time rather than late.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Okay. Thank you. Oops. Thank you. Our next testifier is the Senate housing chair, Senator Brian Kavanaugh.

[Senator Brian P. Kavanagh (Chair, Senate Housing)]: Thank you. I'll do questions and not testimony.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: J. I'm sorry. The witness. Excuse me. Yes. Not a witness. J. Know. I'm just it's been a long couple of weeks,

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: Brian. BRIAN

[Senator Brian P. Kavanagh (Chair, Senate Housing)]: She's already otherizing me and making me no longer a senator. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you, Commissioner, for being here for your testimony. I'll just begin. First of all, my colleague Linda Rosenthal and I worked very closely on getting HIVP on the books. I'll just say thank you for all your work to get that program up and running on time as the law called for. And we're looking forward to seeing how that rolls out over time. And yes, I will be joining the assembly and others in seeking more funding for that in the coming year. Can we talk a little bit about distressed existing housing? We're going to hear we have written testimony later in the day, and I think we'll have a number of witnesses that are going to talk about existing housing that, through combinations of increased rates of non payment of rent and other expenses going up and other things, are experiencing financial distress, in some cases physical distress. I know you've had some HR has been doing some work with those providers. Can you talk about the need and also just what options we have for addressing it?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: J. Yes, happy to. I think that the rising costs of insurance, of utilities, of labor costs sort of across the board certainly creates stress on the affordable housing stock. Specifically, insurance is something that we've heard a lot about last year, and I'm sure you will continue to hear this year about increases that are two and three and four times what they had traditionally been, and that creating a lot of pressure. I think that in the governor's budget, we are trying to propose a series of policy tools to help take that down around insurance, both multifamily and single family insurance changes around transparency and notification when premiums are going to go up by more than 10%, and other reporting metrics that insurance companies have to do, which we think will help. We also, last year, had some funding for organizations to join captives. So we awarded funding to two organizations to help affordable housing owners do risk mitigation and also join captives as an effort to reduce their costs. Obviously, the reauthorization of J51 will also help owners to make investments in their buildings without passing on increased rents to tenants. So we are trying to get a series while we can't exactly make tenants pay their rent where they're not, we are trying to take down on the expense side costs for affordable and just general sort of rental housing stock.

[Senator Brian P. Kavanagh (Chair, Senate Housing)]: J. Can you talk about I was going to ask you about the captive guess it was a notice of funding availability in the fall. And there now it was $5,000,000 That $5,000,000 has now been awarded. Correct. Are there housing to your knowledge, are the housing providers are actually now joining captives as a result of that initiative last year, or is that still kind of in the works?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: I think that there is probably still more work to do to get owners to sort of make risk mitigation investments in their buildings to be eligible for a captive, which sometimes has higher barriers to entry and also to pay the premiums that one has to pay to join a captive. So I don't think we've seen it yet, but we are hopeful that as this funding goes out the door, that we'll see that over the course of this year.

[Senator Brian P. Kavanagh (Chair, Senate Housing)]: J. Good. I want to ask you a series of questions about the pace at which money is going out the door and units, to the extent to which it's been committed. So you talked about the Housing Acceleration Fund, which is a that's a revolving loan fund to kind of bridge the gap, especially during construction?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: It's construction only, correct.

[Senator Brian P. Kavanagh (Chair, Senate Housing)]: D. And I would note that Senator May has been a very big component of that, perhaps lost some questions. But just, you did 18,000 Actually, basically, I think we did $50,000,000 in New York City, dollars 50,000,000 outside New York City last year. Is that money now committed?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: Yeah, so we awarded to CDFI and lender partners who doubled the commitment. So we went from $50,000,000 in New York $100,000,000 fund and $50,000,000 rest of state to $100,000,000 fund. We've signed agreements with those banks. We're signing them probably now ish. And then they will start the process of closing loans. When they applied to us to be part of the program, they had to give us a pipeline of projects. So we anticipate that once we close with each of them that the financings will happen in short order after that. So we haven't seen any projects close yet, but we're anticipating it.

[Senator Brian P. Kavanagh (Chair, Senate Housing)]: And it's a revolving loan funded. What is the sort of rough cycle that would be for the during which the money would basically return to the fund?

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: J. Yeah. I mean, I

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: think it depends on the size of the project. But most construction projects that come through our pipeline as a proxy for what happens in the rest of the state would be a twenty four to thirty six month timeline for construction. And then they would then our funds would get taken out by a permanent loan that a building would have. And then we would recycle that for future projects.

[Senator Brian P. Kavanagh (Chair, Senate Housing)]: J. And I think I might have misspoken before, it's 1,800 units

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: that you've

[Senator Brian P. Kavanagh (Chair, Senate Housing)]: done so far. I think I added a zero there, which

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: would J. Be

[Senator Brian P. Kavanagh (Chair, Senate Housing)]: governor has a proposal to increase the number of land banks that are authorized in the state from 35 to 45. Can you talk a little bit about the purpose of that and also the extent to which I think that much of the money that we've committed, both on the expense side and the capital side, is spoken for at this point? So just can you talk a little bit about the proposal and how it relates to funding needs of land banks?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: J. Yes. We have wonderful relationships with land banks across the state who, in addition to all the other things they do, are building housing and sort of rebuilding, especially in areas where there's a lot of missing teeth, as it were, in the housing landscape. So there's currently 32. I think there was just one approved recently. It went from 31 to 32 land banks. So as we inch up to the cap, we felt it was important to move the cap again, as has been done in the past, from 35 to 45 to allow more land banks to form. We also have received about $160,000,000 in funding for the land banks. I think we have about 140,000,000 of that out the door. And we would expect the balance of that to go out over the course of this next year to continue to support all the work of the land banks. Are also working with them on our move in program, so they are getting funding through other programs of ours too.

[Senator Brian P. Kavanagh (Chair, Senate Housing)]: J. And if legislature were to see fit to try to add additional money for that,

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: do have

[Senator Brian P. Kavanagh (Chair, Senate Housing)]: to sure have some some to spend that J.

[Assemblymember Chris Burdick]: D. Absolutely.

[Senator Brian P. Kavanagh (Chair, Senate Housing)]: The Vacant Repair Program, BROWN: I think we dropped the I, so we don't have to call it V RIP anymore. J. But I guess we've done $80,000,000 in the last two years. This was an initiative particularly from especially some of my Senate colleagues, including the now mayor of Buffalo, former Senator Ryan. But again, can you talk a little bit about the progress in getting standing up that program and getting the $80,000,000 out the door?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: JULIE Yes, it is a great program. It's very retail. Oftentimes, were doing two rental units

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: or

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: in a building, which is not a scale that we typically work out with our other programs. But we have made a series of grants to nonprofits and municipalities who are administering the programs locally. I actually was in Buffalo with Senator Ryan, and we toured some of the apartments above a bowling alley that had been taking advantage of the program. So we still have more funding to spend there and will take us through, certainly, the course of the next year. But we think it's a great resource that, before this, we didn't have for very small, vacant apartments in the rest of the state.

[Senator Brian P. Kavanagh (Chair, Senate Housing)]: J. And in terms of the it was $40,000,000 first year, 40,000,000 additional. Is that money mostly kind of committed at this point?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: J. Still have some money to spend on that program, but it's been successful. Think always with new programs, it takes a minute to sort of get the parameters up and to explain to people how it works and get it out the door.

[Senator Brian P. Kavanagh (Chair, Senate Housing)]: But it's been moving pretty rapidly. And that building that program is capped at buildings of no more than five units, if I'm not mistaken.

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: I can't recall, but I think that is right.

[Senator Brian P. Kavanagh (Chair, Senate Housing)]: MATTHEW S. So it's intended for smaller.

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: LARRY S. Smaller.

[Senator Brian P. Kavanagh (Chair, Senate Housing)]: MATTHEW sometimes have had people comment that, especially where I come from in New York City, that there might be larger buildings. Could that model work for buildings that are somewhat larger than five units?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: J. Yeah, I mean, think our understanding and the intent of the program was sort of get at sort of single or two or three apartments in an overall building that are vacant, as opposed to us doing a larger rehab loan for a whole building that might need that work to get done. So I think we queued off the senator's sort of vision there for that.

[Senator Brian P. Kavanagh (Chair, Senate Housing)]: J. Right. He's not here to defend. Once the senator leaves, you never know what happens. Similar about the question of I think this program has been first of all, thank you. And as you noted, very challenging to get a new program like that up and running, especially property by property. Similar questions with respect to block by block. How is the implementation of that going?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: LUISE You know, block by block is limited to a subset of cities at the get go. So we have made awards. The spending is slow, as you might imagine, house by house and $250,000 grant by grant. So we still have funding left in that program to carry us through for the next year. But it has been successful. And actually, I also was in Rochester last week, I saw two block by block buildings going up, sort of filling in missing teeth on a street. And so it complements some of the other programs we have already, but is a great sort of tool in the toolbox for localities.

[Senator Brian P. Kavanagh (Chair, Senate Housing)]: J. Great. So I will quickly well, let me just say also, you mentioned this, just thank you to the you and to the governor for continuing to fund the HOP program. That's something that we used to have this dance in every spring. So it's very, very good to see $40,000,000 for that in the executive budget. And with that, rather than trying to squeeze another question and then make Assembly Member Patlot mad, I will end, and I may go back to my other few minutes if my other questions aren't asked. But thank you so much for your testimony. Thanks.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: LUISE B. Thank you.

[Assemblymember Michael J. Fitzpatrick (Ranking Member, Assembly Housing)]: Commissioner, great to see you. Thanks And for being I just want to say thank you for everything you and the governor are doing. I think we're moving in a very positive direction in housing. And it's one of her signature issues, and rightly so. I have a question regarding the SECRA changes. So I was a councilman for many years in the town of Smithtown. We have the Nissaquag River. We have the Long Island Sound. We have some wetlands. And we also have housing developments proposed. And CCRA, of course, is a big issue.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: Smith? No, I apologize.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: He's a ranker?

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: Yes. So five minutes. J.

[Assemblymember Michael J. Fitzpatrick (Ranking Member, Assembly Housing)]: The secret, we want to you don't want to weaken the standards, but you want to modernize them. So can you give me a little more specificity as to how what are we going to modernize? How do we speed up this process? And are you prepared for any pushback? Because I think a lot of people who may oppose certain projects are going to say, well, we've had a lot of problems with the CLCPA and the state kind of bulldozing communities to put up wind farms and solar farms, etcetera. How are we going to address those concerns when we talk about modernizing secret?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: J. So I think the governor expresses this best when she says she wants the state to get out of the way of localities that are looking to have housing built. Housing that's built in communities is still subject to zoning and to water permits and to wetlands permits and all the things that exist locally that a town would do for permitting and also for review of any housing development. But it means that if a town is looking to do that, there isn't this redundant or additional state process they have to go through. And there isn't the risk of litigation from a third party to create a year, two, three, four year sort of stoppage that housing being built. So the version that we are proposing here is to take a subset of housing developments and say that they are not subject to the SEC review. They are subject to all the local reviews and approvals that they would otherwise be.

[Assemblymember Michael J. Fitzpatrick (Ranking Member, Assembly Housing)]: J. Okay. And then just as the state's housing czar, if you will, can you help me understand how a rent freeze works? How is this going to work? When I hear the remarks by the mayor's new housing czar for the city, it's kind of scary, in my view. We have a lot of old housing stock. And we were just talking about MCIs, IAIs, the cost of labor insurance, etcetera. Everything seems to be going up. It's not getting any cheaper. How is a rent freeze going to work?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: J. So the Office of Rent Administration, which is in HCR, oversees rent stabilization system. However, the rents of the million or so apartments in the City Of New York are set and managed by the Rent Guidelines Board. And the Rent Guidelines Board is fully appointed by the mayor of the City Of New York. So we don't have any oversight of that process. And they have their own sort of statutory process that they have to do to determine whether a rent increase is merit and what that number looks like. So I don't have purview into how they do their process. And the governor doesn't have any appointees on that board.

[Assemblymember Michael J. Fitzpatrick (Ranking Member, Assembly Housing)]: J. You can't bend the of economics here. How I don't understand with so many units off the market now because it's just you can't even cover the costs of keeping these units open. So we exacerbate the housing crisis. Somebody has to pay for this. So we see in the news kind of the mayor holding a gun to the governor's head over property tax increases. Basically, as I read it, it's an admission that a rent freeze doesn't work, it can't work, without making the problem even worse. And when we look at the New York City Housing Authority, they struggle to provide quality housing. And they're not doing a very good job. So if you're going to freeze the rent for everyone, how are you going to increase the housing supply?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: LUISE B. I think the governor has a series of tools here to help owners of buildings reduce their costs, which is the other side of the equation, whether that's around multifamily property insurance or this reauthorization of J51. So she is certainly putting forward tools for owners to be able to use to take their expenses down to try to, obviously maintain their buildings in a time when costs are going up. I think the rent growth is uncertain.

[Assemblymember Michael J. Fitzpatrick (Ranking Member, Assembly Housing)]: J. Very good. All right. Thank you.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: There we go. Jack Martin is the ranker for the Senate.

[Senator Jack M. Martins (Ranking Member, Senate Housing)]: J. Commissioner, great to see you again. Thank you for testifying today. We used the term affordable housing a lot. Certainly did already today. I'm sure we'll hear a lot more of that. Can you talk to me about defining affordable housing in terms of means testing? Is it tied to area median incoming? And when you're using it, is that what you expect that it's going to be tied to some measure of affordability tied to area median income?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: I would say it depends on what question I'm answering. But I would say broadly and the governor has been consistent about this that she cares very deeply about housing that is affordable, not specifically to only affordable housing, as we, as a housing agency, are generally financing, which, as you said, is sort of means tested and has fixed rents and fixed rent growth and that type of structure. I think the things that are in the budget today, like the secret reform and other efforts, are actually around housing affordability and housing that's affordable, not solely directed to affordable housing. J.

[Senator Jack M. Martins (Ranking Member, Senate Housing)]: Sure. So more generically, certainly, when we're fast tracking the process and removing impediments to the project to the process of building, I certainly understand that. But when we are building housing and we call it affordable, I think there is a tie to area median income and means testing so that you don't have people earning hundreds of thousands of dollars or millions of dollars a year getting access to an apartment that has been subsidized to allow for someone who has less means to be able to afford to live in that apartment. Wouldn't you agree?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: J. Certainly. For the housing that we finance at HCR, we are financing housing that is targeted specifically to low income households who then income qualify to be eligible to live in that housing.

[Senator Jack M. Martins (Ranking Member, Senate Housing)]: J. So let's talk about that. Low income households, moderate income households, how does the department define that? Is it 60% of AMI? I know that when we build housing on Long Island in our local communities, there is usually a set aside. Typically, anywhere between 6080% of AMI is the means test to allow that those subsidized units that are going to go and be rented for below market rate are available. Would you agree that that's a fair representation, 60% to 80%?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: J. I would say probably on the low end, we finance apartments at 40 AMI. And at the high end, across all of our programs, we certainly fund at 120 of AMI. We might go up above that, depending on where we're financing and what the market is. Certainly in a locality like New York City or in Long Island, the area median income is quite high. And so even when we're financing a project at 100% of AMI, it is well below what the market rent or the market home price may be. So we have a broad range depending on our programs.

[Senator Jack M. Martins (Ranking Member, Senate Housing)]: J. So if we had programs that allowed for people to occupy units who were earning multiples of area median income but yet having the benefit of reduced rent, would that constitute affordable housing by the definition of your department?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: I think depending on the type of housing someone is in, are allowed to don't have to if they enter as a low income person, they are not required to stay low income for their whole term of their life and or occupancy. So many programs have, for example, like Mitchell Lama, other programs have surcharges that are applied to people that go above a certain income limit. So I think it sort of depends on what we're doing. We don't generally have, I don't know, millionaires, I guess, living in affordable apartments. People are income certified year over year in a tax credit apartment that they have that same income.

[Senator Jack M. Martins (Ranking Member, Senate Housing)]: J. Appreciate that. But I can tell you that having reviewed some statistics regarding rent stabilized housing in New York City, There are about 1,200,000 units in New York City of rent stabilized housing. And about 300,000 of those units are occupied by people making $150,000 or more. So if they're occupied by people making $150,000 or more, an area median income in New York City is $100,000 it's 150%. And so would it not benefit this state and these programs for us to means test them so that we make sure that those individuals people fresh out of school, people who are working blue collar jobs, not making the $150,000 have the ability to afford to live there and make those 300,000 units available now, not ten years from now, when there's construction. Wouldn't you agree?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: You're saying we should means test people in rent stabilized housing?

[Senator Jack M. Martins (Ranking Member, Senate Housing)]: R. Correct.

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: And where would they go if they earned more?

[Senator Jack M. Martins (Ranking Member, Senate Housing)]: R. Well, can get market rate housing because if I have somebody earning $500,000 and there are examples because the city surveys these themselves Everyone can go and look at it for themselves. There are people making over $100,000 excuse me, over $1,000,000 in rent stabilized housing. They can afford to get market rate housing and make those units available to people who are moderate or low income. And that's how I feel. Thank you, commissioner.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Assembly.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: Assemblymember Torres.

[Assemblymember Emérita Torres]: Thank you, commissioner. Thank you, madam chair. A few questions. I'll just jump right in. I just have three minutes. We've heard a lot of concerns from advocates when it comes to the Let Them Build initiative from the governor, in particular that New Yorkers are not going to have any say in building proposals and construction and development projects. Can you lay that out? Is that true, not true?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: So projects that are, or any sort of housing development in any locality, still has to go by any local process. So whether that's a local public hearing for a water permit or a zoning permit or a site plan or whatever exists now, a community board, whatever the sort of the local review would be for any action, those things aren't removed by secret going away. JULIE Okay.

[Assemblymember Emérita Torres]: Thank you. I similarly have a lot of concerns around insurance, which I know you've discussed a bit. There's also and in The Bronx, it's gone up over 100% over the last five years in particular buildings. And for me, we've seen a lot of source of income discrimination as well. It's been well documented in several reports. Section eight, city febs, those buildings that have these vouchers are being refused outright for insurance, or they're being charged way up. Are you tracking this? What's your assessment? Because I think we've seen lots of really great reports. But I don't have a sense for the scale of how this is happening.

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: I think just to divide those into two, I think on the insurance side, we certainly are tracking insurance rates for our portfolio and have been engaging with DFS over the years and had a study that came out. And we'll continue to work with them on increases and how do we mitigate them along the lines of some of the proposals that are in the governor's budget this year. Of transparency metrics. If you're getting a 10% rate increase, you have to explain why, and the owner is entitled to that. If you're making certain types of risk mitigation investments, you should get automatic reductions in your premium for that. So I think those types of things help on the insurance side. On the source of income discrimination, we work really closely with the Division of Human Rights. And we have a team of staff over there that works to make sure and takes in complaints, as it were, and does a campaign to make sure people are aware and they know that it's available, that if they are having a feel that they are being discriminated against based on a Section eight voucher or a FEPS voucher or a HAVP voucher, that they have a place to go. And they will get a callback, and that case will be investigated.

[Assemblymember Emérita Torres]: Thank you. And in my last thirty seconds, Michalamas I have several Michalamas in my district. And I'm really happy to see the expansion for Scree and Dree. And wondering if there's any other hardship protections for those that might have lost their job, or other mechanisms for hardship protections for others at Mitchell Llamas?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: J. I mean, those are the two main tools we have, the screen and tree. But I think we're always happy to support both co ops and rental Mitchell Llamas to make sure that they can remain as affordable as they can be. Certainly for our portfolio, sort of on average, our Mitchell Lama portfolio is affordable to about a 40 AMI household, which is a great spot for affordability.

[Assemblymember Anna R. Kelles]: Thank you.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: Thanks. Our

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: next questioner is Senator Cordell Clear.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: SEN.

[Senator Cordell Cleare]: Thank you. Good afternoon, Commissioner. I'm going to jump right into it too because we only have a limited amount of time. A similar question has already been asked about the city of I know that you said the administration is new. But I just want to know, does the state have a tracking mechanism? Are we tracking the spending and measuring the impact of City of Yes?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: J. Yes. So it is not being spent yet until we coordinate with the city and have a plan in Dodoby for the fund. But it will certainly be tracked.

[Senator Cordell Cleare]: Okay. Thank you. And can you provide an update on how many supportive or affordable units have been constructed or preserved by the previous five year plan to date? If you don't have it now, could tell us later.

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: JULIE Sure. We're at about 78,000 units today for a total created and preserved against the 100,000 target we're going into the last five years. We have financed, I think, a little north of or plus or minus 7,000 supportive units as part of that, which is part of an overall commitment supported largely by the Empire State's Board of Housing Initiative, Eichai, which provides rent and service dollars to those buildings.

[Senator Cordell Cleare]: And with threatened cuts to Section nine capital funding for NYCHA, what can the state do to ensure adequate maintenance and preservation of the city's 300 plus complexes?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: JULIE I mean, I think the governor has been fairly clear that the state it's impossible for the state to fill the budget hole that the federal government is proposing to create, whether it's on housing or health care or anything else. That said, we work very closely with housing authorities across the state. In addition to NYCHA, the governor's consistently had capital funding in the budget that is made available to NYCHA to do elevators and roofs and capital repairs on those buildings to make sure that they can stay habitable.

[Senator Cordell Cleare]: Thank you. And very happy about the income expansion for SCRE. I'm hoping for it to be indexed to the rate of inflation so that we don't have to wait another twenty years to increase that. That's a bill carried currently by our housing chair. But if you could identify one systemic reform that will most significantly improve outcomes for seniors and persons with disabilities in these programs, what would it be? Because we know it's undersubscribed. What can we do to improve that?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: J. Mean, certainly, SCRE is an incredible tool for seniors. And I think there is often reporting that it is underutilized in New York City. And so we are happy to work closely with HPD in the city to make sure, through our Mitchell Lama developments and also just in the rent stabilized stock, that people are aware of the program and can make efforts to make sure people can apply.

[Senator Cordell Cleare]: Thank you. Thank

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: you, Commissioner. I'm going to just start with a question sort of

[Assemblymember Dana Levenberg]: directed towards our seniors. How is the state working to better support older adults who live in existing affordable senior housing but may need assistance in accessing the services and resources that are available to them in the community?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: So certainly for our HCR finance senior developments, oftentimes there is a nonprofit partner who is working to connect seniors to services. With The States, also with the Eichai program, a lot of the buildings that we're doing that have senior populations in them are for frail elderly. So it's really more enriched services for people who need help with more than two daily tasks. And so that has been really successful for us in the development of our senior housing portfolio to make sure people have access to services.

[Assemblymember Dana Levenberg]: I mean, have you considered a resident assistance program that would be available

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: for some

[Assemblymember Dana Levenberg]: of these buildings that we have our seniors in affordable housing? Is that something that you've considered at all? And if so, do you have any idea what that expense might look like and how we could support it?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: J. No. Certainly, it's probably something we could coordinate with the state's office for the aging on and take a look at what they think an appropriate size and scale for certainly we believe there's family re supports in the buildings we regulate. But obviously, there's a lot of naturally occurring senior housing, too, where that might be a benefit. So we'd be happy to have that conversation.

[Assemblymember Dana Levenberg]: Cool. And then, Pro Housing Communities Program. Great to see that there are 400 approved communities and that's ever expanding. Is the money for the improvements getting out the door? And if so, is that something that, you know, that is actually going to be expanding to the extent that it needs to be, especially for our communities outside the city?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: I mean, we're really excited about the uptake of the 400, a little over 400 certified communities represent about 70% of the state's population. So we really are hitting a big footprint. The dollars, the different whether it's through ESD or DOT or DEC have continued to get awarded and got the door. It takes a little time, obviously, for the RFPs to go out and people apply and they award and go into contract. So it's not a sort of a short and then if it's a water project, it has to get built. And so it's a really long game, which is, in a year by year world, can sometimes be hard to navigate. But we're really excited that that funding we still have available funding that will continue to go out across those programs to support the communities.

[Assemblymember Dana Levenberg]: Thank you. And then my last question is, was this the question? No. How is the state helping Mitchell Lama buildings transition to clean energy systems without placing the financial burden on residents?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: J. So we have a series of funding programs that we're using, whether it's Climate Friendly Homes Fund. We have a series of pots of funds that we are looking to provide existing buildings who are making the transition to pay for capital costs for that type of work, which includes Mitchell Amis.

[Unidentified speaker (brief acknowledgments)]: Thank you.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Thank you. Next up is Senator May.

[Senator Rachel May]: Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner, for your testimony and your very thoughtful work in housing. I wanted to ask one more question about the acceleration fund. I'm excited that that's really doing the work we hoped it would. If the legislature were to put another $100,000,000 there capacity? Is there demand? Would that be something that would be a worthwhile investment, in your opinion?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: J. We haven't spent $1 of the money that we have yet. But we are hopeful that once we get the money out the door and we see what types of projects can best take advantage of this, that we would then be able to sort of keep going with it. So I feel like it's we haven't sort of put the proof in our pudding or whatever that term might be yet on the program to date. But we're really excited about it and would be hopeful to expand it.

[Senator Rachel May]: And there's been sufficient demand for the entire amount so far.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Yeah. I mean, when

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: we had people apply, they had to sort of give us a pipeline showing they could spend the money we were giving them. So projects are not always on the timeline people think they are. But we want to be ambitious with it, for sure.

[Senator Rachel May]: That's wonderful. And then on the secret process, I guess I was hoping you could explain the thinking behind a kind of one size fits all limit for everything outside of New York City because the bill that I carry has a lot of different options depending on the size of the community. I'm just wondering, do you think there's room for negotiation on that?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: Yeah. I mean, would say that I think we wanted to cover a large swath of housing that gets built from our perspective. The housing that we see gets built across the state that we felt like the 100 units rest of the state covered a nice broad set of projects. And it's very clear and transparent, which sometimes I think people don't always understand what we're doing in the housing agency and where it applies and where it doesn't. So I think we are happy to sort of have a one standard that is very clear for communities that that is the standard. But I suspect it will be part of the negotiations as we go through the process.

[Senator Rachel May]: I will just say I'm aware of quite a few projects that would benefit from that exemption that are considerably larger than 100 units all over outside of New York City. So thank you. And thank you for considering that and in general for the work that you've been doing.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: J. Thanks. J. Assemblymember Burdick. Burdick:

[Assemblymember Chris Burdick]: Thank you, Chair Brentlow and Krueger. And thank you, Commissioner, for your great work. The enacted 2026 fiscal year budget includes a legislative add of $75,000,000 for public housing authorities outside of New York City for rehabilitation or replacement of multifamily housing. And the executive budget for 2027 does not include the $75,000,000 add. Wondering if you could tell us the status of the program under 2026, whether it's been successful, whether there's continued demand from public housing authorities. And similar to Senator May's question about capacity, whether your agency would have the capacity to handle an additional add of $75,000,000 given the demand and so forth.

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: I would say we've had tremendous success investing in housing authorities across the state. It is really, I think, one of the hallmark things we've been able to do is really transform what is often a very old housing stock in communities all over the state into brand new housing that can now be in good repair for the next thirty and fifty years. We have a pretty active pipeline this year. I think we have projects in Binghamton and Buffalo and Cahoes and Yonkers and sort of broad swaths of the state where we're investing in housing authorities. We have some funding left in our sort of base housing plan dollars. And we have been spending

[Assemblymember Chris Burdick]: every But an additional $75,000,000 you think could be utilized effectively?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: Yes. And so we will look to deploy that funding over the

[Senator Brian P. Kavanagh (Chair, Senate Housing)]: course of this year.

[Assemblymember Chris Burdick]: And so a similar question. The $250,000,000 in capital funding under the five year plan, is that what was planned to be under the long term capital plan? That's not an additional $250,000,000 is it?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: It is an additional $2.50 for million this fiscal year for us to accelerate housing production.

[Assemblymember Chris Burdick]: Oh, Okay. Well, that's terrific. How to like another $25,000,000 You could probably use it. I would think you'd have the capacity. Am I right with that leading question?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: We certainly try to spend every dollar that is proposed by the governor and approved by the legislature in this process and get it out in the door into communities.

[Assemblymember Chris Burdick]: Well, I also want to commend the money that's being put in for infrastructure projects. You and I have had those conversations before. Very much welcome. Thank you very much for the great work your department your agency does.

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: Thank you for your support.

[Assemblymember Anna R. Kelles]: Thank

[Senator Robert Jackson]: you. Hi, commissioner. How are you doing today?

[Assemblymember Anna R. Kelles]: Good. Thanks. How are you?

[Senator Robert Jackson]: Good to see you. Thank you. I'm looking at your statement. I came a little late. I am certain about the total amount of deductions in this budget. In fact, just looking at the top on page one, $1,400,000,000 decrease in the executive budget. A little further down, $415,000,000 budget excludes that. And I didn't really look at the rest, but it's about $2,000,000,000 And that's tough work in order to balance this budget. I mean, that's the way I feel considering the fact that the demands, in my opinion, are more than they were last year and the year before that. So if you're a superwoman or you have your team behind you that hopefully will communicate to the constituencies that's looking and depending on HPD, even though you're Citi, But housing, they're going look for housing everywhere.

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: So I would just say on the billion dollars, a big part of the billion dollars is the City of Yes funding that was in last year's budget that is carried over to So this it doesn't occur as a new funding source, it has been spent. We still have it available to us. So it looks like a billion dollar reduction, but that money is really still available.

[Senator Robert Jackson]: I'm the state senator that we're amalgamated housing up in The Bronx. And they need so much help in order to survive. I ask you and whoever is going to work with that, I would like to try to coordinate anything that I can do to help them survive the environment that we're in. Because it's if not, you're talking about people amalgamated, basically, our older families and seniors. And, obviously, you have people that are not seniors, but that's what's really there. So can you just give me your assessment on how you're going to do it?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: Yeah. So Amalgamated was fortunate to get some fundings dedicated specifically to it in the budget. And so we are in the process of getting that money. They're working through sort of a scope of work. Think the first order business is a series of electric stoves that are about to get ordered so they can get installed in that. And then they'll continue to work on other capital needs for that funding specifically. I think it was 5,000,000 or $10,000,000 in last year's budget. So we will get that out the door to them as soon as they're ready.

[Senator Robert Jackson]: Well, thank you for your service. And we have our work to do.

[Assemblymember Anna R. Kelles]: Thank you.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: Assemblymember's Brown.

[Assemblymember Ari Brown]: Mr. Chair, could I

[Assemblymember Michael J. Fitzpatrick (Ranking Member, Assembly Housing)]: Lester Chang, if he has

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: to leave.

[Assemblymember Michael J. Fitzpatrick (Ranking Member, Assembly Housing)]: Lester Chang first, if

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: he can.

[Assemblymember Lester Chang]: Thank you very much, Commissioner. Okay, I have two questions, if I can squeeze out three. The first, the 78,000 home creation that you listed on your testimony, what percentage are from downstate, I represent Brooklyn, are from New York City. What percentage are upstate? And I don't see that listing in your website. And the second question, your housing access pro voucher itself. I know I understand it's a it's a pilot, but in my every week, I get constituents complaining about when do vouchers get approved. So where's the bottleneck? It's not the money since we approve, is it the bureaucracy, or is it the vetting process?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: So on the housing production, we do have a great sort of map up on our website where you can see our investments on a map. But we'd be happy to send you housing plan investments sort of borough by borough and for the city and for Brooklyn. We have invested in thousands of units. The housing access voucher program so that program was set to start one of this year. So we have just opened up the process. We are not covering New York City. Are only in the rest of state. HPD is doing New York City. So I think if there's probably challenges on that, they would be with the city. But also, they haven't opened their program yet, so it should start very soon.

[Assemblymember Lester Chang]: Well, I thought so too. Now we can get a third question. The J51 program itself that you plan to propose itself, what's the difference with this new program versus previously ten years ago? What the differences are?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: So I would say there's three main differences. One is the program automatically goes into effect. So we don't have to wait for the city council to enact a local program, which last time caused a multiple year delay in the program being effective. Previously, owners could get a 70% reimbursement for their cost, and we changed that to be 100% of costs. And there is a cost schedule that often lags in sort of being up to date with current costs. So the legislation requires that that schedule get updated every couple of years.

[Assemblymember Lester Chang]: Okay. Circling back to my first question regarding about the 78,000 homes. And you were mentioning about the map on itself. But percentage wise, because it doesn't describe how many units. Does it describe how many units per on that map

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: itself?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: LESLIE It's like a map with little dots. When you go over the dot, it shows you the name of the building and the number of units. But we can also send you a snapshot of the information Okay. As

[Assemblymember Lester Chang]: Well, that's all I have. Thank you very much, and thank you for being here. Thank you.

[Unidentified speaker (brief acknowledgments)]: LESLIE Thanks.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Thank you. Excuse me. We have Senator Helming.

[Senator Pamela A. Helming]: SENATOR Kruger. Commissioner, how are you?

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Good. Thanks.

[Senator Pamela A. Helming]: SENATOR Kruger: I apologize. I did not hear testimony. I was on the Senate floor. But I do have a written copy, I will take a look through it. And I'd also like to extend an invite to you that when you're in the Rochester area, my district is all around it. We'd love to have you take a look at some of those more rural communities and the challenges that we're having. I know we all care deeply about housing that's more affordable for more people. As my colleague just said, it feels like the demands are much greater than they ever have been in the past. And in addition to the regulatory challenges like Seeker, what we're seeing is the challenge where I literally, in my district, have builders who have walked away from residential projects or have put them on hold because of a lack of electric capacity.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: Mhmm.

[Senator Pamela A. Helming]: So the all electric mandate is not helping us in certain areas meet the needs for more housing. Has there been any discussion about walking that back or modifying it in some way?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: I mean, for our part, for the buildings that we're financing at HTR, all of our new construction is all electric, and we are coordinating with PSC and other localities to make sure there is sufficient capacity for the demand that we're creating. So we haven't had so we have been fortunate, I guess, in the new construction projects that we have done that we've been able to make that conversion. And also exploring geothermal and other types of non carbon neutral systems that can help relieve the grid.

[Senator Pamela A. Helming]: I'd love to have a discussion with you about prioritization of electric capacity, too. But since I only have a minute less than thirty seconds left, I want to switch gears. One of the programs that I have heard from people in my community that's been very successful, it's the New York State Farm Worker Housing Loan Program.

[Emily Goldstein (Association for Neighborhood & Housing Development)]: And

[Senator Pamela A. Helming]: again, we're seeing investment in our state, Chobani, Kiga Milk Ingredients, so many great dairy programs, Fairlife. Has there been any discussion in order to meet the growing demand of our farmers for more housing to add additional funds to this program?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: So we got some additional funding last year, which was sort of combined with our base funding, which was great. And we've done about 17 loans in the past year. So it's a sort of steady program for us. We work with Farm Credit East as the lender for that. But happy to sort of talk more about where there's opportunities to do more there.

[Senator Pamela A. Helming]: Yeah. I think a lot of the organizations are asking for an additional $10,000,000 in funding and also to raise the minimum cap. Right now, it's my understanding, it's for each loan $200,000 which we all know in this climate, in

[Emily Goldstein (Association for Neighborhood & Housing Development)]: this environment, it's tough to

[Senator Pamela A. Helming]: do anything. So raising from 200,000 to $400,000 is that something that could be on the table?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: Yeah. I think we'd be happy to look at sort of what we're doing to date and where we see a need for an increase.

[Senator Pamela A. Helming]: Okay. I'm about to run out of time, but the work with the housing authorities, I just want to say that I think they need help. I'm hearing a lot of outreach from housing authorities who are looking for assistance for their tenants who can't afford to pay their utility bills.

[Assemblymember Ari Brown]: Okay.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: Does somebody member Novakhov? Do you?

[Assemblymember Michael Novakhov]: Yeah.

[Assemblymember Alec Brook-Krasny]: Thank you, Chair Britlow, and thank you, Commissioner First of all, do you believe we have a housing crisis in New York State and in New York City?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: Yes, think we certainly need more housing in New York State.

[Assemblymember Alec Brook-Krasny]: And do you agree that constantly increasing penalties on landlords, especially small landlords, does not help solve this housing crisis?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: JULIE I would say that it is important to hold landlords who are not taking care of their buildings to make sure that they are doing that and keeping buildings safe and habitable for residents. So I'm not exactly sure what you mean by your question. But I do think it's important for landlords to be responsible for their buildings.

[Assemblymember Alec Brook-Krasny]: J. And we have a different approach. Do you think it makes sense to have a different approach to small landlords than the big landlords? Because they're completely different.

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: J. Sure. I'm not sure if you're referring to a specific law or a specific provision of

[Assemblymember Alec Brook-Krasny]: the J. Just in general.

[Unidentified legislator (brief interjections)]: Just asking in general. D.

[Assemblymember Alec Brook-Krasny]: Interested in hearing your thoughts on it.

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: I mean, think all landlords need to be held responsible to make sure that their buildings are in good condition. So I'm not sure we would hold a different standard of building habitability, whether the building is whether the landlord owns a large building or small building, if that's what you're asking.

[Assemblymember Michael J. Fitzpatrick (Ranking Member, Assembly Housing)]: J. Yes.

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: J. Yeah, no, mean, think all landlords need to keep their buildings maintained. They need the they can't have leaks. And they have to have their systems, their heat, you know, for whether you're talking about a New York City or rest of the state, making sure buildings have heat.

[Assemblymember Alec Brook-Krasny]: But when the small landlord that has one, two apartments does not receive rent, he cannot do anything about renovating about keeping up with the apartment. The big landlord, which has hundreds of apartments, thousands of apartments, it's a different story. So how can we divide those two? Because in my district, I have so many small landlords that are complaining that they're not able to keep up.

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: I mean, I think certainly we're happy to work with small landlords where they need assistance with loans for renovations or for other types of capital investments they need to make in order to drive down their operating costs, which is oftentimes something that can make a building unsustainable is that the operating costs exceed their rental income. But sometimes that can be stemmed by sort of proper capital investment. So we're happy to work with small rental owners on that type of project.

[Assemblymember Alec Brook-Krasny]: Thank you. Since I have little time, J51, what is the monthly rent that would constitute an affordable housing unit under this proposal?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: J. So in order to qualify for the J51 benefit, the apartments in the building, half of them have to be affordable at an ADAMI rent. So that has been the longstanding since the last program for eligibility.

[Assemblymember Alec Brook-Krasny]: Thank you.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: My mic is rebelling against me. I apologize. Senator Weber.

[Senator Bill Weber (Ranking, Senate Finance — filling in for Sen. O’Mara)]: Thank you,

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: He's ranking for finance now, so it's five minutes.

[Senator Bill Weber (Ranking, Senate Finance — filling in for Sen. O’Mara)]: Thank you, commissioner, for being here today. I just have a few questions that I'd like to ask you about. The first one is about the final report that was issued and posted to the HCR website when you were appointed. Could you just talk about some of the findings that were in there and some of the recommendations?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: I'm sorry, which report?

[Senator Bill Weber (Ranking, Senate Finance — filling in for Sen. O’Mara)]: Sorry. The Housing and Stability and Protection Act of 2019 established a temporary commission to study the impact of the legislation. And that was posted on the website.

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: J. Yes, sorry. This is from a couple of years ago, so I wasn't J. Sorry. D. That's Okay. We were required, I think, perhaps in part M of that legislation to have a task force that created a series of that looked at the statewide housing. And it was, a group of people who felt that at the time that they were doing this work, much of the data was around evictions, was skewed by COVID. So I don't think the conclusions in the report are. I think, they felt they maybe were not as conclusive as they would have liked them to be because it was being done during and sort of post COVID.

[Senator Bill Weber (Ranking, Senate Finance — filling in for Sen. O’Mara)]: J. Okay. Switching gears a little bit. In terms of the CEQA proposal, proposed changes in the governor's executive budget. Has anyone done a study in terms of what we can expect in terms of new housing by region within the state, Upstate, downstate? Could you speak to that?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: Yeah. I think one of the impacts of the current SEQ review process is development doesn't happen in places where, even if a community would like there to be housing, developers are concerned that there is big litigation risk that would take three or four or five years to overcome. And so it's a little bit of sort of the it's hard to know the absence of something when so I think our hope is that when we streamline SIGRA so that we leave localities to do their review process, that we will see more housing in places that currently developers aren't even proposing projects because they view sort of the cost of litigation as prohibitive.

[Senator Bill Weber (Ranking, Senate Finance — filling in for Sen. O’Mara)]: J. Right. But do you see the increase in housing in kind of the suburbs, rural areas, more in the big cities?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: I mean, this is really around localities. It's sort of the state getting out of way, so localities can build the housing that they need. So I think that's sort of a locality by locality decision. And we'll probably play out that way.

[Senator Bill Weber (Ranking, Senate Finance — filling in for Sen. O’Mara)]: Okay. And my final question is it may have been asked earlier, I wasn't here. But the status of the adoption of the housing access voucher pilot program outside of New York City, and what are the amounts expected to be committed to the program in this fiscal year in New York City and outside of New York City?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: J. So the funding and the vouchers for that program kind of track the homelessness populations in the two parts of the state. So we sort of think of it as like a onethree, twothree split, where twothree of the funding and the vouchers will be in New York City and onethree will be rest of state. J.

[Senator Bill Weber (Ranking, Senate Finance — filling in for Sen. O’Mara)]: Okay. And I do have one final question, just to pick up on what Senator Martins was kind of exploring earlier in his questions. In terms of rent stabilization, in terms of means testing. Is that something that you would consider or be in favor of or have further conversations about to really free up what I think what he recognized and said would be housing that's immediately available for people?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: J. I think I would say two things on that. One is, obviously, means testing 1,000,000 apartments in the City Of New York is not a small task. And I think if the outcome of a process is to evict people from the housing they're in, the City Of New York currently has about a 1.4% vacancy rate. So there is nowhere for people to go. So I think it would certainly be challenging.

[Senator Bill Weber (Ranking, Senate Finance — filling in for Sen. O’Mara)]: Okay. Thank you.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Thank you. Assemblyman.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: J. D. All right. Assemblyman Norber.

[Assemblymember Daniel J. Norber]: J. Thank you, commissioner, for being here today and for answering all the questions. In my district, I have a lot of landlords. Some are bigger landlords. Some are smaller landlords. Many of them are actually like mom and pop landlords. They save their whole life, and they have like a little house, or they have an apartment, and they're just renting it out. There are instances in which there's going to be a dispute with tenants. It could be due to the negligence. It could be not. It could be on both sides of the issue. So I just want to know what you recommend. I tell my constituents, these landlords, when they're stuck in maybe a couple of years in courts on these disputes, in the meantime, they're not getting paid rent, which is fine, legal, whatever it is. But some of these landlords, they spend their whole lives saving to buy these little homes. And that's what we're dealing with a lot of times. And I feel like was presented before, that we kind of lose the ball in terms of the big, huge landlords in the city and these guys that are just trying to get by. So what would you recommend I tell these people?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: J. I mean, certainly, I think one of the things we see as a cost driver for all landlords, but it would impact small landlords too, is what has been sort of a very rapid increase in the cost of insurance for small buildings. And so I think the governor proposing a series of mitigations to try to drive down the cost of insurance will help on the expense side for those building owners. I think that small building owners are, to your point, are in the same boat as large building owners, that when tenants don't pay rent, they have to go through the court process. Oftentimes, is put aside and then gets paid at the end of that process. And it can be very long. But that is the system that we have.

[Assemblymember Daniel J. Norber]: J. All right. And in terms of squatters, is that something you hear about a lot? Is that an issue that comes up? Because also, of these landlords are not protected from people just breaking in and claiming the domicile.

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: J. Yeah, that's more of a municipal issue. It's not really we don't have any state regulatory authority over squatters. But we certainly in the City Of New York and in any locality, that would be in the purview of the local jurisdiction.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: J. All

[Assemblymember Daniel J. Norber]: right. Thank you very much.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Thank you. I guess I'll go next because I think we've gone through the other senators. I have so many things I could ask, but I'm not going to because I'm the one who said we're not going over every topic tonight. But there's been so much discussion about which I think none of us disagree on. We need to build more housing fast, right? We can't do it all by just rehabbing the housing we have, even though we also desperately need to keep the housing that's older, stable, and affordable. And we can't let it collapse. So we have to do that. But we also need to build new housing. So I'm sort of intrigued with the governor's approach to the CEQA proposal because I do prefer Rachel May's bill. So I'm hoping that we end up with that version because I think it does give us more flexibility that factors in concerns for environmental standards as well. But it also allows individual communities to work through. I think perhaps the mistake in the governor's proposal for expanding zoning for housing a few years ago was it didn't factor in one size doesn't fit all. And I think Rachel's approach does a better job at that. And I think that's what we all want. But we also keep imagining that the solution somehow is taking the most expensive land in the state, if not the country, pretty much my district in Manhattan, and saying, we're going to successfully build a lot of affordable housing there. No, we're not, because we're never going to be able to lower the price of that land enough to work mathematically for more affordable housing, even though I want it everywhere. And so I really think we have to be thinking through the how do we broaden the universe of where we can build housing. And it's probably not in the most expensive land in the city of New York or the state of New York as a starting point. So I'm really interested. Does the governor's cabinet, so to speak, actually sit together and say, well, here's what we know works in housing, your agency. Here's what we know has been problems with housing, your agency. Here is options that would make sense from an environmental perspective because that has to be the part of the assignment for everything we do in the state of New York. And here's what we have to deal with when it comes to accessible transportation so that people can afford to live somewhere that maybe allows them to get into the jobs in New York City within an hour period of time, as in the span of three hours. So are we coordinating with our mass transit systems and our local transportation systems outside of the MTA to actually come up with a master plan? This actually could work. That actually could work. That could actually get us lower costs, protect the environment, work off of a secret system that everybody could live with. I mean, is there somebody out there who's going, that's the actual assignment?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: I would say it's a very complicated question. I would say that certainly in the city Of New York, we work closely with the city agencies as well. I mean, as you know, city planning and the city's economic development agency and the city's housing agency, all whether it was through the City of Yes for Housing or other sort of rezonings spent an enormous amount of time and effort looking at transit, looking at jobs, looking at housing, and have obviously created that framework for changing zoning across the city to allow for a little bit of housing in every neighborhood or whatever that tagline was. So I would say we don't master plan at the state level. We coordinate with localities who are looking to have housing built and who are looking at transit issues and certainly bring the force of the state agencies. For example, when we're in Syracuse and looking at the I-eighty 1 project, the governor is bringing together all state agencies and sort of an all hands on deck approach. That's been true for Micron also, that there's a very much an all hands on deck approach across state agencies that touch those. It always defers down to a local agency who has the jurisdiction over zoning to set the rules for what's getting built where. But yes, I would say we definitely are coordinating with localities as a state on large sort of housing initiatives like Micron and certainly in the state of New York.

[Assemblymember Anna R. Kelles]: JULIE Okay.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Well, I would urge more of that. Because I think you're right that the city has been trying to do more and more of that. And of course, we always want the state's help. But I feel like we don't ask those same questions for a broader regional approach, right? Because there is a lot of land within, realistically, an hour train ride of New York City if you had adequate train options, right, or bus options. But I don't know that and we have know, god, I spent enough time talking to the MTA about their planning and their five year plans and that dashboard everybody's always fascinated with. But I don't know that we're ever talking to them about housing outside the city of New York and how do you match that up, or the environmental issues. You know, even her proposal, that's a combination of money for water issues, but it sort of has to be correlated to housing issues. But rather than anybody going, what does that mean and how would we do that right? We actually all just think we're competing with each other for the same $250,000,000 I think there's a right way to do that. If you're going to build anything, it's going to involve water and it's going to involve the environment. But I don't feel like we ever sit down and say, what does that all mean next to each other? So that's my pitch to you as a representative of the governor.

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: J. Yeah, I would only add to say that not all communities are looking to build more housing, even in places where people very much want to live. So I think we have taken the approach through the Pro Housing Community Program and some of those other funding sources that we will work with places that are looking to grow their housing stock. And we are not forcing housing in places that are passing moratoriums or who are resistant to housing. So that poses its challenges in doing sort of broader state level planning. But I think we've been successful with that program of really having coordinated efforts with localities.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: I believe we can get further. So I hope we do. Thank you.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: J. Assembly Member Brown.

[Assemblymember Ari Brown]: J. B. You, chairman.

[Senator Bill Weber (Ranking, Senate Finance — filling in for Sen. O’Mara)]: Hello, Commissioner. I'm going to ask

[Assemblymember Ari Brown]: four quick questions, and I'll leave the big one at the end that you could expand because then my time will run out. The first question I had was, what is the current housing demand? And is there an estimate of how many units are needed?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: Didn't hear the question. Sorry. What's the current housing what?

[Assemblymember Ari Brown]: LUISE What is the current demand, how many units are needed?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: LUISE M. We did some studies a couple of years ago and saw that the state was producing about 400,000 units over looked back sort of over the last decade, so about 40,000 a year. When we look at projected job growth, we think we need to be at about double that in order to accommodate job growth in the state. That is very hard to do. But we sort of sent that as a benchmark. And then tools that come in each year through this process really are additive to helping us get to that goal.

[Assemblymember Ari Brown]: So 80,000 a year is the answer.

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: That's the goal. That would be a goal.

[Assemblymember Ari Brown]: Right. So when looking at the state of the state and the budget text, with regard to the secret amendments, I noticed that there's no mention of affordability under the criteria of what would fit when we're given an exception for those secret amendments. Was that an oversight?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: No. I think that it's an intentional streamlining of the existing process to allow housing that's getting developed across the state to be exempted from a process that

[Assemblymember Ari Brown]: So let me cut you off because I don't have a lot of time. So was the intention to make it for affordable housing or just housing in general?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: It's for housing in general.

[Assemblymember Ari Brown]: Okay. Thank you for that honest answer. As far as the GIS amendments too that are tucked in there, I notice there's no criteria anywhere for when the GIS exceptions would take place too. Was that all sold oversight?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: I'm not as familiar with what the GIS exceptions are. I'm sorry.

[Assemblymember Ari Brown]: Okay. But there's no criteria on there, which is what I found. Serious question about the pro housing certification. Is it based on the number of units that are built or the number of units that are approved?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: What we ask communities to take one of two paths. One is to permit housing.

[Assemblymember Ari Brown]: I'm talking about the permitting, not the

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: Yeah, so permitted housing.

[Assemblymember Ari Brown]: Okay. And so it's got to be a number of permits issued for those units in order to qualify them. 3% over three years.

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: LUISE B. Permitted, correct.

[Assemblymember Ari Brown]: LUISE B. Okay. There's also, in this budget, as it was last year's budget, for Farmingdale State College, there was and I see my time is running out a proposal for housing units there. Was that for private housing with students also on the same property? Was that the intention?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: I don't think that is part of my budget, so I'm not familiar with the Farmingdale State College provision.

[Assemblymember Ari Brown]: J. Okay. It calls for more housing at Farmingdale State College. So thank you very much. I appreciate your answers.

[Senator Brian P. Kavanagh (Chair, Senate Housing)]: J. Okay.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: J. D. Okay.

[Senator Brian P. Kavanagh (Chair, Senate Housing)]: J. Are we done with the assembly?

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: J. No. Never been with the assembly.

[Senator Brian P. Kavanagh (Chair, Senate Housing)]: There's never too many assembly members.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Okay, my mic is on. Never mind.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: Okay. Assembly member Lucas? Assembly member Kelles? Go live. Thank gosh. We never get in.

[Assemblymember Anna R. Kelles]: Technology that's not working. Hi. So first question. In the past, we have, you know, INHS in my community. They were awarded an LGBTQ affirming senior housing funding for helping low income seniors to age in place. The next round's supposed to come out in September. Is that going to be renewed?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: I'd have to check on that.

[Assemblymember Anna R. Kelles]: Okay. I would love to know because

[Rishita (Rachita) Tyler (Acting Executive Director, NYS Council of Churches)]: I know the need is great

[Assemblymember Anna R. Kelles]: for that. So that would be fantastic. And I wanted to switch gears to talk about Sony May for a moment modernization. I want to read to you. This was a text that was sent from a constituent because what I've been hearing from first time homebuyers is that the approvals are taking four to six months, sometimes eight, nine months for some. This one is a quote. Sony May has had the files this is about his son the files since the December. They have requested specific deposit details on three separate occasions along with W-2s and employment information that was already included with the initial submission. Yesterday, they came back for the fourth time wanting to verify my son's part time employment from 2023, including a signed statement from the employers. They have the W-2s and tax returns already that we've sent them twice. The mortgage person from the bank's going to push back on this, but he isn't hopeful it will work. He's actually appalled that Sony May is doing this. They're asking about every little deposit and receipt. Due to how long this has been going on, my son is needed to be reapproved. And now the bank is afraid Sony may ask for another month's worth of pay stubs and bank statements so they can ask about $20 deposits all over again. How do we change this?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: Well, so remember, I would certainly say you can always reach out to me when you have very constituent issues, and we can track them down. Obviously, I can't speak to that case specifically, but we do have very

[Assemblymember Anna R. Kelles]: This is an fast example.

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: Yeah. We have fairly fast, you know, traditionally turnaround times. A semi borrower goes into a bank, right, and completes a process, and then it comes to us, and we buy the mortgage that's been approved So by

[Unidentified speaker (brief acknowledgments)]: I've heard that. I guess

[Assemblymember Anna R. Kelles]: I've heard about this a lot. So I'm wondering if there is any internal process that's happening to try and streamline it all. If there isn't right now, I'm happy to work with you on it.

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: JULIE Yeah. Look, I would say we do about 2,000 mortgages a year. So we'll be happy if there are sort of use cases like this that are coming up that are particular. I don't know if there's something about this J. A one that bunch.

[Assemblymember Anna R. Kelles]: J. So just really quickly, I wanted to add about the seeker. You know, as you may know, Rachel May and I have been working on this for a really long time and it was important that we do a careful balance of stringent environmental protections that are streamlined but also make sure that it's infill, The language that we had included about requiring that it is urban infill was taken out. The stringent environmental protections were taken out. Allowing for diversity of scale was taken out. Do you think that these will then create the balanced environmental protections and affordable housing we need in infill? Can

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: I answer that? The provisions that we have around previously disturbed land and around access to water

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: Sorry, were anxiously waiting to ask you a question.

[Assemblymember Anna R. Kelles]: No worries. I appreciate

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: it. Kelles These were harsh. LARRY

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: is actually really waiting to ask a very important question.

[Unidentified Assemblymember (Nassau County)]: I apologize, simile woman. Quick questions. In your fiscal year housing plan, it states over the five year period that you want to increase affordable housing, 100,000 affordable housing. When you say these units, are they apartment units or are these homes? Are these private homes?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: It's a wide variety of rental homeownership, single family, townhouse, multifamily, high rise, Michalamas, public housing. It's really the whole gamut.

[Unidentified Assemblymember (Nassau County)]: J. And this targeted outside of well, you said Michalamas. So is it specific to New York City, or is it targeted outside as well?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: Assemblymember, Mitchell Lomas are statewide. So we have those in every corner of the state. So it's really statewide.

[Unidentified Assemblymember (Nassau County)]: Okay. All right. So are targeting or would you like to highlight some ways for midsize municipalities experiencing housing shortages, ways that we could find extra grant opportunities for those municipalities?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: J. Yes. We have crafted over the course of the last five years a series of programs to get at just that because we don't want to have a one size fits all housing option. Everything doesn't have to be a multifamily building. So we have a small rental development program that gets at projects that can be 10 to 40 units in size. So we have probably probably five or six others of those I'm happy to talk to you about. We really try to tailor our programs to sort of every scale of housing that localities might need.

[Unidentified Assemblymember (Nassau County)]: J. Okay. So everyone's experiencing housing shortages, especially I know I am in Nassau County. What tools can housing financially viable in markets where the rents may not support that? And then I have one more short question after that.

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: So you're saying, what do we have for localities where the rents are low or are high? I wasn't sure I understood.

[Unidentified Assemblymember (Nassau County)]: Well, rents are low, we won't support building developing these buildings for people that you know?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: Certainly, that is our program's gap that it's trying to fill, is that we go in and provide capital to pay for the cost of buildings where that cost is too high for the low rents that the locality may support. So we have our tax credit program that often is providing affordable housing in places where rents are low.

[Assemblymember Michael J. Fitzpatrick (Ranking Member, Assembly Housing)]: J. Okay.

[Unidentified Assemblymember (Nassau County)]: So last question. In growing regions like Buffalo, Rochester, Albany, the capital, Nassau County, where I is my district, where do you see we need to focus legislation on the issue of trying to press to see where you may see there's an issue where we could help out at the state level to rectify the situation where there's a house shortages?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: I certainly think that the governor's proposal this year around seeker reform and the state getting out of the way of localities who are looking to build new housing, whether that is Nassau or New York City or Westchester or the rest of the state, I think is a key part of getting housing built faster.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: Thank you. Thank you. Vasylumin Palosamo.

[Assemblymember Michael Novakhov]: Yes, good evening, Commissioner. 05:00. I'm going bounce around a little bit as best I can. I'm going talk about, first, the Housing Access Voucher Program. And it's my understanding. Though HCR is administering the program, our local Department of Social Services will be referring eligible recipients to HCR. How will local DSS refer these eligible recipients to you?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: -So they have wait lists, and so they will refer people off their wait list to local administrators that we have identified who will then work with those households to issue a voucher, and then the households will look for apartments.

[Assemblymember Michael Novakhov]: So there is a waitlist. I was going ask, but once identified by DSS as homeless or endangered as homeless, do you have an approximate time how long before they could be referred for a voucher?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: So referrals can happen very quickly. I think the process that takes a while is then the household has to go look for an apartment with that voucher.

[Assemblymember Michael Novakhov]: J. Okay. I want to talk about the housing accelerated fund, if I may. J. J. My understanding, four lenders partnered to raise $115,000,000 for the program. Who are these lenders? How were they selected? Did they approach ACR about becoming lenders, or did ACR approach them?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: J. So we did an RFP to onboard lenders and required them to match the state dollars dollar for dollar. So we took what was $100,000,000 and made it $200 in the rest of state. And in New York City, we are working with three CDFIs and one private bank as our lending partners.

[Assemblymember Michael Novakhov]: Do any of these lenders have a focus on housing construction and lending in Upstate New York or Long Island?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: Yes. So they had to bring us pipelines of projects where they in localities where they are actively lending.

[Assemblymember Michael Novakhov]: Is there a formula? How is the $115,000,000 in funding raised from the lenders split between New York City and the rest of the state?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: So there's $100,000,000 for New York City and $100,000,000 for the rest of state.

[Assemblymember Michael Novakhov]: Do you know what the interest rate the lenders are going to be charging?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: JULIE I can get back to you on that. But it's intended to be a blended rate between the state funds and the private funds that is filling a gap of private equity. So we would expect the rates to be higher than first mortgage debt, but lower than equity.

[Assemblymember Michael Novakhov]: J. And does HTR plan to try to partner with other lenders for the program?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: We haven't really kicked we are just about to start the first project's closing. So I think if we're successful and we can get projects in our belt and we can open it up and more lenders are interested, we'd be happy to do that. J.

[Assemblymember Michael Novakhov]: Okay. Next thing I want to ask you about, if I may, is the weatherization program. A recent testimony from our prior budget hearing states that the weather assistance program will not receive its historic 10% of home energy assistance program planning, the heat program. A draft HCR Weatherization Assistance Program Planning document has also admitted references to this 10%. Can you please clarify the Weather Assistance Program, if it's losing funding or not?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: So I would say two things on that. One is there's an enormous demand for cash assistance. And so the governor's office obviously looks year to year to make sure that they are meeting the needs, whether that is with weatherization or with the cash assistance program. And so there was some desire to do some ROBERT fund shifting there. That said, we have some federal dollars that we received that will be sort of making up some of the gap for that funding for next year.

[Assemblymember Michael Novakhov]: J. Great.

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: That's all I have for you. Thank you very much.

[Assemblymember Michael Novakhov]: You'll have my time. Assembly

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: Member Lucas.

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: Hi.

[Assemblymember Nikki Lucas]: Okay. Great day to everyone in the room again.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: I have three more.

[Assemblymember Nikki Lucas]: Commissioner, with the rapid development in my district, which is East New York, Canarsie, Brownsville, how will you ensure new housing actually benefits longtime residents, which is a severe problem, especially in my district, including teachers, civil servant workers, and overall just working families, rather than going to predominantly people outside of the district who have not put their blood, sweat and tears into that district. And beyond the housing, with all the development that's happening, what will you do to ensure that local residents, particularly, the makeup of my district, which is black, people, Latinos, what would you do to ensure that they have access to contracts, subcontracting jobs, which are typically going to the the good old boy network or, in sexual favors? Also, having access to high level jobs, not just the entry level flagging as we typically would see. And then how would you ensure that we have culturally competent leadership overseeing these projects, project management, in addition to that management that's not connected to the developers and that's not culturally competent?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: Sure. That was a lot of questions. So maybe Pete, and maybe I might start in the middle. I would say that we are very committed to the 15A statute in as exists, which requires us to achieve or to target 30% of our spending towards MWBE contractors and subdirectors and procurements and through a variety of our spending at the agency. We are consistently at or above that. And so we remain very committed to the state's overall MWB goals. And that certainly plays out. You and I were at the ribbon cutting for the Latvia project, which was built by black led construction firm.

[Assemblymember Nikki Lucas]: So J. Has no local contractors, just FYI.

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: J. But a black owned construction firm, which is

[Assemblymember Nikki Lucas]: a J. The face is great, but they have no black owned subcontractors and no local

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: We're happy to continue to work with you on that. I think we try to make great strides to be out at as ESD sort of hosts fairs to make sure that people are aware of our contracting and subcontracting. We're not doing it directly, but sort of as our contractors and subcontractors are doing it, to make sure that we are out in communities talking about those opportunities so that that connection can get made. And we work closely with ESD and others on that and are happy to continue and to work specifically with you on that in

[Baaba Halm (Senior VP, Enterprise Community Partners)]: your

[Rishita (Rachita) Tyler (Acting Executive Director, NYS Council of Churches)]: That

[Baaba Halm (Senior VP, Enterprise Community Partners)]: would be great.

[Assemblymember Nikki Lucas]: J. I guess I have six more seconds. With the passage of City of Yes parking requirements were largely left to developers' discretion in communities like mine, where parking availability is already limited, how are you working with developers to ensure that parking needs of existing are and future meaningfully considered in new I know you can't answer.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Thank you.

[Unidentified Senator (Upstate focus on out-migration and gas hookups)]: Good afternoon, commissioner. New York has spent a lot of time and a lot of money addressing the housing issue in New York. And it was just recently reported in December that New York has the worst homeownership rate in the nation. What can we do to address this issue?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: So one of the key things that's in this year's budget and that we launched last year is a new program that is creating supply of homeownership opportunities. One of the issues is that not enough homeownership is getting built for people. Or if it is, it's sort of at the luxury end of the market. And there's lots of localities certainly tell me there's no more starter homes. So we launched this program where we are citing what are basically three bedroom, 1,500 square foot starter homes through our Move In New York program in an effort to really increase the supply starter homes in communities all across the state. We did three last year as a pilot, and we are aiming to do 200 of them this year. It's not going to solve the state's homeownership problem at writ large, but it certainly, for our part, is an effort to really get starter homes built in communities across the state.

[Unidentified Senator (Upstate focus on out-migration and gas hookups)]: J. We have, as you know, we have the highest out migration in the nation, and affordable housing is the most cited reason for that. Shouldn't we ease electrification mandates, allow energy choice on new home construction, and remove burdensome regulations on landlords so that we can increase our housing construction and affordable apartments for young families?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: J. Certainly, as a centerpiece for the governor's Let Them Build agenda is the streamlining of the CEQA process, which we think will lead to many more housing developments and houses getting permitted across the state by having the state get out of the way of localities that are looking to permit that and taking a three year project or three year delay in a project down to now. Because we need that to your point about people leaving the state, we need the housing now.

[Unidentified Senator (Upstate focus on out-migration and gas hookups)]: J. Will the Seeker program allow local municipalities to have natural gas hookups in houses?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: The process that the governor is proposing to modernize is really to take SECRA review out of a certain subset of projects. So outside of New York City, for projects that are 100 units or less, they won't even have to go through the SECRA process. They're only subject to local permitting.

[Unidentified Senator (Upstate focus on out-migration and gas hookups)]: J. Of the issues in my district is we have cities with zombie properties that are condemned. And the city wants to tear those properties down and build new, but they don't have the money to do so. What can the state do to help them?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: So we did some modifications last year to what's called 19A to give localities a little more control when projects are abandoned and when they can take them. And then I think in addition to that, we run a CDBG program in places throughout the state that don't get their own. And lots of localities use that for demolition or acquisition of zombie type properties. So it certainly is an issue that we're aware of, and we work with localities closely. Happy to talk to you more about it. J.

[Unidentified Senator (Upstate focus on out-migration and gas hookups)]: Thank you. I appreciate your time.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: We have Senator Walzik.

[Senator Mark Walczyk]: J. Thank you, Madam Chair.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: J. And it is Wednesday for people who get that reference.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: Indeed. In

[Senator Mark Walczyk]: your testimony, you said, we have implemented the governor's $25,000,000,000 five year housing plan with urgency and focus. I am pleased to report that as we near the final year of the plan, HCR will have financed the creation and preservation of more than 78,000 affordable homes. How many were created of those 78,000?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: I could get you the split. We, you know, focus our

[Senator Mark Walczyk]: J. You give me a general sense, percentage?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: J. D. Would guess

[Unidentified speaker (brief acknowledgments)]: that it's I wouldn't guess.

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: I would say it's probably 40% of the units are probably new percent are preservation. But I could be a little off on that. And it varies year by year depending on what we're doing.

[Senator Mark Walczyk]: J. Where were the new ones built? Any concentration area of the state?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: J. So I can answer that. But I would also tell you that we have a map on our website where you can see every development that we finance across the state. So you can see through sort of a heat map of dots where we are. But we are, you know, from Buffalo to Montauk, everywhere in between. And we are in rural and urban communities developing housing.

[Senator Mark Walczyk]: J. Okay. And how much of that $25,000,000,000 has been spent on that 40% of $78,000

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: J. Sorry. How much of the $25,000,000,000 has been spent on new construction? Is that what you're asking?

[Senator Mark Walczyk]: J. Yeah. How much

[Senator Brian P. Kavanagh (Chair, Senate Housing)]: spent here?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: J. D. Can get back to you with actual numbers. But so I would have to get back to you on the total new construction dollars.

[Senator Mark Walczyk]: Is it $5,000,000,000

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: I don't know the number off the top. Okay. Have to get back to

[Senator Mark Walczyk]: You also mentioned earlier the Housing Stability and Protection Act of 2019 report. And is that published? Can I get a hold of that?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: It's on our website.

[Senator Mark Walczyk]: Okay. I haven't seen that. Thank you. And then the City of Yes, you said you're coordinating with the new administration. Are there projects in the City of Yes that were on pause from the old administration?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: No. They just, I think, were focused on getting a series of their own work done at the end of the last administration. So there wasn't sort of as much focus on this. So we are picking it up with the new administration.

[Senator Mark Walczyk]: Okay. Have you spent any money on the city of yes?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: No, we have not.

[Senator Mark Walczyk]: Okay. That's all I have. I'll yield back the rest of my time. Thank you, Madam Chair.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Senator Kavanaugh has that act memorized so he can tell you it at some point.

[Senator Mark Walczyk]: J.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: Assembly member Giglio. J.

[Assemblymember Jodi Giglio]: Thank you, chair, and thank you for being here. So my questions have to do with low income housing tax credits and how it's decided where those tax credits will land, number one. And the financing, when you are talking about four banks and financing entities have come together and raised, I think, 115,000,000. Is that they're raising that money from the financing from the Low Income Housing Tax Credits?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: No. So those are two different things. So we receive 9% Low Income Housing Tax Credits from the federal government every year. We do an annual RFP. People apply, and then we award them. So that's how that works for the 9% tax credit program. For the Housing Acceleration Fund, we received $200,000,000 last year from the budget, dollars 100,000,000 for New York City and $100,000,000 for the rest of state. We put that out and asked banks to apply to administer those funds and asked that they match dollar for dollar. So there's state funds plus private funds in that.

[Assemblymember Jodi Giglio]: And what interest rate are they lending that at?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: So the term sheets will go out. So it will be sort of public once we sort of launch what the interest rates are. But the nature of the money is meant to take down many projects are getting construction financing at about 60% of the cost of the project. And then the balance is equity. And equity is very expensive. So this fund is meant to take down that equity requirement for developers from what might be 40% today to a more traditional 20% with this low cost construction financing.

[Assemblymember Jodi Giglio]: Okay. And the interest rates are?

[Assemblymember Anna R. Kelles]: JULIE It would

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: be in between the first mortgage and the equity rate. I can get back to you on sort of where we are lender by lender on the rates.

[Assemblymember Jodi Giglio]: JULIE Okay. And when the developers are coming in and they're making the application in order for those low income housing tax credits, Are you taking into consideration saturation rates and effects on school districts? Because a lot of these housing projects are getting twenty year, thirty year, forty year tax breaks, but they are impacting the school district. So who's going to pay for the kids to go to school if there's an oversaturation and there are many kids attending the local school districts?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: J. So oftentimes when developers are applying for 9% tax credits, they are working directly with localities before they apply because they need to have tax exemptions approved by the locality. They can sometimes be from the school as well.

[Assemblymember Jodi Giglio]: J. The exemptions, but not actually where they're getting built.

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: J. Well, they're often applying for pilots, right, at the local level. So jurisdiction has to authorize their

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: property J. Do, tax

[Assemblymember Jodi Giglio]: but some are not the local jurisdictions. Some of them go directly to the county industrial development agency and get the tax credits. And the locality really has no say.

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: I would say certainly if you have concerns about projects that we're doing in your district, I'm happy to talk about that.

[Assemblymember Jodi Giglio]: Well, have concerns about oversaturation. I have concerns about the low income housing tax credits and the eligibility and the expendable income and how they're affecting our downtowns and our school districts.

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: I'd be happy to talk about that more.

[Malik O’Connor (Director, Right to Counsel Coalition)]: Thank you. Sorry,

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: I believe Assembly Member Meeks is next.

[Assemblymember Demond Meeks]: Thank you, Madam Chair. How are you, Commissioner?

[Assemblymember Anna R. Kelles]: Good, thanks.

[Assemblymember Demond Meeks]: So as it relates to the governor's $25,000,000,000 plan, as it relates to housing, Was localities given the option to opt in or opt out?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: J. The housing plan?

[Senator Jack M. Martins (Ranking Member, Senate Housing)]: J.

[Assemblymember Chris Burdick]: D.

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: J. The housing plan is available through sort of a series of programs. And developers are nonprofit and for profit are generally applying for those funds. Although we run a series of programs, so sometimes municipalities are applying, not developers. So it's available statewide.

[Assemblymember Demond Meeks]: J. So were there localities that decided to opt out of that plan, or no?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: J. The housing plan isn't really sort of an opt in, opt out. It's just sort of a series of funding that we have available that people can apply for.

[Assemblymember Demond Meeks]: J. Okay, great. So Rochester, New York, you're familiar with us. We've been building. J. Yes. We thank you for all the support. So we want you to know that we're ready and willing to build more. And we're a forty five minute flight from New York City. So folks want to come to Rochester. And also, more funding for existing housing stock. You know, one of the things we were talking about was looking at some of the programs that exist like Youth Build, which is a program throughout our communities. Also a MAP program, which is a multi craft apprenticeship preparation program. Looking at some of the zombie homes or existing housing stock and looking at resources to have some of these young folks rebuild these houses and rehab these homes and look at ways that we can actually sell them at the cost of the supplies and the labor of these young folks who are working in these construction programs within our community. And we believe that would be very helpful. So I would love to talk to you in more detail about that at a later date and time. Also, weatherization programs. There's a number of programs that we pay for as taxpayers. And we've been receiving a number of calls and concerns about work that has been done, but question of the quality of work for residents. And the reality of it is when you have some of our residents who are elders in some instances, they don't know exactly what the insulation process looks like or the weatherization process looked like. So is there any plans that you all may have as it relates to oversight for this type of money that's going out the door in the millions of dollars to assure that these contractors are doing what we call them to do?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: JULIE Yeah, so we have weatherization providers around the state and certainly in Rochester that cover that geography. I think to the extent there are concerns with the quality of the work, and we'd be happy to sort of talk to you more about that. We have really good relationships with those organizations. They do a lot of training for staff so people are aware of sort of how to especially as green technologies advance, sort of how to be installing that and how to be weatherizing homes. So happy to talk more with you about that.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: J. Okay.

[Assemblymember Demond Meeks]: Thank you.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Thank you. And for her three minute follow-up, Assembly Chair Rosenthal.

[Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal (Chair, Assembly Housing)]: Thank you very much. Very quickly I wanted to bring out that the average monthly rent in Manhattan is about $5,500 up to $9,800 for a three bedroom. So it's not that easy for a person making an average salary to rent an apartment in Manhattan. Secondly, the bill that Assembly Member Levenberg was referring to, I would love if the governor would help put in $2,000,000 for A1948, which is resident assistance to help seniors navigate all of life that is getting harder for them. My question is, the TPU, has HCR opened any more offices around the state?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: Yes, we have one in Poughkeepsie now.

[Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal (Chair, Assembly Housing)]: Okay. And do you know how many new tenants were served

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: per that? Oh, I could get you numbers on. But they've been very active up there doing tenant meetings, especially in Kingston, but also in manufactured home parks and making sure we are engaging with residents in that geographic area. But I can get back to with how many meetings.

[Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal (Chair, Assembly Housing)]: J. Do you plan to open in more areas of the state?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: J. At this time, we're using it to serve the Hudson Valley and any communities that opt into ETPA and to cover so the manufactured home park works. We don't have plans at this time to open another.

[Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal (Chair, Assembly Housing)]: JULIE Okay. And you mentioned Kingston, which has had many challenges. Has HCR I know the AG has had to defend when there were lawsuits about the vacancy study. Has HCR been involved in any of that? Or do you have any thoughts about how to finally get that over the finish line?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: I can't sort of comment on existing litigation. But there have been a series of challenges that have upheld the existing system, the several court cases that have. So we will continue to monitor those. We'll continue to participate as we are needed in those.

[Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal (Chair, Assembly Housing)]: Okay, thank you. I'm very worried about Mitchell llamas across the state. I don't want them to turn into the new NYCHA's, as it were. I know we altogether put in $140,000,000 to preserve Mitchell Lomas statewide, and ACR got 30,000,000 And this is a bigger conversation. But are you and your department thinking of ways to preserve, without charging people rent or fees that they clearly can't afford, how to have upkeep in those Mitchell llamas so they'll last for future generations?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: J. Yes. So as you know, Mitchell llamas are statutorily required to make sure that their rents and their maintenance cover their expenses. So in our oversight role, while they are privately owned and managed, we do make sure they are increasing their rents and their maintenance to cover their expenses to make sure they can stay habitable. But in addition to that, we also, through thank you for the funding from the legislature and the funding that we have from the housing plan year over year. We are investing and assisting many Mitchell Alma developments in New York City and the rest of the state with capital needs that they have.

[Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal (Chair, Assembly Housing)]: JULIE Thank you.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: JULIE Thank you. And now for his three minute follow-up, Senator Brian Kavanaugh, housing chair in the Senate.

[Senator Brian P. Kavanagh (Chair, Senate Housing)]: J. I'm actually going to say, given the time and given the range of questions I've asked, I will defer any questions to some other forum. But just to say thank you for your testimony and thank you for your kind words at the outset. And I'll still be here for ten more months and looking forward to working with you during that time. But thank you.

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: J. Thanks. J.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: I also want to thank you very much for your participation here tonight. Yeah, it's night with us today and tonight. And also, I very much appreciate your work and your agency's work, even though we're always angry at you.

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: That's Okay. I appreciate it.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: I mean, nothing personal. But we're always really frustrated in housing, and you know that. But we really are very appreciative you're there.

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: J. Thank you.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: J. And your team is doing what they're doing. And now we're going to make you leave that table. J.

[Unidentified speaker (brief acknowledgments)]: Thank you.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: J. D. You're welcome. Thank you. And we're going to call up panel A. I know a lot of you have been thinking, wow, it's later than I thought. But we've done the math. If we all behave, and you all behave, we could probably do this in about two and a half to three hours. Just letting you know. So we've got panel A. I'll just read the names. Association for Affordable Housing, Neighborhood Preservation Coalition, Community Preservation Corporation, Housing Justice for All, Met Council on Housing. Wait, Okay. And then, well actually, you'll notice that the legislators are disappearing. It's nothing personal. Both the Senate and Assembly majorities are conferencing very time important complex issues. And so even Gary pretlow had to leave. And I sort of joked, well, if we both left, would the hearing keep going or not? But then we were worried our Republicans would take over. Who knew what would happen then? Sorry, guys.

[Assemblymember Michael Novakhov]: Reproposive on budget.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Yeah, exactly. So we're all going to keep getting dragged in and out all the time, but we're going to do our best to be attentive and responsible. Okay, I'm seeing one missing, but we'll figure it out as you start to talk. That's okay. So

[Assemblymember Anna R. Kelles]: it's

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: nice to see everybody I haven't seen in a while. How are you? I didn't know you were allowed to leave New York City. Delightful. I'm just sorry. So, Carlina Rivera would like to present, sir. We'll just go down the list on paper. Thank you.

[Carlina Rivera (President & CEO, NYSAFAH)]: Sounds great. Okay. Thank you, Chairs Krueger, Kavanaugh, and Rosenthal, and honorable members of the legislature for the opportunity to testify on Governor Hochul's fiscal year twenty twenty seven executive budget on housing. As noted at the top of the hearing, I did submit longer testimony, but I think what is appreciated and appropriate is summarizing some key points. I'm Carlina Rivera, president and CEO of the New York State Association for Affordable Housing. Our members finance, build, and preserve affordable housing across every region state. We appreciate that the proposed executive budget treats housing as a core priority, but the scale of our state's affordability crisis demands we go further. First, we urge the legislature to fund a new $150,000,000 affordable housing relief fund. Existing affordable housing is under real strain from rising operational costs, insurance spikes and lingering pandemic related losses. This fund would provide grants and low interest loans for emergency repairs, compliance upgrades and operating shortfalls, helping stabilize properties and protect tenants. We also strongly support the governor's targeted SECRA reforms for affordable housing. Lengthy and unpredictable review timelines drive up costs and reduce the number of homes that public dollars can deliver. Expanding type two actions for modest infill projects and a clear secret shot clock adds certainty without weakening environmental protections or public input. We're encouraged that insurance and liability costs are recognized as a growing threat to both development and preservation. We support the executive budget's transparency measures and incentives for risk reduction investments. But transparency alone isn't enough. We urge the creation of a state affordable housing reinsurance trust to stabilize the market and curb runaway premiums. We also support scaffold law reform for affordable housing and stronger penalties for fraudulent construction injury claims. In addition, continued full funding of the five year housing plan and the additional $250,000,000 capital investment proposed in the budget is critical. However, demand far exceeds available resources. NYSAPA urges a modest capital increase, at least 10% across all five year housing plan programs to keep shovel ready projects moving and avoid production delays. Now is also the time for reforms to the state low income housing tax credit program to allow multiple transfers, strengthen pricing and reduce reliance on other public subsidies. The current one time transfer restriction limits liquidity, narrows participation, and depresses the value of the credit. In closing, the budget reflects meaningful progress and we stand ready to work with the legislature and the administration to deliver real results for New Yorkers. Thank you.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Thank you so much. Next.

[Erin Burns-Maine (Community Preservation Corporation)]: Good afternoon. Thank you, chairs and distinguished members of the legislature, for the opportunity to speak today. My name is Erin MARY Burns BERNS Main. I'm here with the Community Preservation Corporation. Since our founding in 1974, CPC has invested over $16,000,000,000 to build over 270,000 units in New York and beyond. We're grateful for the legislature to continue to invest in preserving and creating housing for New Yorkers, investments that we've been able to help deploy, especially over the last year through Housing Central New York, through the HCR Housing Acceleration Fund, and continue to deploy through the Climate Friendly Homes Fund and the Small Building Preservation Loan Program. Governor Hochul and this administration should be commended for the progress that they've made in addressing New York's housing crisis. 77,000 homes already preserved or constructed under the five year plan, and 400 towns and municipalities certified as pro housing communities to date. Building on this recent momentum, I would amplify the comments you've already heard in support of the governor's proposal to modernize the State Environmental Quality Review Act, to make it easier to build housing while protecting open space and bolstering resilience to climate change. But there's plenty to be done. I want to spend the bulk of my time focused on preservation. In front of you, you should have our data brief, including data from nearly 15,000 rent state regulated units in the CPC portfolio. In a four year period, per unit operating expenses increased by 22%. Meanwhile, allowable rent increases trailed the rate of inflation. Maintenance and repairs were the only budget line item that we saw either flat or negative growth. And this physical distress will follow the financial distress in these buildings. You all have seen the impacts of deferred maintenance in your districts. Your constituent services teams are likely fielding calls every day from tenants struggling with things like heat outages and hot water outages and other capital repair needs. We need a slate of operating relief solutions to support the physical and financial health of these buildings. So I'll direct you to the second document that was put in front of you, a solutions document that I would recommend you look out with an all of the above approach. On the capital front, we need to maximize the impact of the reauthorized J51 program with the governor's proposal, increasing the tax abatement to cover 100% of the costs, reauthorizing the program for a ten year period, requiring updates to the cost schedule every three years, a regular time period that we can stick to and ensure that the program stays relevant in a changing economic environment. On the expense side, we need a property tax abatement. New York needs an, as of right, long term 100% property tax abatement for rent regulated housing. Please add this to the top of your list. We stand ready to talk through details and run numbers on impact. I will not pull out Excel spreadsheets right now, but we would love to do that. We also support the state's proposals on insurance. We have recommendations in that document also related to some other cost drivers. And thank you for your time today. See we're wrapping up. This is not a theoretical conversation. This is something that needs to be addressed today. You very much.

[Assemblymember Chris Burdick]: Hello.

[Genevieve Rand (Housing Justice for All)]: I'm Genevieve Rand. I'm the organizing director at Housing Justice for All and the New York State tenant block where we represent a coalition of over 80 tenant homeless and multi issue organizations across every city in the state. Tenants are half the population of New York and a majority, super majority in every major city. When housing is affordable, these communities feel safe and secure. And when it's not, they experience volatility and crisis, and they blame their government for it. Yesterday, a new poll came out from Access Research about New Yorkers' top political issues, and it showed as every similar poll has showed for years that over 50% of New Yorkers name affordability and the economy as their top political issue. More than education, more than crime, more than health care. And when asked where the state should focus first on lowering costs, the number one answer was housing and has been housing for some time. Last year, in my own city, I attended a town hall on rent stabilization, which we have had the council votes to opt into since 2019, but have been unable to because the opt in law for ETPA is broken. And on the board on the wall, there was a board that asked attendees, if your rent was stabilized, how would you use the extra funds? Some people wrote things like save for a rainy day or buy a car to get to work, but the most common answers on that board were see a doctor or a dentist. I want to emphasize that these people came to a town hall on rent stabilization because they can't afford to see a doctor. In 2019, the state promised cities rent stabilization as a new tool to make rent affordable. And over six years later, that promise remains unfulfilled. Over a dozen cities have voted to start stabilizing their unaffordable rents, and not a single one has been able to fully implement it because the law is broken. Allowing this process to remain frozen for another year would be political malpractice. The rest act is a very simple adjustment to allow cities to use publicly available housing data to opt in and customize the policy to fit their housing stock. Also, where I live, Tompkins County, homelessness has increased 366% over the past ten years. Across the state, a 160,000 New Yorkers are homeless, and a third of them are children. Voters really do not like to see street homelessness. And when they do, they don't blame the real estate industry. They blame the government. Funding the housing access voucher program at $250,000,000 would reduce homelessness by 12 and a half percent and save taxpayers money by reducing its external cost burdens. That's like medical costs, social service costs, law enforcement costs. It's projected that it would save a net $200,000,000 to opt into this program because of the more efficient allocation of resources.

[Mark Streb (Executive Director, Neighborhood Preservation Coalition of NYS)]: My name is Mark Strep, Executive Director of the Neighborhood Preservation Program, Neighborhood Preservation Coalition. And I'd like to start off by thanking the New York State Legislature for your continued support of the frontline, not for profit housing workers during this everlasting housing crisis. Your steadfast commitment to the Neighborhood Preservation Program allows essential resources, services to reach communities across our state. These boots on the ground community leaders are often the difference between a family remaining in their home, entering a shelter, or facing homelessness. The value of this work cannot be overstated. For the upcoming fiscal year, we are requesting $20,680,000 to fund the Neighborhood Preservation Program, reflecting a modest 10% increase from last year's enacted budget of $18,800,000 Additionally, Neighborhood Preservation Coalition requested $275,000 carve out to continue providing technical assistance, training conferences, educational webinars, research and communication. Coalition funding has remained flat for three years, reducing our capacity to support member organizations. The Neighborhood Preservation Program was originally created by the forward thinking state legislature in recognition of the persistent challenges faced by neighborhood preservation companies due to chronic underfunding. These not for profit housing organizations play a vital role in addressing the escalating affordable housing crisis and related community needs. Their services range from housing counseling, home improvement and rehabilitation, food programs, eviction preventions, the entire gamut of what families and homeowners and renters need. At a time when neighborhoods are increasingly destabilized and residents facing unprecedented fear. Governor Hulkel's proposed budget includes a deeply concerning reduction of 6,500,000.0 from last year's funding level, lowering NPP fundings from 18.8 to 12.83. This drastic cut would severely undermine the delivery of vital services. Reducing funding for frontline workers battling the housing crisis is wrong and must be reversed. Families across the state will be directly and negatively impacted if this proposal is enacted. The urgency of the housing crisis cannot be overstated. Nearly half of the renters and a significant share of homeowners in New York State are cost burdened with low income households. In closing, we request that Neighborhood Preservation Program be funded at 20,680,000.00 with a $2.75 carve out for the coalition. Thank you.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Thank you all very much. And we're going to start out with Senator Brian Kavanaugh. So the first hearing today, the assembly went first. And we're now in the oh, no, the reverse. This is their hearing.

[Malik O’Connor (Director, Right to Counsel Coalition)]: Yeah. One

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: minute. No, no, no. I will give Linda Rosenthal three minutes. We all get three minutes.

[Senator Brian P. Kavanagh (Chair, Senate Housing)]: What's J. Were trying to get me in trouble by going ahead of somebody member Rosenthal.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: I'm always in trouble. And no one special here tonight. Have your three minutes, chair.

[Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal (Chair, Assembly Housing)]: Thank you. I'm substituting for Chair Pretlow, who is delivering some analysis to the conference. So the first, I will save my questions for the end. But first, we have Assembly Member Fitzpatrick.

[Assemblymember Michael J. Fitzpatrick (Ranking Member, Assembly Housing)]: J. Hi. I just wanted to ask this desire to spread rent stabilization across the state. We see how it works or doesn't work in New York City. As expenses rise and as units become vacant, property owners will take those units off the market because it costs them money to rent them out because of stabilization. So when you blame the government, I think in part you are correct because what has happened is we have no employment or not enough employment in the state of New York because our tax burden is so high. But what are when you say you blame the government, do you also look at the fact that there's no employment or a lack of employment in New York state so people can not only work but see their incomes increase so that they can afford the rent. Mean, property owners do have to maintain the property. People complain when the property is not maintained. Well, if you don't have enough revenue to keep the place in good working order, that's what happens. So when you blame the government, are you looking at the bigger picture of why are there not enough jobs in the state of New York? We've hollowed out our manufacturing base. Taxes are so high, employers are leaving the state, which is why we have this problem, frankly, in the first place. So in a sense, I think you're right. The government is at fault here because we spend more than we take in, in a sense. And we're looking at alternative sources of revenue to kind of we're now into gambling and marijuana legalization. None of these things make New York a better place to live in, in my view. But do you have any criticism of these other issues? You're just looking at the government as the problem for high rents. But why are rents high? And where are the jobs for people to work so that they can afford their rent?

[Genevieve Rand (Housing Justice for All)]: What I do know is that the problem when if you talk about, you know, not having rent stabilization, that would mean that the current rents are too low. And I think everybody in this entire state can agree that the problem is not that rents are too low and they need to go up. If we are having these other problems that you talked about, I agree that there are other things we could do with the other inputs and outputs in our economy, but what we cannot do is allow rents to get even more unaffordable. Rent stabilization is the last bastion of rent affordability for over 2,000,000 residents of New York City and around the rest of the state, about a dozen other attempts to opt in have happened and are blocked by a thing the government is responsible for, which is the opt in process, and that's what the R. S. T. Act would fix.

[Assemblymember Michael J. Fitzpatrick (Ranking Member, Assembly Housing)]: It's actually made the problem worse in New York City.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: You.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: J.

[Senator Brian P. Kavanagh (Chair, Senate Housing)]: I'll take a moment to disagree with Senator Fitzpatrick. As we had eleven years to do while we served together that rent stabilization is the problem. But just briefly, with the three minutes, several of talked about increasing insurance costs as a driver of distress and difficulty in maintaining housing and also in funding new housing. The commissioner also touched on this book. Can you just talk a little bit more about, there were a couple stats in your testimony. Just talk a little bit more about that, about what's going on there from statewide perspective? And I'll leave it there.

[Erin Burns-Maine (Community Preservation Corporation)]: Absolutely. I think insurance is a thorny issue. There is no one quick, easy fix. And I would I love it, and I think everyone here would love it if there was. What you have in the data brief there shows that one of our biggest expense drivers was the increasing insurance premiums. And what's been interesting over the last few years, especially at the state level, is through the various studies that have been commissioned and information we've gotten, there's a couple different elements at play. I think the Department of Finance study suggested that there needed to be more research in terms of cost of payment discrimination among insurance companies. There have been others who pointed to localities that are having some of these kind of catastrophic events that have increased in insurance payouts and have increased kind of these premium issues. And then in addition to that, you layer in the changing climate and all of the different climate risks that are really actually impacting built environment. We absolutely support the state's proposals that were in the governor's budget. These are some of the biggest cost drivers for us. I do think more information, more investment, the recent award towards more, I would say, technical assistance and research on insurance will be helpful. The challenge is, especially for a state body, is you never want to overcorrect and end up running insurance companies out of your state. And there is some history of that across the country, not here in New York. But it's a careful balance. And I've appreciated over the last few years the attention to trying to strike that balance and get it right here in New York State.

[Unidentified legislator (brief interjections)]: And

[Senator Brian P. Kavanagh (Chair, Senate Housing)]: I'll do this in shorthand because it's forty five seconds. But sorry, Carolina, did you want to add something?

[Carlina Rivera (President & CEO, NYSAFAH)]: You want to ask something else? I can add. Okay, I'm going to take you thirty seconds. I think it's about transparency. We also want to strengthen enforcement and penalties for insurance fraud curbing abusive practices. I think the other thing would be stronger statewide data collection and regulatory oversight. And that would allow policymakers to identify trends early and intervene before premium increases become destabilizing. So it is comprehensive, and it's going to take a lot of work. And we stand ready.

[Senator Brian P. Kavanagh (Chair, Senate Housing)]: J. Great. I was going to ask also, you think the governor's proposals go far enough? We do have a few we've been working on. So I'll J.

[Erin Burns-Maine (Community Preservation Corporation)]: We'd love to go further.

[Senator Brian P. Kavanagh (Chair, Senate Housing)]: D.: Well to said.

[Carlina Rivera (President & CEO, NYSAFAH)]: Thank you. Agreed.

[Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal (Chair, Assembly Housing)]: Next we have Assembly member Burdick for three minutes.

[Assemblymember Chris Burdick]: J. Thank you. And this is for Carolina Rivera. And first of all, I want to thank you, NISAFA, for the terrific work you're doing. You might have heard the discussion that I had with Commissioner Vyshnauskas regarding restoring in the twenty twenty seven fiscal year budget the $75,000,000 investment for public housing authorities and then also to increase the investment in the five year housing plan by $25,000,000 Are you familiar with the investment with the public housing authorities and have anything you can share with us in terms of what you think its success has been and the demand and so forth and whether you think it's an appropriate investment to restore that.

[Carlina Rivera (President & CEO, NYSAFAH)]: J. Our position is to restore that funding of $75,000,000 for public housing authorities, question. Really, we support our colleagues at the New York State Public Housing Authorities Directors Association. We urge the legislature to restore that money. I've been to see public housing across the state since I've started at NYSSAFA. I also represented public housing in the city when I was a city councilwoman, and they are in desperate need of funding. What I've been able to see, the public private partnerships that have been so critical to rehabilitating some of these homes, that's definitely, I would say, in the future of public housing. I would love it if we invested in it as part of public and general infrastructure the way we do in our hospitals and the MTA system.

[Assemblymember Chris Burdick]: So you've worked with some of these public housing authorities outside of the city and familiar with them?

[Carlina Rivera (President & CEO, NYSAFAH)]: Yes, Albany, Utica, among many others. And really, some of the homes, the way that they've been restored, brings that dignity back to families who have been living in really bad conditions.

[Assemblymember Chris Burdick]: Can I ask you and I think the commissioner answered this in the affirmative? And you feel that the agency has the capacity to handle another $75,000,000 and get it out the door?

[Carlina Rivera (President & CEO, NYSAFAH)]: We're going to need a lot more than that. But I certainly think that they could use another 75 to million get out the door.

[Assemblymember Chris Burdick]: And how do you feel about the idea of another $20,000,000 for the five year $25,000,000 for the five year plan? Does that make any sense? Will those funds be used appropriately, do you think?

[Carlina Rivera (President & CEO, NYSAFAH)]: We're urging a modest 10% increase across in capital funding this year rather than waiting until the planned renewal.

[Assemblymember Chris Burdick]: Right.

[Carlina Rivera (President & CEO, NYSAFAH)]: We just want to avoid delays in housing production and preservation. And so we know that this is we're going in the right direction, and we need to continue. J.

[Assemblymember Chris Burdick]: Great. Thank you. And thank you again for the terrific work you do. And I hope you all will support these requests. Thanks so much. Bye bye.

[Senator Mark Walczyk]: Thank you, Madam Chair. So roughly half of New York City renters are at 80% of the area median income is what I understand. AMI for a family of three is at $145,000 a year. Should rich people be living in rent stabilized apartments?

[Genevieve Rand (Housing Justice for All)]: Is that for me?

[Senator Mark Walczyk]: That's for anybody. Go ahead.

[Genevieve Rand (Housing Justice for All)]: People of all income levels should have access to affordable rents. I think that what's incredibly important about rent stabilization is that it is something that is not chopped into a million pieces and subject to tons and tons of red tape. That is why it is able, unlike any other program, to keep 2,000,000 people affordably housed. And that is why cities around the rest of the state are actively trying to opt in. Because unlike so many other programs, it is easy, it is simple, and it makes rents permanently affordable for people.

[Senator Mark Walczyk]: J. So billionaires should have access to rent stabilized apartments? You said all incomes?

[Genevieve Rand (Housing Justice for All)]: J. I don't think there are that many billionaires that this is a problem.

[Senator Mark Walczyk]: J. Okay. But they should still have access to a rent stabilized apartment? Anybody differ from that? Or should billionaires be able to have a rent J.

[Erin Burns-Maine (Community Preservation Corporation)]: Feels like we may be steering away from some of the core issues respected earlier in the hearing that I heard about was the need for more workforce housing, blue collar jobs. When the nurse marries a firefighter, where do they live? The city runs on folks who are in the represented workforce, folks who know, NYCHA's top three employers for its residents are actually all city agencies. You know, when you think about that, we could probably spend three days' worth of hearings debating how you even define who is rich in the state of New York and frankly, across the country right now.

[Senator Mark Walczyk]: Right. I'm asking you guys to define who's rich. So if the area median income is $145,000 a year for a family of three, who's too rich for a rent stabilized apartment? Anybody?

[Erin Burns-Maine (Community Preservation Corporation)]: I don't have an answer for that question right now.

[Senator Mark Walczyk]: Does anybody have an answer?

[Carlina Rivera (President & CEO, NYSAFAH)]: I think we're building income targeted housing for different income levels. The average rent in Manhattan is $5,000 That's not the same case for town, village,

[Senator Mark Walczyk]: or Yeah, I'm just talking about rent stabilized apartments, though. Is anybody too rich for a rent stabilized apartment in your view, in this panel's view?

[Erin Burns-Maine (Community Preservation Corporation)]: J. I would say based on a qualitative understanding of the market, that would not be a big slice of the issue of what we're seeing.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: Nobody.

[Erin Burns-Maine (Community Preservation Corporation)]: I can't say nobody. I don't have that data available. I don't think a lot of folks are choosing to live in that housing who are billionaires.

[Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal (Chair, Assembly Housing)]: Assembly Member Levenberg.

[Assemblymember Dana Levenberg]: Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to the panel for all your wonderful testimony. I just really wanted to find out a little bit about HAVP and HOP to find out what you think the right, levels are. I know you said 10% across the board, but it seems like these programs have been incredibly effective. They tend to be, embraced by sort of both sides of the of the spectrum. And, since they also seem to be again, I said effective already. You know, what what do you think the right what what would we look at that could be effective statewide in addition to the 50,000,000 the governor's put in her budget.

[Genevieve Rand (Housing Justice for All)]: So the 50,000,000 was you know, that's been talked about as a pilot. And those are coming online now, but I don't know how many folks here were paying attention to the application window for that. It was like a week they're gone. And we still have over 100,000 homeless people in the state. Our opinion as a coalition is that a pilot was not necessary and that this is an extremely long proven program. Every government agency that has ever studied this for decades has found not only that it is effective, but that every dollar invested in this, I think the national average saves 1.8 in money that is spent on other services, on law enforcement, on, visits to the hospitals, etcetera. The results of these programs are remarkable. And so that is why we're asking for the for the full $250,000,000 of funding because that is expected to save New York State's taxpayers $1,000,000,000 over the next five years. And every year that that is not invested is yours that the state is wasting that taxpayer money on all of those other things.

[Senator Cordell Cleare]: Thank you. Is that the right answer?

[Assemblymember Dana Levenberg]: Yeah. Did you have any anything about HOP or no? No? Homeowner protection program? I just added that in. That's 40,000,000 right now. I don't know if you wanted to add in. No? Not your favorite program? You don't care? Okay. No. Go for it.

[Assemblymember Anna R. Kelles]: Go for it.

[Carlina Rivera (President & CEO, NYSAFAH)]: I just wanted to say in terms of homeownership, which was brought up earlier today, you know, this is something that NYSSAFA certainly supports. We do think there is an issue not just with middle income New Yorkers, but just across the board. We do have a middle income home homeownership opportunity program that we're really trying to push in the legislature that is actually and in the city too. It's a tax abatement program. It's not a subsidy program. And so we know that people would really champion that idea to create these homes. It's we certainly have the expertise and the experience with the NYSAPA to speak to your individual county, how it would work your district, and we would love to continue that partnership with you.

[Assemblymember Dana Levenberg]: Fantastic. Thank you.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Oh, no, no, microphone's working. Where people continue to try to argue that billionaires were living in rent regulated housing. And of course, they really aren't. Because you have other issues in your life if you've got $1,000,000,000 and you're living in rent regulated housing. And so there were examples given. And I looked them up, and none of them were true. Because frankly, there's all kinds of really good reasons to want mixed income communities with mixed income buildings. It's better for society when we're all not living completely separated from each other. So I have both the wealthiest district in the City Of New York, but also one of the largest rent regulated universes of housing in the City Of New York. And it results in some really great experiences where younger neighbors with less economic problems are there next to the elderly, desperately poor neighbor who can't possibly afford to go anywhere else and maybe can't even get up and down the staircase. And yet they have neighbors who know them and will help them and go shopping for them. And walk the dog when they can't walk the dog anymore, and children who grow up in mixed buildings and mixed communities. So I actually believe personally universal programs usually work out being better programs. And no one should leave this hearing under the illusion that rich people are taking all this housing that would otherwise go to non rich people. Because that's just not the reality, since we have, as the commissioner pointed out before, such an incredibly low vacancy rate that they have nowhere to go until we built all this other housing for them. And we just spent half our lives discussing why we can't do that overnight. So it's just a silly argument that keeps being made to take us off the core questions. And I'm also pointing out, we really love the HOT program. So we hope that we are more successful with that also. So thank you. I'm going to not use up my whole three minutes. I'm going to give it back to Linda.

[Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal (Chair, Assembly Housing)]: LYNN Okay. Thanks very much. No billionaire lives in rent regulated housing, period. My question is, first, congratulations, Carolina Rivera, for becoming president and CEO of NYSAFA. It's really excellent. We're very I happy about wonder if you would go into further detail about the $150,000,000 fund. It's actually Senator Kavanaugh, not my bill. But through ERAP, through the past five years, not for profit housing has really suffered. And there's been no aid, really, substantial aid from the government.

[Carlina Rivera (President & CEO, NYSAFAH)]: J. Yeah. The Affordable Housing Relief Fund is a preservation tool, essentially. This is to really help stabilize housing costs, particularly in suburban communities, actually, and prevent rising expenses from being passed on to tenants. So what we're seeing now across the state is there is an increase in insurance and utilities, compliance costs with little ability to raise rents. And even if you could raise the rent to make up for some of these operational costs, you can't do it by much. And you certainly don't want to burden families on top of what they're already experiencing in terms of our affordability crisis. So what the fund does is it helps stabilize properties before costs lead to those rent increases, before those costs lead to deferred maintenance or even foreclosure. And so we know that preserving existing homes that's really one of the most cost effective ways to protect affordability for families and seniors. Obviously, supply is important, but we can't build our way out of this crisis. And just to add, the voucher program is so important. I know you brought it up earlier. The 10% that we're asking for is for capital. A better voucher and expanded voucher system is critical. We support that. I think it is something that people support across the political spectrum. And in addition to affordable housing relief fund, that's really how we're going to help get families back on track.

[Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal (Chair, Assembly Housing)]: Thank you. And for Genevieve, I wonder if you'd talk for a moment about the R. S. T. Act. We referred to Kingston and other municipalities having a crisis of affordability. And if you could just direct your comments to how the R. E. S. Act would deal with that.

[Genevieve Rand (Housing Justice for All)]: A few years ago, I think in 2022, the rate of rent burden for tenants in New York that's people who are paying over a third of their income in rent was around 40%. And as of a couple years ago, it's over 50%. Housing unaffordability is a measurably increasing crisis. And that's why so many cities, including Kingston, including many others, are trying to opt in to rent stabilization. And that's why the law being so broken for almost seven years now is exacerbating this crisis for people all around

[Rachel Fee (Executive Director, NY Housing Conference)]: the state.

[Genevieve Rand (Housing Justice for All)]: It would be very, very, very easy to fix.

[Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal (Chair, Assembly Housing)]: Thank you.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Do you have any senators who wanted to ask questions? There are not that many of us here, of course, so we're apologetic for that. Back to the assembly.

[Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal (Chair, Assembly Housing)]: I think we're done. Okay. Thank you all.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Well, then we thank you all very much for coming. Appreciate your being here.

[Genevieve Rand (Housing Justice for All)]: Thank you for your questions.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Thank you. Okay, we're going to jump jump. We're going to ask panel B to come up, Legal Services of New York City, Center for New York City Neighborhoods, the Right to Counsel Coalition, the Albany Housing Authority. That's panel B. Good evening, everyone. Hi. Okay, let's just go down the list as you're printed out, if that's all right. So start with legal services for New York City. Hello?

[Rita Vega (Legal Services NYC)]: There we go. Okay. My name is Rita Vega. I am the citywide deputy director of the Housing Public Benefits Initiative at Legal Services NYC. Legal Services NYC is the nation's largest provider of civil legal services to low income individuals. Our services are lifeline for New Yorkers experiencing poverty and lack of resources. Thank you for allowing me to speak about our transformative housing public benefits initiative, built with the funding allocated for legal services eviction prevention work starting in 2023. While the program began with $10,000,000 administered by OTDA, presented as a renewable three year grant, our share was cut in 2024 to 4,000,000, and we received 5,300,000.0 last year. We need restoration to $10,000,000 in order to prevent a fiscal cliff that would lead us to reduce services. And we ask for the same increase for other New York City providers in order to create a $30,000,000 program. We use this funding to disrupt the eviction cycle by increasing income and households and ensuring rent affordability through public benefits and rent subsidies. This promotes overall stability for our clients, rather than just resolving cases through payments of arrears. The life changing impact of this funding is evident in the case of a Staten Island family with young children that fell into $30,000 of arrears when their subsidy was terminated. The family was surviving on limited income, and their longtime home was rendered unaffordable. We determined that the family was eligible for FEPS. We helped them in reapplying and applying for arrears assistance. When the family was scheduled for eviction, we won an extension. The FEPS application and rental arrears were approved, and the family remained securely housed with a subsidy that makes their ongoing rent affordable. With this funding, we can evaluate every tenant at risk of eviction who comes to us to ensure they receive all the income and rental assistance they qualify for. We assess eligibility for cash assistance, SNAP, rental subsidies like city FEPPs and FEPPs, as well as CRE and DREE, and other benefits. As you know, determining eligibility and accessing public benefits can be difficult or impossible for tenants. However, with our assistance, tenants get the benefits they need from the programs you all fall for. Since the program's inception in 2023, LISNEY has served more than 25,000 tenants. We've obtained over $30,000,000 in arrears, subsidies, and other benefits for clients. For every $1 spent on legal services, we returned $2 to clients and benefits. The success of this program is clearly undeniable. And while I focus on our eviction prevention program, my colleague, Inwalt, is advocating for the HOT program to be enshrined into law, affording homeowners uninterrupted services and ensuring that New York's only homeowner scam prevention program remains viable and safely funded. Protects homeowners from de theft and other scams concentrated in communities of color and among the elderly. Thank you. Next.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Oh, I guess I could tell you who's next.

[Unidentified speaker (brief acknowledgments)]: Hi. I'm Christie Peel, CEO Executive Director of the Center for New York City Neighborhoods. Thank you, Chair Kruger, Pretlow, Kavanaugh, Rosenthal, and all the members who've been here today for the opportunity to testify in the twenty six-'twenty seven executive budget for housing. The center promotes and protects affordable homeownership. Our network has assisted 380,000 low and moderate income families and preserved $10,000,000 in neighborhood values for New York State and delivered $60,000,000 to community based partners. We would be remiss if we didn't thank Senator Kavanaugh for his years of support as the chair in the Senate. We really appreciate your partnership on many, many issues. As my colleague just mentioned, the homeowner protection program, or HOP, we're delighted that thanks to the support of the legislature over the years, the governor has put it in her budget for a second year in a row at $40,000,000 This program is incredibly impactful. And we are seeing foreclosures increase in New York City and on Long Island, unfortunately. So there's a lot at risk there. Many families are fighting to save their homes, and they do this with hops. So thank you for the question, Assemblymember Levenberg. We're really excited to see ongoing support for repairs and climate resilience in the executive budget. And I think the vacant rental program that was mentioned earlier, if that could be expanded to New York City, we could find other offline rental units made available for small landlords, especially in the one to four family housing space. We're excited about identifying federal and state initiatives to increase incentives for home repair. We're really thankful for the Senate and the legislature for bringing attention to the insurance issue as a core housing issue. The data transparency will be really helpful. But making sure that DFS has the ability to hold insurance companies accountable, that we understand where they're making profits. So there isn't this debate around whether or not requiring real investment in our communities, data transparency is creating a risk for insurance companies to leave communities. We know they are making money. We think the state could go further with the governor's recommendations and really think about a New York state CRA for insurance to ensure that our communities have adequate insurance representation. The mitigation recommendations in the governor's budget are also very helpful and, again, could be expanded. And I would also just add that there is an opportunity for the state to look at title insurance reform that could help not just affordable housing developers, but small homebuyers have homebuying

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: be

[Unidentified speaker (brief acknowledgments)]: more affordable and have revenue come to the state. There's a real opportunity to generate revenue in New York State by requiring title insurance companies to domicile in our state. We can create jobs, create revenue, and fund all of the programs that we need. And I didn't get to talk about affordable homeownership development. Sorry.

[Malik O’Connor (Director, Right to Counsel Coalition)]: My name is Malik O'CONNOR. I'm actually subbing in for Randy Dillard, who's under the weather today. But I'm the director of the Right to Council Coalition. Good afternoon, and thank you so much for the opportunity to testify today. The Right to Counsel coalition is a statewide coalition of tenants, organizers, and advocates, as well as legal services organizations that are fighting for an eviction free New York. New Yorkers have endured an eviction crisis for decades. And without state action, it will only worsen. With more than 175,000 active eviction cases statewide, nearly 160,000 people experiencing homelessness, and hundreds of thousands more at risk, evictions continue to displace families and destabilize communities every day. This crisis disproportionately impacts black renters, women, and households with children who make up nearly 40% of those facing eviction. From January 2020 through December 2025, landlords sued more than 850,000 households for eviction. In 2025 alone, landlords sued more than 164,000 households. The scale of this crisis is staggering. The crisis is not inevitable. It is the result of political choices that have real human consequences. And New York State can choose differently. Our coalition has developed proven solutions to protect tenants and transform the court system Through organizing and by enacting a statewide right to counsel, the Clean Hands Act, and a winter eviction moratorium, we can address this crisis. With these laws in place, New York can dramatically reduce evictions, prevent displacement, ensure habitable homes, and save lives. These bills go hand in hand to address the eviction crisis and change the courts. Right to counsel, the right to a free attorney when facing eviction, has already proven its impact. Following the passage of New York City's law in 2017, at least 84% of tenants represented by a right to counsel attorney were able to remain in their homes. Citywide evictions dropped by nearly 40%, landlord filings dropped by 30%, and default judgments fell by more than 30%. But since January 2022, the state court system has failed to uphold New York City's right to counsel law, prioritizing clearing court dockets or over enforcing tenants' legal rights. As a result, more than 110,000 tenants and counting have faced eviction without an attorney. The denial of tenants' right to counsel in New York City is ultimately an enforcement issue. Courts must move tenants' cases forward only when an attorney is available to take their case. Because the courts are state run, only state legislation can hold the courts accountable and ensure full enforcement. Statewide right to counsel is critical for New York City tenants as well. Outside New York City, tenants only gave the ability to sue landlords for poor housing conditions through the Tenant Dignity and Safe Housing Act. However, tenants need legal representation to effectively bring and win these cases. Without attorneys, these cases cannot be pursued at the scale or scope necessary to hold landlords accountable, leaving many tenants living in unsafe conditions or facing harassment. In closing, our ask this year is to include two sixty million dollars in fiscal year 'twenty eight-'twenty seven budget and pass and sign statewide rights of counsel into law, which is one of the most effective tools that we have to stop displacement and keep folks housed.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: Thank you.

[Representative, NYS Public Housing Authority Directors Association (NYS PHADA)]: Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity to speak on behalf of New York State Public Housing Authority Directors Association, known as NIFATA. We are deeply grateful to the legislator for the strong partnership demonstrated in recent years, particularly the 75,000,000 included in the 2025 budget to support public housing authorities outside of New York City. The investment has been critical in stabilizing and transforming aging public housing across the state. Today, however, we are facing a new and urgent crisis. Housing authorities across New York are confronting severe uncertainty in the federal section eight program. On 12/22/2025, HUD warned housing authorities nationwide of significant funding short shortfall projected for 2026. At the same time, rents continue to rise across New York. Without sufficient voucher funding, we will be forced to serve fewer families not because the need has diminished, but because the funding has. These consequences stark. Families who are currently stably housed could lose their assistance and face homelessness through no fault of their own. This is why NYSFADA, in partnership with NYCHA and housing advocates across the state, urges the legislator to include 250,000,000 in the 2026 budget for the housing access voucher program, HAVP. This program is a statewide rental assistance program modeled after the section eight program. It ensures that the household pays more no more than 30% of their income towards rent and provides a critical safety net for families facing housing instability. In the face of federal federal uncertainty, HAVP can prevent displacement, can stabilize communities, and protect the state from higher downstream costs associated with homelessness. In addition to rental assistance, we must address another growing threat to housing stability, the skyrocketing cost of insurance for housing authorities. Many of our members have experienced premium increases across approaching 40%, some even higher in the past past few years. The cost diverts scarce resources away from maintenance and resident services. We strongly support governor Hochul's proposals to increase insurance transparency, allow participation in captive insurance programs, and require premium discounts tied to risk mitigation efforts. We also support advancing additional solutions, including incentive incentives to expand affordable housing insurance products and exploring a state reinsurance backstop to stabilize the market. In closing, New York housing authorities are doing everything possible to serve residents responsibly and efficiently, but we cannot absorb federal shortfalls and rising operating costs without state partnership. We respectfully urge continued support of the HAV program, insurance reform, and for the families and communities we depend on who depend on public housing every day. Thank you.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: Thank you. Ms. Semmerman Burdick?

[Assemblymember Chris Burdick]: Thank you, Chairs. And thank you all for the work that you're doing. Is a question for the folks at the Albany Housing Authority. And thank you for your work. And you mentioned right at the outset the $75,000,000 that was in the twenty twenty six fiscal year budget as a legislative add. And I'm wondering if you could tell us more about what you mentioned about that. If you don't have $75,000,000 in the twenty twenty seven fiscal year budget, how many families might lose assistance? You referenced that. I assume that your authority did, in fact, was able to utilize some of the $75,000,000 that was allocated. And if you could just describe that a bit, that would be very helpful.

[Representative, NYS Public Housing Authority Directors Association (NYS PHADA)]: Absolutely. And thank you for your question. I just want to clarify, the $75,000,000 was the capital funding. The $250,000,000 I'm referencing for the housing access voucher program.

[Assemblymember Chris Burdick]: Right. Did you utilize the capital funding? And was that at all connected to how many families you serve?

[Representative, NYS Public Housing Authority Directors Association (NYS PHADA)]: Absolutely. I can tell you that over the past probably five years, in 2025, we actually completed our permanent conversion for a project named Steamboat-twenty. In that year, we probably used, for the state alone, we received about over $29,000,000 Of that capital fund, I don't have that number, but I'm happy to get back

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: to you.

[Assemblymember Chris Burdick]: And do you happen to know whether you utilized any of the funds from 2026 fiscal year? The one that we're in now, have you been utilizing that?

[Representative, NYS Public Housing Authority Directors Association (NYS PHADA)]: Not for 2026.

[Assemblymember Chris Burdick]: Oh, Okay. But I take it that there remain unmet capital needs by your authority.

[Representative, NYS Public Housing Authority Directors Association (NYS PHADA)]: If I can rephrase my answer. Sure. We did because we have an ongoing project going now.

[Senator Jack M. Martins (Ranking Member, Senate Housing)]: Oh, great.

[Representative, NYS Public Housing Authority Directors Association (NYS PHADA)]: So we are utilizing those funds. We're in phase two of our phase one project.

[Assemblymember Chris Burdick]: And so would you have both the need as well as the capacity if we did another legislative add, which is what would be needed in order to get those funds in the 2027 fiscal year enacted budget? Do you have the need? Do you have the capacity?

[Representative, NYS Public Housing Authority Directors Association (NYS PHADA)]: We absolutely have the need. And I would like to also add in that, in those two projects I just mentioned, one of the projects we were able to bring on 37 new units. And for the ongoing project, we are looking to bring on 47 additional units on top

[Rishita (Rachita) Tyler (Acting Executive Director, NYS Council of Churches)]: of what we are doing. J.

[Assemblymember Chris Burdick]: Well, you so much for all of the work that you folks do.

[Representative, NYS Public Housing Authority Directors Association (NYS PHADA)]: J. My pleasure.

[Senator Brian P. Kavanagh (Chair, Senate Housing)]: Thank you. I guess I notice that Senator Kruger had departed, taking a break. Just a couple of quick questions. The clock is running good. First of all, just clarify, I know Senator Samira Burdick, who has been a great advocate for public housing across the state, just was asking you questions partly about the Albany Housing Authority. But you're also here representing NYSFADA, which is, is the directors of all our housing authorities across the state, right?

[Representative, NYS Public Housing Authority Directors Association (NYS PHADA)]: That is correct, yes.

[Senator Brian P. Kavanagh (Chair, Senate Housing)]: So you have a consensus in housing authorities that are in virtually all of our districts that the state continuing to fund, to add capital to those programs is critical. Is that right?

[Representative, NYS Public Housing Authority Directors Association (NYS PHADA)]: Very critical, absolutely.

[Senator Brian P. Kavanagh (Chair, Senate Housing)]: And last year was $75,000,000 And what your ask is that we restore the $75,000,000 that was included in Lester's adopted budget but not in this year's proposed executive budget. Is that right?

[Senator Rachel May]: LESLIE K.

[Senator Brian P. Kavanagh (Chair, Senate Housing)]: Great. I just want to make sure we clarify that. Maybe I should just start by thanking there was some thanks from the advocates who were here about the legislature's work on making sure we get legal services and HOP funded. Just want to as somebody said before, it's been a great partnership. But we've put a lot of money into the HOP program and to legal services. I think the $30,000,000 last year, which and that's the $30,000,000 is specifically for New York City. I think there's an additional $45,000,000 that we will well, dollars 35,000,000 or so that we'll hear about later from some of our rural advocates and outside the city. But just to say, we put a lot of money out there, but the services that you provide really are essential. And the government's not providing those services directly. We are basically making the resources available. I guess I just want to talk about the extent to which we're meeting the need. In New York City, in particular, like HOPP is statewide, to the extent we have 40 we've now more or less doubled that program in the last couple of years. From your perspective, are we I guess this is a question for Chrissy. From your perspective, are we meeting these needs as stated by that program with the

[Assemblymember Chris Burdick]: current program?

[Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal (Chair, Assembly Housing)]: J.

[Unidentified speaker (brief acknowledgments)]: The needs of homeowners across the city and the state have always far exceeded our capacity. And so we are very judicious and

[Rita Vega (Legal Services NYC)]: still waiting for. But that is our overall rate to council funding.

[Assemblymember Alec Brook-Krasny]: And how much is that peer case that you're sold?

[Rita Vega (Legal Services NYC)]: That's a good question. I would have to get back to you on the specifics on that, but on the case numbers?

[Assemblymember Alec Brook-Krasny]: Right. So why I'm asking is that I'm sure you have very successful cases, don't get me wrong. But I have heard many stories when your lawyers were not ready for the case or just not interested in the case. And how do you check the quality of the services provided to tenants?

[Rita Vega (Legal Services NYC)]: Well, I think those are two issues, right? Our right to counsel funding limits the type of cases that we can take on, right? So we can take on full representation cases. So unfortunately, for cases that wouldn't be full representation, we wouldn't be able to take them under way to counsel. However, we can do them under our Housing Public Benefits Initiative, right? So that's a way that we stop the clients from falling through the cracks, right? As opposed, as for interest, that's very interesting. Always are, we actually engage in client surveys to see how clients feel about their representation at the end of each year, right? And so we take that very seriously. And so there is a privilege lawyers have in selecting which cases they can take on, right? And it's not necessarily a measure of interest. It is a lot of factors that go into assessing a case and determining if it's a case that we can take on and represent the client.

[Assemblymember Alec Brook-Krasny]: Those lawyers like real lawyers? They're not students of a law school or

[Rita Vega (Legal Services NYC)]: J. I'm so sorry. Can you repeat

[Assemblymember Alec Brook-Krasny]: that? J. Those lawyers that represent the tenant, are they like students of law schools or they have a degree already? They're real lawyers. Like, can you give me an example of that?

[Rita Vega (Legal Services NYC)]: Sure. All our lawyers are real lawyers. So, students who have just graduated. They're J. D. S, right? They practice under our student practice order. And they can practice along with us, right? They are fully able to. And all the lawyers that are barred are also full lawyers. And so, everyone in our organization who sets them out to, who sets themselves out to be an attorney is in fact an attorney.

[Assemblymember Alec Brook-Krasny]: How do you do quality assurance of the people who work for you?

[Rita Vega (Legal Services NYC)]: We do that during, of course, our hiring process. We engage in evaluations with our staff yearly to see how their work is going, how we can improve. And again, we also engage in feedback with clients to assess how our lawyers are doing.

[Assemblymember Alec Brook-Krasny]: All right, thank you.

[Senator Cordell Cleare]: Of course.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Senator Walzik.

[Senator Mark Walczyk]: Thank you, Madam Chair. Ms. Connor from the Right to Counsel Coalition, you said 175,000 eviction cases statewide?

[Assemblymember Anna R. Kelles]: M. Yes.

[Senator Mark Walczyk]: What is the primary reason for those cases?

[Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal (Chair, Assembly Housing)]: It

[Malik O’Connor (Director, Right to Counsel Coalition)]: varies, but the vast majority of eviction cases in the state are for nonpayment of rent.

[Senator Mark Walczyk]: To open more affordable housing, should we have a means test so that wealthy people aren't living in rent stabilized apartments?

[Malik O’Connor (Director, Right to Counsel Coalition)]: I would say absolutely no. In addition to the many reasons that folks have already named earlier today in previous panels, as well as your colleagues, the one thing that I would add to that is that whenever we means test for a service, the administrative cost to provide that far exceeds the benefit of doing so. So there are no billionaires living in affordable housing. I don't think that that would be an issue moving forward. And yeah, that's all I have to say on that.

[Senator Mark Walczyk]: J. That's good. And I was informed that there's no billionaires living in rent stabilized housing in New York City. I appreciate the clarification.

[Unidentified speaker (brief acknowledgments)]: Great.

[Senator Mark Walczyk]: What about millionaires? Should millionaires be able to live in rent stabilized apartments?

[Senator Pamela A. Helming]: This is not funny.

[Malik O’Connor (Director, Right to Counsel Coalition)]: Yeah. Truthfully, I think that this I appreciate your candor and in asking the questions, but I do genuinely believe that it is a distraction from the core issue at hand here, right, which is about how do we provide more affordable housing? How do we keep folks housed when they are in that housing?

[Senator Mark Walczyk]: J. Mean, is my question. Because obviously, if there's if you have an AMI in New York City that's 145,000 for a family of three and they're struggling to pay rent. And you have 175,000 eviction cases statewide. A lot of those, I assume, are in New York City because rent is high. But you have people with the means that are living in stabilized apartments that don't see much of a rental increase while the rest of the market is increasing rent. If you allowed the market to be rented to the people who can afford, so some kinds of means test for those stabilized apartments, then you would open up that housing for the people that can't afford it. Am I understanding this wrong?

[Malik O’Connor (Director, Right to Counsel Coalition)]: J. Yes, because there's theory and there's practice. And in practice, folks, millionaires, billionaires, do not rent those units, right?

[Senator Mark Walczyk]: J. Is there any kind of means testing for rent stabilized apartments?

[Malik O’Connor (Director, Right to Counsel Coalition)]: J. As far as I know, no. Not

[Assemblymember Alec Brook-Krasny]: in

[Senator Mark Walczyk]: So state theoretically, could. Somebody making half $1,000,000 or a millionaire could live in a rent stabilized apartment, right?

[Malik O’Connor (Director, Right to Counsel Coalition)]: They could. But there. No problem.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: J. Rosenthal.

[Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal (Chair, Assembly Housing)]: J. Thank you. I'd like to clarify that in order to be eligible for rent stabilized apartment, you have to live in that apartment for half a year plus one day. No billionaires doing that. They have many houses. Same for those who are millionaires. Let me ask a question to the right to counsel. We've seen in New York City that when a person gets a lawyer, they work out the problem with the landlord. And both sides agree that it benefits the whole situation. Do you think that would work well outside the city?

[Malik O’Connor (Director, Right to Counsel Coalition)]: Definitely. I mean, I think eviction court's eviction court. They are challenging institutions to navigate. And oftentimes I mean, I think this statistic was well over 99% of landlords pre right to counsel had attorneys, and the vast majority of tenants did not, Right? So when you have an attorney on both sides, they're able to more effectively resolve cases. Cases don't drag out as long. Folks are able to reach resolution sooner. Folks are able to access subsidies and supports that would enable either landlord or the tenant to pay rent if indeed the issue is rent. And so folks in other parts of the state are experiencing the same issues with affordability, right? And also with I think one of the most telling statistics pre and post right to counsel in New York City was that right to counsel really helped to shift landlord behavior, right? When you know that you're going to go to court, or more often than not, landlords aren't going to court. Their attorneys are going to court. But on the other side of that, you have someone who is also represented. And so the likelihood of you being able to meet on a level playing field, landlords are going to bring fewer and fewer frivolous cases, right? And so that is something that we see across the board. And so with our right to counsel in place where both the landlord and the tenant have legal representation to help mediate and resolve the case, I think that it would be tremendously helpful in all cases no matter where you live, right? Because fundamentally, the landlord tenant relationship is still the same.

[Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal (Chair, Assembly Housing)]: J. And often, are frivolous cases? Not in all.

[Malik O’Connor (Director, Right to Counsel Coalition)]: J. Not in all. J. But I think that those key numbers that we saw after right to counsel's implementation in New York City were like 40%. We saw a dip in 40% of the cases. Those were cases that I think we could deem as frivolous, right? They could have been resolved by other means, not through the court system.

[Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal (Chair, Assembly Housing)]: Thank you.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: Thank you. Who is this?

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Senator Webb.

[Senator Bill Weber (Ranking, Senate Finance — filling in for Sen. O’Mara)]: Sorry. JULIE Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to explore the rent stabilization means testing, I kind of want to get some clarity on this. So why can't we do both, right? Why can't we acknowledge that we need more housing, which I think everyone here agrees, and also accomplish the fact that we means test a lot of things in this state, Medicaid, Medicare. I can give you a list of hundreds of things that we means test in the state. So why is there a hesitancy to means test rent stabilized apartments in New York City or in wealthier areas when we know those people could afford to pay for market rate apartments and then free up those rent stabilized apartments for the people that really can't afford to be in those higher rented rental apartments.

[Unidentified speaker (brief acknowledgments)]: J. If I could add a layperson understanding of this, from what I understood when the law was reformed, the idea was to preserve the unit and to respond to the fact that many landlords were renting to higher income families with the assumption that ultimately those units would lose rent stabilization when they became too high earning. And so the intent of the law was to not allow that to happen. So the current approach is to stabilize the units and to maintain stabilized supply so that every time a family exceeds an income limit, we don't lose another rent stabilized unit. And I think I know that this is a very educated body. And I think that is understood to be the intent behind that law. I J. Think

[Senator Bill Weber (Ranking, Senate Finance — filling in for Sen. O’Mara)]: But the law was passed, what, fifty years ago. So I guess the question no? What?

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: J. 2019, we

[Senator Bill Weber (Ranking, Senate Finance — filling in for Sen. O’Mara)]: changed it. J. No, we changed it, right. But the original, right. But the question I have, though, is it goes to the matter of fairness, right? Is it fair for someone who we're not talking about millionaires. Is it fair for someone that's making $300,000 a year to pay $1,500 a month in a rent stabilized apartment?

[Unidentified speaker (brief acknowledgments)]: I think we

[Senator Bill Weber (Ranking, Senate Finance — filling in for Sen. O’Mara)]: need We know it's happening. We know it's it's true.

[Unidentified speaker (brief acknowledgments)]: J. Yeah. I think we need to think about supply, right? We have a lot of different ways that we can influence the supply of affordable housing. The supply of affordable homeownership is something I'm particularly interested in. And I think if we can expand the way that we're creating new opportunities for affordable homeownership, for example, we may be offering new ways for folks to transition out of different housing. We would offer more opportunities for housing mobility across different housing typologies, including new homeownership opportunities. And I think you heard Nisafa talk about ways that we can create new as of right tax exempts

[Senator Bill Weber (Ranking, Senate Finance — filling in for Sen. O’Mara)]: for homeownership. I'm out of time. I'm just hopeful that we can accomplish both. That's all.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Thank you. Was it?

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: I believe that's it for the assembly members. The assembly is done.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: There are lots of

[Senator Bill Weber (Ranking, Senate Finance — filling in for Sen. O’Mara)]: different types of questions.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: We have a late bloomer. Senator Martins.

[Assemblymember Michael J. Fitzpatrick (Ranking Member, Assembly Housing)]: LISTEN

[Senator Jack M. Martins (Ranking Member, Senate Housing)]: J. I'm LISTEN not LISTEN going to beat this dead horse. But I am going to ask you a question

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: about LUISE

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: We're way past that.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: M. This issue.

[Senator Jack M. Martins (Ranking Member, Senate Housing)]: Well, no, it's important. It's a policy decision. And I think it speaks to priorities because I understand from some of the questions or some of the answers that they don't believe that it exists. And yet, are you aware of the New York City Housing and Vacancy Survey that is published every two years by the Census Bureau in conjunction with the city of New York that actually measures income of people in housing units in New York City, including rent stabilized housing. You familiar with that survey? Okay, fine. And so in that survey they have different categories of rent stabilized housing. And if we were to agree that we are not looking to deregulate these units, we're actually looking to maintain those units at affordable rates, at their housing, at their rental rates, and not actually allowing people who are making more than, I think the commissioner mentioned earlier, 60% to 80% of area median income is considered appropriate when we're dealing with affordable housing. If we have people that are making multiples of that, would you not agree that those people should have the ability to go get market rate housing and make those units available to people who actually qualify? That's all. That's the question. And I I see smirks. I see people shrugging. I see nods. But the reality is, if we are going to be true to this, don't you agree that housing needs to be affordable for people who actually need it as determined by these state agencies, 60% to 80% of AMI? No? Okay. No further questions. Thank you.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: Thank you. I believe, if someone corrects me, that this ends this portion of the hearing. Ladies, I wanna thank you for your participation and sticking around. Sorry we started late, but the one before this went a little longer than we expected. But we appreciate your input. Thank you very much.

[Rachel Fee (Executive Director, NY Housing Conference)]: Thank you. Thank you.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: Individuals from panel C could please proceed to the table. The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Ms. Susan Riggs, New York Housing Conference, Rachel Fee, the American Institute of Architects of New York, Bria Donahue, My Dog Is My Home, Elizabeth Rose, and the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development, Emily Goldstein. Ladies, welcome. If you're sitting in the order that I called you, that would be great. Otherwise, we'll start from my left, your right. I

[Unidentified speaker (brief acknowledgments)]: don't think we sat that way.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: Sorry. Okay.

[Rachel Fee (Executive Director, NY Housing Conference)]: Sorry, we sat out of order. Good afternoon. I'm Rachel Fee. I'm executive director of the New York Housing Conference. Thank you so much for this opportunity to testify today. I'll just give some highlights of what we're excited about in the governor's budget for housing, and then what we think is missing and should be added. First, I'm thinking about solutions to the housing crisis in three buckets adding supply, helping the lowest income renters, and then also preserving existing housing. So in adding to supply, we strongly support reforming Seeker. Whether that's the governor's proposal or Senator May's proposal, we're really excited that this will be part of the budget discussion in Albany this year. We know that SEQR has long been used to weaponize blocking housing across the state, so we're glad that this will be discussed. We also urge allocating at least $250,000,000 in supplemental capital funding. Last summer, Congress passed an expansion of the Low Income Housing Tax Credit. This capital is critical to match the federal credits and make sure we're using them all and not leaving them on the table. In terms of strengthening New York's housing safety net, we urge the legislature to make the housing access voucher program permanent and fund it at $250,000,000 We also support an affordable independent senior housing assistance program. That's a really well known model and one that we think should be adopted for the state housing program. We also support expanding eligibility of scree and DRE. Preservation, we think, needs to be a top priority this year in Albany. An alarming share of affordable housing buildings are in financial distress. Senator Kavanaugh mentioned some of those concerns. We've seen lots of reports this year. And what we're looking at in particular is the affordable housing stock with regulatory agreements with the city and state, where operating costs are exceeding rental income. These buildings are at risk of default, putting tenants and public investment at risk. To stabilize and preserve affordable housing, we have a series of recommendations we'd like adopted. I'll just highlight a few. We urge deploying $17,000,000 for a new affordable housing eviction diversion initiative. We issued a new report today outlining the extent of the crisis where more than a third of New York City eviction filings are in subsidized affordable housing. We think we need preventative action from the city, but we also are looking for a state funded eviction diversion program. And we think that helping affordable housing tenants with non payment issues early is also going to save public resources. We also are urging to pass an affordable housing income limit compliance bill. This would allow affordable housing vacancies to rent at current AMI. We're supportive of J51, an affordable housing relief fund, HCR's reserve Planishment Fund

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: Lantimus Fee.

[Rachel Fee (Executive Director, NY Housing Conference)]: Yes, and NYCHA and funding the other HCR programs in our testimony. Thank you.

[Emily Goldstein (Association for Neighborhood & Housing Development)]: Good evening. Good evening.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: My name is

[Emily Goldstein (Association for Neighborhood & Housing Development)]: Emily Goldstein. I'm the director of organizing and advocacy at the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development, or ANHD. Thank you all for sticking through this hearing and providing me the opportunity to testify. Oh, just kicked in. ANHD appreciates the governor's proposal to increase funding for new construction of affordable housing. But as several others have highlighted during this hearing, we really need to see preservation as a priority and would like to see dedicated funding for that. ANHD supports a broad collective package that's outlined in our written proposal or written testimony, which would provide resources across a variety of programs that help to ensure our existing affordable and supportive housing stock throughout the state can remain financially viable and secure for the tenants who depend on it. We are specifically advocating, in particular, for the creation of an affordable housing access and preservation initiative, or HAPI, with a proposed $250,000,000 investment. This would provide resources that aren't really available or are well set up in any of our existing programs to ensure that our current, especially nonprofit owned affordable housing, can be financially stabilized and secured over the long term. We also support additional funding for HIVP. We're part of the broad coalition that was thrilled to see that program passed, at least at a pilot level funded last year, and would love to see it get full funding at $250,000,000 Other programs, which we go into more detail in writing, that we support include HOP, the eviction diversion program that Rachel just mentioned, the proposal to increase scree and dre income limits, although we would like to see those egged with future COLAs so that we don't have to keep coming back and doing those increases, and statewide right to counsel. Lastly, we ask for continued funding for the Displacement Alert Project, which is a data project that ANHD runs. It provides really valuable resources and tools for both elected officials and their staff, as well as organizers and community members to find building and community level data on housing throughout New York City. Unfortunately, it is only citywide because the data isn't available at the state level. If it ever becomes available, we'd love to expand it. But over the past several years, we've had about 40,000 active users a year. And so we think it's really providing a valuable resource. It's been funded at $250,000 in the past, and we'd appreciate that continuation. Thank you.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: R. Thank you.

[Bria Donahue (American Institute of Architects — New York)]: Fabulous. Thank you, Chair Krueger, Chair Prentlow, and members of the Joint Legislative Budget Committee for holding this hearing today. I'm Bria Donahue, director of government affairs at the American Institute of Architects New York chapter. AA New York is the leading design nonprofit representing 5,000 architects and design professionals who live and work in New York City. AA commends the legislature for their continued commitment and partnership in addressing the ongoing housing crisis. Smart policy, design leadership, and financial tools can help affordable housing projects succeed. We applaud governor Hochul for her demonstrated commitment to affordable housing in the executive budget with the let them build agenda detailing critical reforms to modernize Seeker and the j 51 tax incentive program. As we make as we make the development process less onerous with Seeker reforms, we also need financials financial tools to support investments in renovations and repairs to preserve affordable housing. The greenest building is the one that is already built, and programs like J51 are crucial for preservation. Alongside these tools for affordable housing, AIA New York recommends the legislature take action to promote low carbon construction. Globally, embodied carbon accounts for 17% of greenhouse gas emissions. These emissions come from the manufacturing, transportation, installation, maintenance, and disposal of construction materials. If New York is serious about its commitment to being a climate leader, we cannot ignore nearly one fifth of the problem. Unlike operational emissions, which accrue over decades, embodied carbon is released upfront when a building is constructed or renovated. Cutting in body carbon now delivers near term emission reductions critical for meeting the 2030 climate act target. Additionally, low carbon construction generates new well paying jobs, especially in energy efficiency and green building trades. To entice the mark a market to utilize low carbon construction materials and support local material manufacturers, we asked the state legislature to allocate $6,000,000 to establish a sales tax exemption for low carbon construction material manufacturers for low carbon construction materials and a pilot program to provide grants to support concrete manufacturers in developing environmental product declarations. Think of EPDs like a nutritional label detailing for the materials detailing its environmental impact. Thanks to governor Hochul's executive order number 22, public procurement requirements for materials with EPDs are already coming into effect, and these financial incentives create a clear market signal that low carbon materials are cost competitive and desirable, which benefits both public and private projects. Additional on body carbon policies that a New York is strongly supportive of are detailed in our written remarks. Reducing body carbon is not just a climate strategy. It's a cost effective economic development strategy, and these policies not only accelerate progress towards achieving our climate goals, but also stimulate innovation, build resilient local supply chains, and deliver economic and workforce benefits across the state. Thank you for the opportunity to testify, and we look forward to working closely with the legislature to unlock tools for high performance, sustainable quality, affordable housing development. Thank you.

[Elizabeth Rose (Advocate, My Dog Is My Home)]: Hi, good afternoon. My name is Elizabeth Rose. The title that was given to me on the witness list is incorrect. I'm actually an advocate for My Dog is My Home. I'm submitting this testimony in support of including a 5,000,000 appropriation in the FY twenty twenty six-twenty twenty seven New York State budget to establish and fund a statewide co sheltering grant program that allows families to remain safely with their companion animals while accessing shelter and housing services. My experience shows how life saving it is for families to stay together with pets while escaping violence and homelessness. My name is Elizabeth Rose. I'm a survivor of eleven years

[Senator Cordell Cleare]: of child abuse and sexual assault,

[Elizabeth Rose (Advocate, My Dog Is My Home)]: five years of domestic violence, and multiple years of legal court abuse

[Rita Vega (Legal Services NYC)]: by my abuser.

[Elizabeth Rose (Advocate, My Dog Is My Home)]: I also face homelessness when my child and cat due to the adversities I face. I eventually turned to addiction when the courts continued to fail me.

[Assemblymember Chris Burdick]: Overall,

[Elizabeth Rose (Advocate, My Dog Is My Home)]: I'm a survivor that beat all odds and would not have without the programs that kept me together with my emotional support cat, B. B. As

[Assemblymember Lester Chang]: soon as I was able

[Elizabeth Rose (Advocate, My Dog Is My Home)]: to escape all of my abusers with my cat and child, I didn't need unhealthy substances to numb the painful abuse. My cat became my new favorite substance. I didn't have an address, but I did have safety at the shelter with my family because of the Urban Resource Institute and the People and Animals Living Safely program. Throughout my stay at Urban Resource Institute, I experienced flashbacks and suicidal thoughts to and the after effects of domestic violence. I would jump from my sleep screaming, and my cat, B. B. Would be right beside me always. B. B. Was and still is a part of my healing journey even now being diagnosed with rare autoimmune diseases correlated to stress and abuse. He is still by my side to heal me. When I was in the domestic violence shelter on my second day, my abuser was sending me texts threatening me to throw my cat out onto the city streets. I didn't understand then as I was experiencing PTSD and traumatic events, but I was extremely fortunate to have been placed within one of the very few domestic violence shelters that allow co sheltering with pets in New York City. Because of the co sheltering program at Urban Resource Institute, my entire family was able to stay together, allowing my healing process for myself and my daughter to thrive. I've had my cat, B. B, for eleven years and my daughter for nine years. We have all been safe since 05/31/2019, thanks to cold sheltering.

[Senator Brian P. Kavanagh (Chair, Senate Housing)]: Thank you.

[Elizabeth Rose (Advocate, My Dog Is My Home)]: Sorry about that.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: Assemblywoman Rosenthal.

[Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal (Chair, Assembly Housing)]: So Elizabeth and I met at an event for My Dog is My Home. There is nothing better than a cat. You know, have two. And I'm so happy that B. B. Is beside you and giving you comfort and things get better. And thank you for being here and testing. No, no you're good. You're good. You're good. You are showing what it is like to be a survivor.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: Many women. I think

[Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal (Chair, Assembly Housing)]: it's a say. Yeah.

[Senator Cordell Cleare]: There's women who have lost

[Elizabeth Rose (Advocate, My Dog Is My Home)]: their dogs, their pets to abusers. This is a common tactic in domestic violence.

[Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal (Chair, Assembly Housing)]: Absolutely. And I passed a law when I first got Thank here many you. Years

[Elizabeth Rose (Advocate, My Dog Is My Home)]: And we are so thankful to have you on our co sheltering bill.

[Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal (Chair, Assembly Housing)]: Thank you. Thank you. Very important that we've seen in floods and blizzards, people will risk their own lives if they cannot escape with their animal. And so that's why the proposal and I'm a sponsor of the bill to provide co sheltering, more co sheltering places. So you can escape, but you can bring your animal with you because you can't at most. So thank you for that. You know, I've been saying for years we need to preserve as well as build. And I got some pushback. What are you talking about? Well, that's what we all now know is true. And I know some of you on the panel, that is your new mission, is to ensure that we preserve. So Emily, maybe you can talk a little bit more about that.

[Emily Goldstein (Association for Neighborhood & Housing Development)]: E. Sure. I mean, I think we've actually sort of seen waves over the decades of preservation crises in New York City. And I like to think that we can learn from the past. We saw a couple decades ago a wave of Mitchell Lama and HUD subsidized buildings opting out of programs where the idea of that happening had not been considered when the programs were first created. And we lost a lot of really valuable affordable housing that had had previous public investment due to that crisis. We feel that we're on the verge of another crisis where a lot of housing that has had significant public investment and is serving a critical public good of providing permanently affordable, deeply affordable housing in communities that need it, we can it's on the brink. We're on the brink of losing that housing due to changing financial landscape that flipped really, really quickly in ways that were not predictable. I think what we can learn from the past is that it's worth it, even when it seems like a large sum, to invest now. Because to try to replace that housing by building new is basically running backwards.

[Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal (Chair, Assembly Housing)]: Especially with the tariffs that the federal government is now placing, it's almost impossible to replace those. Thank you.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Thank you, Senator Brian Kavanaugh.

[Senator Brian P. Kavanagh (Chair, Senate Housing)]: J. Thank you all so much that we could talk about with all of your testimony. I appreciate all of you being there. I'm going to try to ask two quick, perhaps quick questions. First of all, for Rachel Fee at the Housing Conference, I want to particularly focus on something that might be new to some folks here, which is your proposal, which we've discussed to create a diversion process through the court system. Can you just talk a little bit more about how that would work, and in particular, the role of the state versus the role of the city, if we were to try to get that done?

[Rachel Fee (Executive Director, NY Housing Conference)]: Sure. So we analyzed eviction filings in New York City with NYU Firm and Center to find that 36% are in subsidized affordable housing. And we want to do two things. One, prevent so many filings from happening. And in that, we have policy recommendations for the city of New York to work with HPD and HRA to work with affordable housing owners and get help to tenants that are falling into arrears earlier. The second piece is where the state is involved. For tenants that do end up in court, most of these cases are nonpayment. They're taking more than a year. Many of them are being resolved. If we can resolve them sooner, it's going to stabilize that tenant earlier. It's going to get them paying rent again. And it's going to lower the cost of aiding that tenant as well. So we think it's better outcomes overall. We think rights of counsel is a really important program, and that having a diversion initiative will actually free up some capacity for the tenants that need rights of counsel and to move forward in that process to get that counsel as well. So we have a lot of data in this report that we put out today to show how the program would work. It would be a nonprofit administrator who would have caseworkers that would work with tenants. The landlord petition would identify the building as affordable housing under regulatory agreement with the city or state. And then this diversion program, we think, could be really beneficial in addressing the issue and having better outcomes earlier.

[Senator Brian P. Kavanagh (Chair, Senate Housing)]: J. Thank you. And forty five seconds left, but I know also is going to be excited about talking about deconstruction. But could you just briefly talk a little bit about the opportunity there to incentivize deconstruction, particularly potential business opportunities for people to do that work?

[Bria Donahue (American Institute of Architects — New York)]: J. Yeah, absolutely. So this is a major opportunity in New York. This is an untapped market where we're really falling behind on. Just last week, New Mexico passed a similar bill adopting different financial incentives for low carbon construction materials. So we strongly encourage the legislature to take the leadership and make this action possible. There's a number of programs. We're really excited about yours and Assemblymember Kelles' deconstruction ordinance bill. There's a lot of exciting stuff happening around the country. Yeah, good luck. Thank you.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Next we have Senator Walczyk.

[Senator Mark Walczyk]: Thank you, Madam Chair. Actually, I'll stick on that same one. Timber frame construction should architects, should engineers, should builders get some kind of carbon credit for the sequestration they're doing in timber frame construction?

[Bria Donahue (American Institute of Architects — New York)]: So we're really excited about mass timber because of the opportunity to use it as a lighter weight material. So particularly for affordable housing opportunities, there's a lot more flexibility of mass timber as a material to do vertical extensions on city owned property, for example, and things of that nature, and also creating that local sustainable forest market. Because from the embodied carbon perspective, that transportation of materials is something that can really become a challenge in the carbon emissions. And often, that mass timber material is coming from across the world and often from Canada. So we really see this as a unique opportunity for different forms of high quality design that is both a low carbon material that can be done through some of the code changes we're recommending and also something that has different financial opportunities.

[Senator Mark Walczyk]: Do you think you have more opportunities in homegrown, New York grown timber materials as well?

[Bria Donahue (American Institute of Architects — New York)]: Yes. There's a really unique proposal from the Pratt's Decarbonization Group that has explored what the local resources for wood products are for mass timber affordable housing. So I'm happy to share more details

[Senator Mark Walczyk]: about Yeah, great. I'd be interested to see that. For the New York Housing Conference for Ms. Fee, You mentioned affordable housing at AMI. Why did you choose AMI?

[Rachel Fee (Executive Director, NY Housing Conference)]: I think you're referring to a proposal we had where we wanted to have a change in the private housing finance law to allow vacancies in affordable housing to rent at current AMI. They're kind of stuck in time under the current regime. And because we have this crisis of distress, we're looking at ways to increase revenue for these buildings with public subsidy.

[Senator Mark Walczyk]: Okay. So they're currently renting

[Rachel Fee (Executive Director, NY Housing Conference)]: far over? They're currently under regulatory agreement with the city or state agency. And they are already under restrictions of AMI at certain levels in their regulatory agreement. Current AMI set by HUD increases every year. So we'd like to allow them to jump to current year AMI just at vacancy, which doesn't impact existing tenants, but could add a little bit of revenue. And across a portfolio could be meaningful to addressing distress.

[Senator Mark Walczyk]: J. Okay. With 80% of New York City's renters, or with half of New York City's renters at 80% AMI, do you think that we should have a means test on subsidized or on rent stabilized housing in New York City?

[Rachel Fee (Executive Director, NY Housing Conference)]: I'm supportive of means testing with our tax abatements and our zoning bonuses and our capital subsidy programs for developing new housing. But I don't think that is practical to apply to existing rent stabilized at all.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: Thank you. Assembly Member Kelles?

[Assemblymember Anna R. Kelles]: -So I just wanted to say, Elizabeth, thank you so much for the courage to bring this forward. And Susan, thank you for your work, particularly with animals, because I wish that people understood more how many animals are abused and killed by abusers. And it is one of my greatest upsets in the world. So thank you for dedicating your life to this work, because it's so important and more people need to really understand it. So thank you. Wanted to great. I'm going to follow-up on what Senator Kavanaugh was talking about and give you an opportunity to talk about the economy that we're leaving on the table right now, what we're looking at, how it would affect lead times on material, construction costs. If you could just talk more about deconstruction versus demolition.

[Bria Donahue (American Institute of Architects — New York)]: Absolutely. So I think to Assembly Member Rosenthal's earlier point about preservation, really, we're focused on opportunities for adaptive reuse beyond office conversions and opportunities to reclaim materials and use them for other purposes. So in San Antonio, there's been an incredibly successful program tied to a deconstruction ordinance that they implemented where they're able to use the reclaimed materials that they've captured for affordable housing preservation and reconstruction. So we're super excited about that. I'll also note that a number of state agencies, most notably HCR and their 2025 sustainability guidelines, have included requirements or stretch goals for EPD, so environmental product declaration reporting. And so it is absolutely essential that the legislature takes action to avoid the green premiums that come with some of these low carbon materials. A lot of them are equal or slightly more expensive, but we really wanna make this, something that is readily accessible in New York and is something that our local manufacturers can readily produce easily.

[Assemblymember Anna R. Kelles]: And you talked briefly about embodied carbon as well. We have are way off our climate goals. And one of the things everybody always talks about is carbon sequestration, carbon sequestration, and people don't understand the life cycle analysis. Can you talk a little bit about what that means that it's not just, you know

[Bria Donahue (American Institute of Architects — New York)]: Yeah. Absolutely. So I think oftentimes we're capturing chemicals from the second a building opens in stores and starts using energy, but there is a ton of carbon generated before that building ever becomes operational. And so these policies are focused on the material side of things. So what goes into putting this table together? This table doesn't just magically appear and and there's carbon that's generated in the, manufacturing of materials like this. And so we're really focused on making those, possibles possibilities less expensive and also looking at opportunities for reusing these materials so that carbon is saved down the line.

[Assemblymember Anna R. Kelles]: Thank you so much.

[Senator Rachel May]: Thank you. And I'm sorry I missed your presentations, but this question is for Bria. First, following up on the mass timber conversation, we actually have put in the budget a proposal for SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: to

[Senator Rachel May]: be really taking the lead on that. It would be wonderful to But work together with I don't know if you talked also about modular construction, but that feels like part and parcel with I know it goes hand in hand to some extent with the mass timber, but what are the opportunities in New York for really developing that

[Bria Donahue (American Institute of Architects — New York)]: Yeah. There's obviously physical constraints to doing modular construction, particularly in New York City. Often requires being next to a vacant like some parking lot or some vacant lot. And so in New York City, particularly, which is where we're based, there's a lot of physical constraints to doing modular housing at scale. But this is something that we're super excited about. These proposals today are more focused on the actual materials and using low carbon materials at scale and getting them more readily available on the market as those requirements are coming into effect and bolstering those requirements. But we're really excited to work with you on Montreal Housing. Definitely, we'll follow-up.

[Senator Rachel May]: J. Great. Thank you.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Me next. So one, Rachel, thank you so much for putting the report out today because it's so timely. And I don't know if I agree with the entire report, but the primary points I took away from it was the proposal to get HRA to move much more quickly to provide what we call emergency one shots to people facing eviction when they are already recognized as low income eligible for benefits, but it's taking such a ridiculous amount of time, and then coordinating with the courts to set up a sort of a separate system where one or two courtrooms would just focus on these relatively standardized types of cases, or at least that's how I interpreted the court could play a role in just streamlining, getting the deals done as quickly as possible. And I was so impressed with the report, even though I was here and not really reading it on paper, was I immediately sent it off to a series of people in the Mamdani administration saying they needed to invest in more HRA workers to get grants done far more timely and then make whatever arrangements they needed to with the housing court system to speed along the process, and that frankly they would save a fortune in homeless service costs. And you can save a fortune on three people not losing their homes, by the way, in the city of New York, and that they should absolutely prioritize this. So hopefully they're hearing that from many people.

[Carlina Rivera (President & CEO, NYSAFAH)]: J. Hopefully. J.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Then, sorry, for A and H. D, so a few years ago, you started this mapping project where you could look at your own neighborhood and see what was happening to rent regulated housing. And my district so let's talk about the Northeastern section of my district on the East Side Of Manhattan. The rate we were losing our rent regulated units was terrifying. And I know that you know this, but in my district, those were older, walk up buildings filled with elderly people who'd been living there thirty, forty, fifty years. At one time, they might have had more disposable income. They might have been able to go somewhere else. They might even meet my colleague's definition of being too rich to be in a rent regulated unit. But now they were surviving on social security and had nowhere else to go. And it was horrible. So we changed rent regulation laws, I think, for the better. But I haven't asked anyone in a long time. I don't think it solved everything. And I want to know what else we need to do because I look in the same neighborhoods today and I watch whole strips of buildings being torn down, the rent regulated tenants being thrown out, they're elderly, they're low income. And you have these deals too late, you'll have to tell me later. But am I crazy, or is this not really working for a whole lot of people?

[Emily Goldstein (Association for Neighborhood & Housing Development)]: I would agree that HSTPA did an enormous amount of good, and there's still more that we can improve. Thank you. We'd love to talk to you about them.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Thank you. My three minutes are up. And I think we've covered everyone. Cordell, did you have any question?

[Senator Cordell Cleare]: I'm sure, but I got here late.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Well, you'll look at the report that came out today. Everyone should look at the report that came out today. Okay. Well, can I say

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: this, please?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: Sure. I

[Senator Cordell Cleare]: heard that it was mentioned earlier, but I'm now the prime sponsor of getting a resident assistant in senior housing and trying to help seniors age in place. If there's anything you want to say while I'm here that I can use to wage the battle to get this across the line? Because I think it's so necessary as we talk about seniors, which are the fastest growing population in the state. ANHD, I think.

[Emily Goldstein (Association for Neighborhood & Housing Development)]: J. Sure. So I would have to look I haven't read the details of the bill in the last few weeks, so I'd have to look more at the details. But I will say, in general, is always, always better whenever possible to keep folks in their current homes. Right? It is more economically sound. It's better for tenants. It's frankly better for building owners whenever possible because turnover is costly. And especially when we're talking about seniors who have built themselves a support system and a community and sort of know where all their local resources are, any support services or resources that can make it feasible whenever possible for them to stay in their homes and stay in their communities are generally beneficial.

[Senator Cordell Cleare]: Right. And I got it wrong. It was you who mentioned it in your testimony, Rachel.

[Rachel Fee (Executive Director, NY Housing Conference)]: We've been advocating for that for many years. And Leading Age New York has been a real leader on this. And, you know, it's a proven model. This is how HUD two zero two programs work. And congregate senior housing, when they have that resident coordinator, really can enrich the life of a senior, but also allow them to live independently for longer, which is really better outcomes. Thank you.

[Senator Robert Jackson]: I want to

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: thank you all for testifying today and being with us. Appreciate you very much. We're going to ask you to move off the panel so that we can invite up panel D, Cooperators United for Mitchell Lama, Enterprise Community Partners pardon me? Okay, they're not coming. Well, we'll see who does show up here. Enterprise Community Partners, Local Initiatives, Support Corporation, New York Land Bank Association, New York State Council of Churches. And we always know that as we run later than we had hoped, we do lose some of our testifiers. Okay. Anyone else want to be any of those people I just named? If not, we're going to go with the two we have. All right. So why don't you each tell me who you are so I know who we've been joined by?

[Rishita (Rachita) Tyler (Acting Executive Director, NYS Council of Churches)]: RACHITA Sure. My name is Rishita Tyler. I'm the acting executive director of the New York State Council of Churches.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: RACHITA Thank you.

[Baaba Halm (Senior VP, Enterprise Community Partners)]: Baba Hound, Enterprise Community Partners.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: RACHITA Great. Thank you so much for staying with us this late and being with us. So why don't we start with the Council of Churches?

[Rishita (Rachita) Tyler (Acting Executive Director, NYS Council of Churches)]: Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. We represent more than 7,500 congregations across nine denominations in New York State. Through our partner, the Interfaith Affordable Housing Collaborative, we provide predevelopment support, technical assistance, and forgivable loans to faith based organizations so that they can develop affordable housing. Churches are not just houses of worship. They are also on the front lines of New York's social safety net. They operate food pantries, day care centers, warming centers, and shelters. And they are also barometers of distress. When our communities strive, our congregations strive. When families can no longer afford to live in their neighborhoods that they have called home for generations or congregations struggle beside them. Nearly 15,000 churches across the nation were set to close last year, with as many as 100,000 projected to close in the coming decade. These closures reflect communities under severe strain. And in large part, is driven by the housing crisis. We believe the best way to address this is to pave the way for new affordable housing to prevent displacement from current housing and to invest in emergency and supportive housing. We support the Faith Based Affordable Housing Act. Many congregations want to build deeply affordable housing on their underutilized land but are prevented by zoning and other regulations. This bill will allow as of right development so faith communities can turn their land into homes for people who need them. We also support the Jobs and Housing Act, which couples the need for good, affordable jobs with housing construction. Often it is thought that you cannot have good paying union jobs and build affordable housing. And this legislation seeks to dispel that. We support keeping people housed, preventing displacement. Therefore, we urge the full funding of the Housing Access Voucher Program. This program is critical to preventing homelessness by ensuring eligible households pay no more than 30% of their incomes toward housing. However, we urge the legislature to provide guidance to HCR on the implementation of this bill. As of right now, only those receiving temporary assistance and not those who are considered asset limited and income constrained can take advantage of that. As we travel from Buffalo to Brentwood, we have seen an increase in intensifying housing instability and that this winter, more than ever, we are reminded that housing is not just a basic need. Therefore, we support the winter eviction moratorium, which will help keep people housed during winter. We also support increasing funding to housing authorities, public housing authorities. As of right now, we're hearing in Kingston, New York that there are people who are paying above market value, above fair market value, rent for their apartments. And so this undermines the spirit of affordable housing. Thank you.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Thank you.

[Baaba Halm (Senior VP, Enterprise Community Partners)]: Hi. B. Hi. Thank you. Boba Helm, Senior Vice President for Programs at Enterprise Community Partners. We are a national nonprofit, and we work statewide to support the millions of families without a quality, affordable home. Thank you, chairs, for having us today. In recent years, thanks to your leadership, we've seen continued investment in affordable housing across New York. But we must continue to build on those wins to encourage more housing supply and, yes, work to break down additional barriers to delivering affordable housing. We must also take aggressive steps to tackle the financial crisis that distressed housing is facing, protecting the units already creating, and ensuring that we're not continuing to lose more units than we can create at any one time. Last fall, Enterprise released a report highlighting the worrying signs distress in the affordable housing stock. The challenges are around rising insurance and utility expenses, insufficient operating support, and persistent rental arrears, which threaten the sustainability of affordable housing as a whole if left unaddressed. We join a coalition of housing advocates calling for the preservation to be prioritized this session. We urge you to codify and increase resources for the reserve replenishment fund and to establish a $150,000,000 relief fund to support distressed affordable housing properties. We also call for the full funding for the New York State Supportive Housing Program and the Homeless Housing Assistance Program. Insurance, as you've heard, are continuing to increase at unprecedented rates while coverage for affordable housing is shrinking. Our report demonstrated that insurance costs have risen over 110% on average since 2017. We're, of course, encouraged by the governor's proposal to increase transparency around rate increases, mandate discounts for rich reduction measures, and we think that the state can even go further. We encourage you to support Assembly Member Torres' bill, as well as dedicated funding for risk mitigation, piloting an affordable housing carve out from the scaffolded law, and exploring a state reinsurance backstop. We have more information about these proposals in our written testimony. We also support reform to the secret process, which has the potential to make more affordable housing feasible statewide. We encourage the passage of the faith based Affordable Housing Act, which would pave the way for more zoning flexibility and gave houses of worship options to develop on their land. And you've heard increasing support for HAVP. The pilot was an innovative first step for this state, but we need more than $50,000,000 and we request the full amount of $250,000,000 for this year for the program. And additionally, vulnerable communities, vulnerable seniors also need support. And so we are requesting funding for the screen injury programs as well. Thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony today.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Thank you.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: Thank you.

[Unidentified speaker (brief acknowledgments)]: Sibley?

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: I have a question then. I have been by several church entities in talking about developing church owned land for affordable housing. And you both mentioned this. What is the roadblock to this? Why is it not happening? It seems the land is already tax exempt. So there's not a loss to the community of taxable land and being used as a parking lot with people. They zoom to church, now they don't even drive to church. So the land is sitting there unused. But there must be something that's stopping this. And I don't know what it is. Can either of you or both of you tell me what you think it is?

[Rishita (Rachita) Tyler (Acting Executive Director, NYS Council of Churches)]: I guess I can start. So we have three congregations right now in Queens alone that want to develop. And we went through a process with them. We go through a property analysis to make sure that they can develop. We check title to land. And what has been the recurring issue is zoning. So they'll own the property, but it is restricted so that you can only build manufacturing on that parcel, even though manufacturing may not have been done there since the 1970s. And the thing that was there before was a beer manufacturing plant. And then across the street, there's a 10 story building going up. And I'll say a lot of the congregations that we work with are African American, are minority communities. And so they bought into areas that had these restrictions on them. And so right now, where they're trying to develop and provide for their communities, they're being prevented from doing so. And then I'll take it to the other side of the spectrum, where we have a congregation in Rotterdam, New York, which is more suburban and rural. And they went through our process and were sailing until they spoke to their local government about building. And then the government down zoned the property in the midst of the process. So what we're finding is that zoning is being utilized to penalize congregations that want to develop, either where the zoning is not being changed so that churches who want to develop can develop, or it's being utilized and changed in midstream.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: So basically, you're saying that the communities themselves are trying to dissuade the churches from doing what the communities say they actually want, but they really don't want it.

[Rishita (Rachita) Tyler (Acting Executive Director, NYS Council of Churches)]: Well, in some cases, it's used as a double edged sword. In the cases of the Queens communities, and even in Brooklyn, what we're finding is that there's just an inflexibility. And that we'll have to go to standard review to the standard, to yeah, board get some variances.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: All right, great. Thank you.

[Baaba Halm (Senior VP, Enterprise Community Partners)]: Yeah, what I would add to that is I think some of the barriers are knowledge. And it's the development

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: We're on my three minutes now, so it's Okay.

[Senator Cordell Cleare]: JULIE Oh, I'm so

[Baaba Halm (Senior VP, Enterprise Community Partners)]: sorry. And it's also the development costs. And so while they may have the land, they don't have the capital to develop. They don't understand how to navigate to tap into the governmental resources, whether it's the subsidy programs or the loans or other credits and benefits that they could make available. And then when you run into the challenge of the lot needing to be rezoned, that adds additional costs. You need experts. You need to understand what the potential is. And you need to be able to maximize it. And then it's also the buy in from the congregation. They're mission focus. So how does affordable housing fit within the mission of the organization? And so that's some of what we've learned, that they need some additional support, that they're not in the business of development. But that's what we're talking about.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: J. Thank you. Thank you.

[Rishita (Rachita) Tyler (Acting Executive Director, NYS Council of Churches)]: If I may, we provide what we call pre predevelopment, which is that work that needs to happen to make sure that the church is structurally sound to engage in the development process. Many congregations have been taken advantage of or heard of where congregations have been taken advantage of and are reluctant to engage in the process. So we do that work and take things step by step so that they feel ready to engage.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: Thank you.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Thank you. So Ari, that was Senate time. Do you have another Assembly member? Don't

[Assemblymember Chris Burdick]: have more senators.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: J. No.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: D.: Okay. Then I saw Senator Martins and then Senator Clare.

[Senator Jack M. Martins (Ranking Member, Senate Housing)]: J. Thank you very much. I have seen two projects on Long Island, church based projects where we tried to I guess they partnered with a developer who had the wherewithal and understood the rules and partnered. And they would they had an arrangement where they would try to develop it. Neither one of them ended up working out for various reasons. But there are attempts out there because there is land. How many churches are there in the organization?

[Rishita (Rachita) Tyler (Acting Executive Director, NYS Council of Churches)]: For the New York State Council churches, we have 7,500. Congregations that are currently in our pipeline that want to develop, we have about 30.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: J. Okay.

[Senator Jack M. Martins (Ranking Member, Senate Housing)]: And obviously, everyone in the organization, all of the churches would be eligible if they were property owners in local communities to be able to build

[Mark Streb (Executive Director, Neighborhood Preservation Coalition of NYS)]: if they had land.

[Rishita (Rachita) Tyler (Acting Executive Director, NYS Council of Churches)]: J. The law itself is based on the size of the community. So it's not like you would say a rural township. You're going to put up a five story building. It's based on the community. So it would mainly trend toward suburban and urbanized areas. So churches in those areas that were already in the bill would be eligible.

[Senator Jack M. Martins (Ranking Member, Senate Housing)]: J. And I understand that the efforts that I spoke to, they were working with the local communities to find ways to build. I think you mentioned that you're advocating for a bill that would allow an as of right construction without the need for local participation, right?

[Rishita (Rachita) Tyler (Acting Executive Director, NYS Council of Churches)]: J. So the Faith Based Affordable Housing Act does not leap over local involvement. What it does, it creates an as of right. So you could build up to three stories if you already have buildings around you that are three stories. What it does is it streamlines the process. So it takes out some of the red tape that costs and makes the process so costly and the development so costly.

[Senator Jack M. Martins (Ranking Member, Senate Housing)]: Thank you.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Thank you. So you're clear.

[Senator Cordell Cleare]: Thank you so much. I just wondered if either of you give support to or does this even apply to churches that want to perhaps build where there already is a church? I've experienced that in my district. And it's in some cases, I just really think that these churches need more help in certain areas so that they are not taken advantage of. There there are a lot of unscrupulous people out there who have done terrible things. And as you mentioned, churches are in the business of

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: Yeah.

[Senator Cordell Cleare]: Saving souls and things of that nature. And not to undermine, any level of intelligence or professionalism, but they are just not developers. So, can you speak to any of that?

[Rishita (Rachita) Tyler (Acting Executive Director, NYS Council of Churches)]: Yes. So basically what we do in predevelopment is that education and that technical assistance. And so understanding the value of your property, what you actually own. If you are going to redevelop your building, making sure that you have those conversations with the community and your congregation so that it is absolutely what you want to do, what the community wants to do, and that you know that it's going to be a three to five year process. The problem that we run into and maybe Enterprise runs into it, too we are not funded. We are private grant funding. So we are limited in how many churches we can work with because we are currently working with grant funding.

[Senator Cordell Cleare]: Okay. So protection for churches against shady developers.

[Rishita (Rachita) Tyler (Acting Executive Director, NYS Council of Churches)]: Absolutely. Okay.

[Baaba Halm (Senior VP, Enterprise Community Partners)]: That's an important part of the education, right, that houses of worship need support around so that they're picking the right development partners. And that's going to help protect their congregation if they want to stay in their building and their long term longevity.

[Senator Cordell Cleare]: And help them even when it gets redeveloped. I have seen where the church is left. The buildings develop. The developer got what they wanted. And the church is left with having to build out their space.

[Rishita (Rachita) Tyler (Acting Executive Director, NYS Council of Churches)]: And we also offer a list of vetted professionals so that these are people who we have ensured that they are the top quality.

[Senator Cordell Cleare]: Okay. Thank you.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: Thank you. Assemblywoman Kelles.

[Assemblymember Anna R. Kelles]: Thank you both so much for being here. I actually want to respect everybody's time. But you mentioned very quickly the winter eviction moratorium. And I want to give you time to talk a little bit more about it. I mean, you and I have worked on it, on that bill for a while. But, you know, what the impact would be, why it's so incredibly important and what not having it is currently doing.

[Rishita (Rachita) Tyler (Acting Executive Director, NYS Council of Churches)]: Absolutely. So, we know that this winter, eighteen people passed away from exposure in New York City alone, it's difficult to actually find out what those numbers are outside of New York City because that data is not aggregated. Once you get outside of New York City, data kind of disappears. And so having the winter eviction moratorium in place, I think, would help save lives. I know personally, I come from Kingston. We've heard a lot about Kingston today. And there was a huge snowstorm. And it was in Kingston Housing Authority. Someone had been evicted, and their stuff was all out in the snow. There's really no place for people to go in the winter. It makes it exponentially difficult to move, to find emergency accommodations when public housing authorities, when DSS and other temporary assistance agencies, are already struggling because of the high demand. So when you evict people in the winter and displace them, it increases the likelihood that they'll be street homeless. And if they have any illnesses, that those will be exacerbated. If they have any pets, those will be the pets will likely be given up. And what we've seen before in the previous panel, that can really fracture a family and really hinder a comeback to stable housing and a stable mental state.

[Assemblymember Anna R. Kelles]: J. Also, we've seen that in those conditions, the material and possessions that are left outside in the snow end up being destroyed. When they do get housing, they have to start literally from zero with no furniture, no possessions, no clothes, no.

[Rishita (Rachita) Tyler (Acting Executive Director, NYS Council of Churches)]: J. Absolutely. Our congregation and from the Amy Zion Church of Kingston, we've helped over this past winter several people who did not have access to storage. And so we allowed our church basement to be used for storage because people didn't have anywhere else to put things. And they had been evicted into cold and wet and damp weather. And so also, in thinking about the winter eviction moratorium, a lot of people bring up, oh, well, they should pay their rent. There are remedies that can be implemented. It also gives people time to find ways to pay back rent when they're not evicted out into the cold.

[Assemblymember Anna R. Kelles]: J. That's the same reason we do it for heat.

[Rishita (Rachita) Tyler (Acting Executive Director, NYS Council of Churches)]: J. Absolutely. J. Absolutely. J.

[Assemblymember Anna R. Kelles]: Thank you so much.

[Emily Goldstein (Association for Neighborhood & Housing Development)]: D. Course.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: J. D. You.

[Assemblymember Chris Burdick]: And thank you both for your testimony. I think I understand correctly. But correctly, correct me if I'm wrong, that you both are very much in support of the additional $250,000,000 which the governor proposes for HCR's five year affordable housing program.

[Assemblymember Lester Chang]: J.

[Assemblymember Chris Burdick]: Don't know whether you were here for the testimony early on of the New York Association for Affordable Housing. But they recommend at least an additional 10% or $25,000,000 above that. And just wondering whether you agree with that recommendation.

[Baaba Halm (Senior VP, Enterprise Community Partners)]: We agree that more and more resources to build more is welcome. So we would support that as well.

[Assemblymember Chris Burdick]: J. And NYSSAFA also recommends restoration of funds that were in the 2026 fiscal year enacted budget through a legislative add of $75,000,000 for public housing authorities outside New York State. And they have recommended that the same is done, and that's restored for 2027 fiscal year budget. Is that something that you also agree with, that recommendation?

[Baaba Halm (Senior VP, Enterprise Community Partners)]: Absolutely. We know the federal government is working away from its commitment to public housing. And so more resources for public housing authorities across the state would be direly needed.

[Rishita (Rachita) Tyler (Acting Executive Director, NYS Council of Churches)]: J. Great. Agree with that. What I would say is that there should be more conferral with public housing tenants about how these renovations and renewals are being implemented. We know from looking at New York City, the Chelsea Elliott houses, that's something that really it's a loss of affordable housing. And those tenants are really not in sync with what is being done. And And outside of New York City and Kingston, there's a lot happening with the public housing there that's not necessarily being done in

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: consultation so

[Assemblymember Chris Burdick]: with are you suggesting that there needs to be more interaction with the tenant groups and that that has to be built into the process more, is that what you're suggesting?

[Rishita (Rachita) Tyler (Acting Executive Director, NYS Council of Churches)]: Yes, with the tenants and with proper representation for the tenants.

[Assemblymember Chris Burdick]: Great. Thanks so much.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: Meeks.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: We've been joined by Senator Meeks.

[Senator Rachel May]: Hello, and thank you for waiting it out so long. This question is for Ms. Holm. I wanted to ask you about the implementation of the acceleration fund and just your assessment of how that's going.

[Baaba Halm (Senior VP, Enterprise Community Partners)]: We're in the early stages of the fund. And so HCR has selected the CDFIs and the local bank. And they've contributed a pipeline. But we haven't gotten projects closed under the acceleration fund. But we know that it presents enormous potential. And so we support more resources for that fund. Okay.

[Senator Rachel May]: That's music to my ears. And how about the proposals, or either the governor's proposal or my proposal, on seeker reform? Can you evaluate how that will affect housing costs, perhaps?

[Baaba Halm (Senior VP, Enterprise Community Partners)]: There's lots of research that's been done about how the secret process elongates the development process and adds cost on average, dollars 2 and 50,000 to $500,000 of additional costs to go through those environmental reviews. So smart reforms would enable more housing production. And we support the governor's proposal around secret reform. And Senator, your bill also, we think, is a smart path to streamline the process, allow more development to happen more quickly.

[Senator Rachel May]: In terms of financing, what I understand is the lawsuits can delay the process enough that it makes the financing a lot harder as well for those projects, even for the developers who stick it out. Is that your experience? And do you think this combination of the acceleration fund and the CCRA will be helpful?

[Baaba Halm (Senior VP, Enterprise Community Partners)]: J. Yeah. Mean, any uncertainty in terms of whether a project is going to move forward, whether or not they're going to get those governmental approvals these are not fixed timelines. So anytime there's an objection, it delays the decision making about a project's ability to proceed. That adds additional costs and uncertainty. It makes funders, banks, and others hesitant to continue to wait indefinitely for projects to get built. And so what you see is that there's a loss of resources for a project, this stop and go. They may have to redesign it altogether. So those challenges compound the ability to build housing. And so that's why we support these reforms. The acceleration fund is a way of bringing in more resources beyond the subsidies that the agency provides and helps fill those capital stacks across the state. So we think it is a smart approach to getting more housing production built also.

[Senator Rachel May]: Great. Thank you very much.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: I believe that we have run out of questions. So ladies, I want to thank you

[Baaba Halm (Senior VP, Enterprise Community Partners)]: Thank you.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: Both for your testimony today. And we will now convene panel E, Rural Housing Coalition of New York, Michael the riverkeeper, Drew New York State Rural Advocates, Antonia Beclutis? And for the many, Xavier Candler. Xavier?

[Rishita (Rachita) Tyler (Acting Executive Director, NYS Council of Churches)]: Xavier?

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: Xavier?

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: Good

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: Good evening. Evening, all. Okay. Whoever's name that I had butchered, you can please correct me. Go. Do want me

[Antonia Besculidis (New York State Rural Advocates)]: to start?

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: We'll start. Okay, we'll start there.

[Antonia Besculidis (New York State Rural Advocates)]: Good evening, senators and assembly members. My name is Antonia Besculidis. It's a tough one to say. On behalf of New York State rural advocates, thank you for the opportunity to speak on how the proposed 2027 executive housing budget will affect the small towns and rural communities across our state. Let me be direct. Housing programs work in rural areas. And cutting them now would hurt the very communities that depend on them the most. Through the rural preservation program, our rural preservation companies are the boots on the ground delivering housing stability every day. Last year alone, they assisted more than 7,500 people facing homelessness, counseled over 2,400 households, managed nearly 5,000 affordable housing units, rehabilitated more than 3,400 homes, wrote and administered hundreds of community grants, and served almost 26,000 people through food programs. These organizations are often the only housing infrastructure in rural communities. They are the trusted local partners the state relies on, especially during emergencies like floods and disasters. Yet despite this proven track record, the governor's executive budget proposes cuts to the rural preservation program funding by 33%. That's not trimming the fat, that's cutting muscle. RPCs already operate across enormous service areas in places like the Adirondack Park, larger than any national park in the continuous United States. Staff drive hundreds of miles just to reach families in needs. Costs for salaries, insurance, fuel, and compliance continue to rise. Reducing funding now means fewer staff, fewer services, and fewer communities assisted. Instead, we're asking for a modest 10% increase, 8,830,000.00 total, simply to maintain current service levels. Beyond program delivery, rural housing needs are urgent. More than 70% of rural households are homeowners, many living in aging homes with failing wells, septic systems, and heating. The Affordable Housing Corporation is oversubscribed. We recommend increasing that funding to $30,000,000 and fully funding Restore and Access to Home so seniors, disabled, and low income families can safely stay in their homes. Rental housing is just as critical. Over 12,000 of our lowest income residents rely on federally assisted rural rental properties that are aging and at the risk of disappearing. Preserving those units must be a priority. We support full funding for rural rental assistance and an additional $10,000,000 to support continued preservation of the Section five fifteen portfolio. We also urge the creation of a permanent small rental development program so that small towns can benefit and build the modest rights based projects that they need. At a time of uncertainty in federal programs, New York cannot afford to weaken the very network that already works. Investing in rural housing isn't charity, it's stability, infrastructure, and smart policy. We respectfully ask you to protect and strengthen these programs so rural New Yorkers are not left behind.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: Thank Thank you.

[Michael Borges (Executive Director, Rural Housing Coalition of NY)]: MICHAEL Good evening. Mike Borges, executive director of the Rural Housing Coalition in New York. You have my testimony, so I'll just go over the highlights. I first want to thank the legislature for the outstanding work that you did last year in supporting housing programs that serve rural and small communities throughout the state, such as the 6% increase we got last year for the rural preservation program, the $10,000,000 in funding for the small rental development initiative, and the $10,000,000 for the USDA five fifteen Preservation Program. Unfortunately, the governor did not appreciate your efforts as much as I do and Antonia's since she cut or eliminated the funding for many of these same programs despite an ongoing housing crisis. We recently commissioned a Maritz poll. You may have seen it in your email boxes. And the poll of 1,500 New Yorkers said that a majority of them continue to rate housing affordability as the number one issue impacting their communities. And when asked to rank what issues state policymakers should make a priority for funding in the state budget, housing came in as number one, followed by public safety and then health care. So even though the state has made significant investments in housing, voters are not satisfied with the results so far, and much more needs to be done. Therefore, we ask the legislature to reverse the executive budget cuts, provide parity and equal funding for both rural and neighborhood preservation companies, as well as provide additional funding to expand the number of rural preservation companies to areas of the state presently underserved or unserved by nonprofit housing providers, like Western New York, the Hudson Valley, and the Capital Region. Lastly, we ask for additional funding for the RESTORE program to expand the types of repairs that can be funded for low to moderate income seniors so they can remain safely in their homes. I know Senator Cleary mentioned that as well. It's very important that seniors don't get on step ladders, don't do things that are going to cause them harm, and end up in emergency rooms. The Senate, their one house last year, did put in an extra money for this program. Again, we're asking for $6,000,000 more in Restore, which is typically oversubscribed every year, along with Access and Main Street. So thank you for your time. I appreciate the opportunity to testify. Also want to give a shout out to Senator Kavanaugh. It's been great working with you. I know you have ten more months to go, but you will be sorely missed. So thank you again.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: J. Thank you.

[Unidentified legislator (brief interjections)]: Good evening, everybody. My name is Zeldick Candler. I'm the political director for The Many. We're a grassroots organization that works to pass legislation and win elections across Hudson Valley. I just want to shout out everybody here. I was looking around, and I was the housing committee is a pretty all star committee, full of high grade legislators. So thank you for also doing the marathon. Also, you to the chairs for all the work that you're doing. And of course, Assembly Member and Senator Krueger for doing this for weeks and weeks on end. I think of you when I'm doing my endurance running for inspiration. So every week, our volunteers are knocking on doors, right? They're talking to tenants. And we hear the same stories again and again people having their rents jacked up like 20%, people being pushed onto the street. And in Kingston alone where I live, rents have doubled since 2019. Homelessness is up 80% over the past decade. This is clearly a crisis and it's getting worse. And of course, we have made pretty significant progress in New York State, but I'm asking you to support three critical actions to continue that progress. First is investing the 250,000,000 in the housing access voucher program. I have a lot written about it here, but I'm gonna move on since we've we've discussed it in-depth. I'll just say, in the Hudson Valley, already we're seeing demand outpace supply. We just simply need more money to make this program work. The second is to pass the REST Act and to fund each CR accordingly. As we all know, in 2019, we expanded the ability outside of New York City in the suburbs to have rent stabilization. But cities that we organize in, Poughkeepsie and Newburgh, have tried to opt in and have been faced with lawsuits that have been targeted to just minutiae of their vacancy studies, which we also learned recently were funded by New York City real estate interest, despite it being in the Hudson Valley. And then Albany and Rochester have done studies, and even though they did not qualify, the people who wrote those studies said it was clear that they are in a housing emergency. So of course, we would love to see the R. S. Act passed. It is a common sense fix, to this huge problem that we're facing. And I'm happy to talk more about what's going on in Kingston if anyone has any questions. I live there. I know all the minutiae about Kingston. So finally, I'll just say we've heard a lot about all these great programs. Right? And it's clear that all of them need more money. And so we need to raise revenue to address this housing crisis. Furthermore, he supports common sense revenue solutions like the progressive income tax, the corporate tax, the capital gains tax, the heirs tax measures that, of course, would raise money from the ultra wealthy and the super profitable corporations and ask them to pay their fair share. We also support the Empire Act, which would raise revenue while giving workers the power to enforce their own labor rights, which seems like a win win in this time when we're losing money from the federal government and they're coming after our rights. So I'll just end by saying thank you all. Housing is the largest single expense for our members, and I ask that you support these three actions in this budget. Thank you.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: Thank you.

[Drew Gammels (Senior Attorney, Riverkeeper)]: Evening, everyone. My name is Drew Gammels. I am the senior attorney at Riverkeeper. My background is in municipal, land use, and environmental law. I have experience representing developers, municipalities, and community groups, so I have worked with seeker from all sides. We understand the governor's urgency in addressing New York's housing needs, particularly affordable housing. However, we believe the SECRA amendments in the executive budget may jeopardize public health, environmental protection, and smart local planning without guaranteeing the construction of affordable units. To clarify, the role of seeker does not replace it cannot be replaced by other permits and local review processes. Other permits and reviews do not require the same holistic local analysis of issues like traffic, noise, or cumulative impacts. SEQR is the only process that requires applicants to provide this information and address these concerns. SEQR also requires mitigation and requires developers to incorporate such measures as conservation easements, safe pedestrian walkways, traffic controls, mixed use projects, or clustered developments. You won't get that mitigation any other way. Eliminating seeker review for larger housing projects without guardrails risks creating long term harms. To summarize our main concerns, the definition of previously disturbed site is far too broad. The definition must be narrowed to identify areas that are substantially developed and not exempt housing on sensitive sites such as erosion prone areas and wildlife habitats. Development in flood plains in New York City should not be exempt from seeker review. Buildings and associated infrastructure in the FEMA one hundred year flood plain are extremely and increasingly vulnerable to significant flooding events. The proposal also dramatically expands exemptions for housing outside New York City without regard to community size, infrastructure capacity, and land use controls. A one size fits all approach is not the right solution. And finally, the proposed legislation fails to include an affordability requirement Without even a modest, flexible affordability component, these exemptions may increase displacement pressures and fail to address the housing affordability crisis. With targeted revisions, this budget can modernize SEEKR to promote smart growth, affordability, and housing development without sacrificing environmental and public health protections. Thank you for your time and consideration this evening. J.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: Thank you. Assemblywoman Rosenthal.

[Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal (Chair, Assembly Housing)]: Thank you. I wanted to ask Mr. Candler, maybe do you think the billionaires who live in rent stabilized housing could pay more taxes? And that way, we'd have a lot more revenue.

[Unidentified legislator (brief interjections)]: J. It's a great question. I'm not convinced that those billionaires exist. But I think all billionaires should be paying more taxes. And I think that what we're seeing right now is we're seeing this artificial choice about in the housing world do we put more money towards rural housing? Do we put more money towards preservation? When we know that there's so much money on the table there was a $12,000,000,000 tax cut to millionaires and billionaires in New York State from the Trump cuts. And what we're asking is to just take back that money. You know, they could even break even, and we would still have so much money here in New York State to address housing.

[Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal (Chair, Assembly Housing)]: Thank you. And as Mr. Borges knows, the Assembly and Senate work hard to make sure that rural housing and we do fill the gap every year. Maybe next year, the executive will put in their share.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: J.

[Senator Cordell Cleare]: Yep. Folks brings eternal. J.

[Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal (Chair, Assembly Housing)]: Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, you all bring up great points and a lot to think about. Zavra, one last thing. What is the status of the Kingston attempt to get some rent stabilized units?

[Unidentified legislator (brief interjections)]: J. Yeah, so we currently have rent stabilization. And there is going to be another lawsuit. The real estate landlord group had signaled that they will indeed sue again. This would be a number of lawsuits after already they went to the high school in New York and lost. But because of the way that law is written, it is opened up to being able to sue again and again on these vacancy studies. And so I think you look at the one city who has done it, who is the model of what it actually looks like to succeed. And even we are facing costs to pay the attorneys and to go through this and to have more and more public hearings when we could be just relying on publicly available data, not have to deal with any of this. And then, of course, all the other cities as well could opt in. Thank you.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: R. Thank you.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Brian Kavanaugh, our housing chair.

[Senator Brian P. Kavanagh (Chair, Senate Housing)]: R. Thank you. I will not ask additional questions to share the rest back because you and my colleague covered that very well. But thank you for being here and for your support for that and sponsoring that and working on it. I wanted to just talk about the rural preservation program in particular. So the proposal this year that, in I think both of your testimony, is to increase the to restore the money that was cut from the executive budget and also add there are several communities that don't currently have rural preservation programs. Can you just talk a little bit more about and I know, unfortunately, Michelle Hinci, our ag chair, who spends a lot of time working closely on all of these issues, housing as well as many others in those committees. But can you just talk a little bit more about how those programs work, why they're essential, and why we should be making sure we fill in the gap? Because it is a significant addition this year, and it's going be a fight to get it.

[Michael Borges (Executive Director, Rural Housing Coalition of NY)]: R. So there's a network of nonprofit organizations called Rural Preservation Companies. There's currently 60 of them around the state. They provide housing counseling. They do rehab, repair. They build housing. They do all kinds of weatherization work, things like that. There are certain parts of the state that don't have any coverage. There's nobody doing that work in that area. So I get calls from legislators. I get calls from residents saying, I have a problem with the leaking roof. My mobile home needs to be replaced. I'm sorry. I look at my map. I see who's serving that area. I go, there's no coverage over there. I have nobody to send you to. I'm sorry. They start crying. And I was like, I'm sorry, can't help you. So there are people out there crying for help. And there's nobody there to help them. So that's one of the things we need to do is by expanding the number of RPCs from this current 60 to hopefully 64. The other thing we're asking for, again, is more funding for the rural preservation program. Our ask is, as we did last year, we asked for parity. Right now, neighborhood preservation companies get $142,000 per organization. We get $130,000 per I don't understand why there's a disconnect. Why are urban areas given more money than rural areas? We just want equality and equity when it comes to funding for the rural preservation programs.

[Antonia Besculidis (New York State Rural Advocates)]: And rural advocates is asking for an increase this year, mainly because of large funding cuts on the federal level. I'm a member of rural advocates, but I'm also an executive director of a rural preservation company that covers three counties. And like I said in our statement, we have a huge area to cover. And funding cuts would mean, on my level, I would have to let go of a staff member, most likely our business or community development program, which does business training, micro enterprise grants. And because we focus on housing and we use the rural preservation program funding to allow us to do other projects that are well needed in our communities. And that's funding that we don't get from other grants.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Thank you.

[Senator Brian P. Kavanagh (Chair, Senate Housing)]: Thank you.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: You, Assemblywoman Kelles.

[Assemblymember Anna R. Kelles]: Thank you to all of you. I wish we had more than three minutes when, know, of course, when we need it. But then we are here forever. So at the same time, I'm glad we only

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: have three

[Assemblymember Anna R. Kelles]: minutes. I just wanted to say I am so in agreement with the RPCs. Thank you so much. Because I feel like the rural areas just we get forgotten so often. And I have to explain to people what poverty looks like in the rural areas and the fact that 20% of my roads are dirt roads. And I have a significant number of my population that doesn't have some people that don't have electricity. I have a couple people that have outhouses instead of bathrooms inside. And I get looks like it's crazy, but there's a pretty wide range of what poverty looks like. And rural shouldn't be left behind. So the RPC is having the funding to make sure that we actually can address the fact that New York State has the oldest housing stock in the country. So thank you for bringing that up, and especially RPCs, SRDI. So thank you. I'm going to jump to Seeker. Thank you so much for bringing that up. A couple of things about it. Obviously, you know Senator May and I have worked on this extensively. One of the issues that I'm the most worried about, of course, that you brought up, we were able to get to the moon, literally. We can do like tiered system of matching how many units based on the size of the municipality. But what will it be if we had it, like, universal across the board?

[Drew Gammels (Senior Attorney, Riverkeeper)]: Yeah, we're going to see communities be burdened with developments that they can't handle, that they don't have the infrastructure to take on. And there will be no seeker review to kind of go through that analysis about whether it's appropriate for that municipality. You know, I know that there was reference to zoning and site plan. Not every municipality has zoning or site And if they do have site plan, it might not be strong enough to address these issues. In fact, it's about 29% of towns in New York State don't have comprehensive zoning codes. And so, you know, I think we need to be aware that Seeker is a valuable planning tool, even if you're not taking a project through the environmental impact statement process. But just going through an environmental assessment form really gets to those issues and helps municipalities assess whether this is appropriate, whether mitigation is needed, whether any changes to the project might be necessary. And so that's going to be the impact without a tiered program. Because you're going right now from three family dwellings being exempt under seeker to 100.

[Assemblymember Anna R. Kelles]: Right. But we also don't want it to be too small that we can't have enough development in a city like Ithaca, which is only at 35,000, but affordable housing developments are 160 units.

[Antonia Besculidis (New York State Rural Advocates)]: Yeah, absolutely. So think all

[Assemblymember Anna R. Kelles]: the importance is that we modernize it, so we remove NIMBY focus of using it to prevent those people from living near us and then ensuring the protections of environmental regulation.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: Thank you, Assemblywoman.

[Assemblymember Anna R. Kelles]: So thank you.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Thank you.

[Assemblymember Anna R. Kelles]: Which, you know, we work together.

[Senator Rachel May]: A little bit of a one two here because I proudly carry the bill with Assembly Member Kelles. And I just wanted to follow-up on that. I hear you're not asking for an endorsement of our bill, on some of those other issues that you commented on in the executive proposal. Can you do a similar commentary on our bill and whether the environmental protections are sufficient in what we've put forward? And before I ask that question, because I will run out of time, I just want to thank our rural champions as the chair of rural resources. What you do is really, really important. Want to thank you.

[Drew Gammels (Senior Attorney, Riverkeeper)]: Yeah, there's a lot of things we like in the legislation that has been introduced by both of you. We are still reviewing and assessing. There are still like, the tiered program we support, we like to see that. We think it's valuable, especially the selection of a 90,000 population, is a good number to look at that separates some of those larger cities. Like Albany is above that. So that's a good number to work from. I think that there are some improvements to be had in the definition of previously disturbed site. I think that there are some changes that could be made to the language on affordability. But it is in the legislation, which is something that we like to see. And that's a really hard topic as to what exactly is the right language. The area that I haven't dived into in your legislation is just kind of like another category of seeker review. I've been thinking about it as seeker light. And so I have not had the time to really assess that. But that's something that we're now turning to and taking a look that we can be in touch with your office about any detailed suggestions that we might have. J. Perfect.

[Senator Rachel May]: Thank you so much.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: J. Thank you. P. Hallesamnou.

[Assemblymember Michael Novakhov]: J. Hi, good D.: evening. I'm from a very rural area, Upstate New York, Southern Tier Finger Lakes area. So appreciate the work that you do, especially Tony and Michael. Really, my comments are more for you. And my colleagues mentioned rural equity, rural parity. You mentioned parity. We talk about rows. We talk about housing. Of with housing, and you mentioned that with the housing program. And I'll get to my question. Was going to ask you, what are two things we could do to help bring more rural equity and more rural parity to the housing and things to the representatives that you represent? But I did want to ask another area, if I could, too. But I wanted to put that out there, just so you know. In my area, a lot of people are concerned about these electrification mandates. I don't know if you're seeing the ramifications or impacts of that yet. Obviously, our constituents are feeling the rising utility prices that are going on. But to studies saying to convert your home over from natural gas to full electrification costs anywhere from $20,000 to $50,000 three different studies. New York State Builders Association have said you know, the All Electric Buildings Act. And that's not implemented yet, but can increase the price of new construction by $25,000 And we know the studies say for every 1,000 increase in the price of a home, 7,000 New Yorkers are denied homeownership. Are you seeing any I guess my question I want to ask, are you seeing any impacts of the rural electrification yet or anything like that that you have concerns about or is part of the discussion? Because people I represent in rural Upstate New York in my area are really concerned about these electrification mandates and the rural mandates in rural areas.

[Michael Borges (Executive Director, Rural Housing Coalition of NY)]: J. Yeah. I mean, HCR does have requirements for making improvements or new construction more environmentally friendly, more climate friendly, more resilient to climate change. So we are aware that these things come with price tags. As long as the state wants to pay for those extra things, we're Okay with it. Because our communities, as you know, are impacted by climate change. We have flooding. We have all kinds of natural disasters that are impacting housing in those communities. We need to do our part. But the state needs to subsidize and provide support for us to address that.

[Assemblymember Michael Novakhov]: J. And then, guess I'll go back to my other question, if you'd like, about the rural equity by parity. What is one or two things that we could do right now as a legislator to bring more rural equity, more rural parity to the housing industry in our rural communities?

[Michael Borges (Executive Director, Rural Housing Coalition of NY)]: J. First, we need to be funded the same. Urban areas need to be funded the same as rural areas. But we did a survey back in 2024, fall twenty twenty four. We asked with the Association of Towns, we asked rural supervisors, rural mayors, rural leaders, what were the main obstacles to building housing in rural communities? Their top three were infrastructure lack of infrastructure lack of a local capacity. So there's no nonprofit housing entity to help people. And that's what I was talking about before. And there's no programs targeted for rural areas. We need to create more programs at the state level that only rural areas can apply for so we're not in the same pool as New York City or Rochester or Buffalo.

[Assemblymember Michael Novakhov]: Thank you very much, Latrice. I appreciate it.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Thank you. Senator Jack Martins.

[Senator Jack M. Martins (Ranking Member, Senate Housing)]: J. Or Long Island.

[Michael Borges (Executive Director, Rural Housing Coalition of NY)]: J. Or Long Island.

[Senator Jack M. Martins (Ranking Member, Senate Housing)]: So to you and to Antonia, thank you very much. I think message received by everyone. And certainly, we need to prioritize all four corners of the state. So good job. Ms. Gammels, thank you for that secret analysis. I, too, have concerns. I represent a district on the North Shore Of Nassau County where we have coastal wetlands. We have density. We have areas that don't have sewers. We have the parking lot we call the Long Island Expressway. And we have difficulty on good days getting around. And so impacts like parking traffic, understanding sole source aquifer, and understanding the impacts if we don't have sewers and what nitrogen is going to do not only to our coastal wetlands but to our sole source aquifer are certainly things we can't give up and we're not willing to give up. So I'm intrigued by the idea, as I know you are. And certainly, I'm intrigued by my colleague here, Senator May's proposal and Assemblyman Kelles'. But I think we need work to make sure that we do not lose sight of the environmental aspects of this as well. So I do appreciate your comments, and thank you for them. To Mr. Candler, Congratulations on your efforts in Kingston. I am familiar with him, certainly followed it, the ups and the downs of it. And I understand certainly

[Mark Streb (Executive Director, Neighborhood Preservation Coalition of NYS)]: the

[Senator Jack M. Martins (Ranking Member, Senate Housing)]: advocacy. The median income in Kingston is $70,000 And so freezing rents for everybody who's making $70,000 $50,000 and thereabouts, to me, I get it. I understand what the effort is. But I'm going to ask you, if somebody is making $140,000 and they're in an apartment in Kingston, are you as concerned about freezing that person's rent as you are the person making $50,000 from a policy standpoint? And therein lies the question about means testing. Do you understand my point?

[Unidentified legislator (brief interjections)]: I understand the question. So we had a series of hearings this fall. J. Sure. And I went to every single one of them. And I got to hear story after story from the people who currently have rent stabilization and were afraid of losing it. And what I can tell you is that these are the people that keep Kingston going. They're the people who drive the buses. They're the people who work in the restaurants.

[Senator Jack M. Martins (Ranking Member, Senate Housing)]: No A. R. Question. I'm not questioning for a second. Your efforts and the residents of Kingston's efforts in doing what they needed to do to protect the community with regard to spikes in housing costs. I get it. I'm asking you if it's same effort when it comes to somebody making twice the area median income, not the person making 70,000 or $60,000 I got it.

[Unidentified legislator (brief interjections)]: Wish I could answer, but I'm happy to connect later.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: Thank you. Ms. Summerman Burdick?

[Assemblymember Chris Burdick]: Thank you, Chair Prevost. Drew Gammels, I wanted to explore, as you can see a number of us do, your intriguing comments. And we actually haven't heard a lot of criticism right now of the governor's proposal. It seems to be more tweaks that people are talking about. Yours was pretty blunt force. I represent Lewisboro. And there's a development there, affordable housing development. Lewisboro Commons, totally 100% affordable housing. It took twelve years for the developer to get the approvals. It's that kind of thing that sparks this interest. On the other hand, I really do share some of the concerns that you have outlined. And I also think that those instances are actually few and far between. And I actually think that localities do a pretty good job in applying Seeker. And so I wanted to know whether you think that you obviously took a hard look at the Article VII. Do you think that as it's written with the exemptions and removing from actions to be reviewed, it's actually providing certain development as of right?

[Drew Gammels (Senior Attorney, Riverkeeper)]: The proposed J.

[Assemblymember Chris Burdick]: Yeah, the governor's proposal. I mean, it seems to just say this whole list, it's not going to be reviewed. It's either not on the list or it's exempted. You said that targeted revisions could make it a good proposal. And can you be more specific? And also, one of the things we heard actually earlier today and I talked to a noted law professor who thinks that we ought to take look at the shot clock approach and wanted to see what you think.

[Drew Gammels (Senior Attorney, Riverkeeper)]: I think that the time frames that have been added by the governor in her proposal, I think, I have no concerns. And they are achievable and might help move the process along. I actually really like the statute of limitations that

[Assemblymember Chris Burdick]: I'm so taking. What changes would you want to see?

[Drew Gammels (Senior Attorney, Riverkeeper)]: Yeah. So changes, I think we really need to change the definition of previously disturbed site, first and foremost. And that's just striking out references to lawns or other non vegetated maintained areas and public infrastructure utilities.

[Assemblymember Chris Burdick]: Before reading it all, do you have your list of what you think should be changed? Because I think it'd be helpful if you were to share that with the committee.

[Drew Gammels (Senior Attorney, Riverkeeper)]: Yes. I do have a very detailed list, a chart, actually.

[Assemblymember Chris Burdick]: That would be great. Would be great

[RuthAnne Visnauskas (Commissioner/CEO, NYS Homes and Community Renewal)]: and if you had specific

[Assemblymember Chris Burdick]: also share Senator May's interest and my colleague Anna Kelles' interest in having you take a look at their bill.

[Drew Gammels (Senior Attorney, Riverkeeper)]: Absolutely. I can do the same thing and share that chart.

[Assemblymember Chris Burdick]: J. Thanks so much.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: J. D. Thank you.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: J. Thank you. Hi. I want to thank everyone for their work. But I also have some specific questions for Drew from Riverkeepers. Because as I was reading your longer testimony, it confused me because supporters of the governor's secret proposal suggests that there are other state permitting laws that duplicate what is required in the environmental review. But I think your testimony says no, that's not actually true. Am I reading your testimony correct?

[Drew Gammels (Senior Attorney, Riverkeeper)]: You're reading my testimony correctly. That is not true.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Okay. So, yes. I don't want to, you know, I have a couple more questions for you. So you pointed out in your testimony the Governor's SIGRA exemption should not apply to projects in the FEMA one hundred year flood zone in New York City. So that's my district. That's Brian Kavanaugh's district. That's actually Assembly Member Rosenthal's district over on the West Side. That's

[Senator Rachel May]: pretty much

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: anybody who's near the rivers surrounding New York City, Manhattan, Staten Island, Queens connections to Long Island. You pointed out Long Island. When the 100 maps were changed by FEMA, I know when I looked at them, I went, oh my god, this is so much territory. And the City Of New York actually changed its building code to require a completely different standard if you were building over there. And so my question to you is, can you explain what it would mean if nobody had to follow the stricter federal delineations for doing anything in the hundred year FEMA zones? Because I'm, like, in panic about it.

[Drew Gammels (Senior Attorney, Riverkeeper)]: Yeah. So right now, the proposed legislation states that areas in the coastal flood zone in New York City will not be exempt. That's a very small area New York City created where the FEMA one hundred year floodplain is a much broader area. And while New York City did update its building code to, require buildings to be built, you know, so that key infrastructure in that building is above ex anticipated flooding, you are still going to be exposing residents who live in those buildings to dangerous flooding conditions if they're trying to get to and from the buildings in those areas. I know that it is a substantial area in New York City. But we need to make sure that those projects are going to be evaluated with critical detail, paid attention to the risks that come with being in the floodplain so that they can plan for potential impacts and mitigate those impacts. And that's the whole purpose of CCRA, is to make sure that mitigation measures are incorporated. So it's not no construction. It's let's be smart and plan for impacts.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Thank you. Time's up.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: Thank you. Assemblyman Steve Otis.

[Assemblymember Lester Chang]: Drew, one quick question for you. Just because a project is covered by Seeker, it doesn't mean the project can't go forward. It just means that there needs to be some level of review, alternatives analysis, impact analysis. But it does not foreclose the local government from necessarily going forward with a project. Is that correct?

[Drew Gammels (Senior Attorney, Riverkeeper)]: LUISE That's 100% correct. And I would also add, it doesn't even mean that the project's going to go through the environmental impact statement process. It could and you see this a lot with appropriate sized housing developments they stop at the environmental assessment form. They get a negative declaration. But they fill out those forms because they are typically unlisted actions. So they require that review. It is just kind of step one. So many do not go through the whole process. But you get information through the environmental assessment forms that help evaluate the project.

[Assemblymember Lester Chang]: Thank you. That's all I have. Yield back my time.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: You. Lose this section of the hearing. Panel E, we most appreciate you staying this late. And now I will call on panel F, which is the West Side Federation for Senior and Supportive Housing, United Tenants of Albany, Neighbors Together, National Union of the Homeless, and the Coalition for the Homeless. Someone is missing.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Staring you.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: We're going to start from my left, your right.

[Annalise Denio (LeadingAge NY, reading for WSFSSH)]: Hi there. I am Annalise Denio. I am a senior policy analyst for Leading Age New York. But if you'll allow it, I'd like to read the statement of Eustacea Smith, who is the director of advocacy for our member, the West Side Federation for Senior and Supportive Housing. She did, as Senator Krueger predicted, have to catch the last train home. For fifty years, WSFISH, as we like to call it, has developed and operated low income housing for older adults and currently houses

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: you move over closer to the mic, please?

[Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal (Chair, Assembly Housing)]: Can't hear J.

[Annalise Denio (LeadingAge NY, reading for WSFSSH)]: Oh, sure. They currently house over 2,500 residents across 31 buildings. They know intimately that stably housing residents as they age in place depends on providing critical services along with housing. That's why they urge you to fund the Affordable Independent Senior Housing Resident Assistance Program in bills A1948 and S9214. This program would fund a staff member in independent affordable senior housing called a resident assistant to assist residents with obtaining a broad range of services that would enable them to age in place, even if as their needs change over time. While affordable senior housing supports independent living, a key link is often missing help with navigating complex government and community programs, including home care services. These services can be difficult to enroll in and maintain, particularly in a tech centric world where basic appointments are made online. Without the support of an on-site staff person, many seniors don't know how to access services or they give up at some point during the process. There are also barriers beyond just the technical. Accessing home health aid services can trigger tough emotions regarding loss. And many older adults struggle with acknowledging that they need the help of home health aid after a lifetime of caring for themselves and their family. By building a personal, trusting relationship, a resident assistant can support them past these barriers and help them come to terms with the fact that they need services. Resident assistants also help address social isolation so often faced by older adults, noticing when someone is isolated and reconnecting them to community activities. A wealth of recent data shows that loneliness leads to poor health and decline, while social connections support better health and longer independent living. This program is included as one of the proposals in the state's newly created Master Plan on Aging. The plan recognized that no currently existing program can do what on-site services can do to keep people housed as they age in place. However, the plan is only useful if it's funded and implemented. It's critical that we implement programs like this one, as all of the data show that older adult population is booming while at the same time long term care options are strained and shrinking. This program is a cost effective solution to keep older adults housed in the community, reducing hospitalizations and reliance on expensive nursing homes. The resident assistant bill asks for just $2,000,000 per year over five years.

[Assemblymember Anna R. Kelles]: Thank you. You. Thank

[Amy Blumsack (Neighbors Together)]: Okay. Thank you. You, Chairs Rosenthal, Pretlow, Kavanaugh, and Krueger. Thank you, members of the committee and the staff. My name is Amy Blumsek. I'm the Director of Organizing and Policy at Neighbors Together, a small community based organization located in Central Brooklyn. We have three programs. We have a soup kitchen, a direct services program, and a grassroots organizing program with our members called the Community Action Program. In the Community Action Program, 80% of our members are people who have experienced homelessness, are homeless, and who have or are seeking rental assistance vouchers. I think it is no secret that New State is experiencing a homelessness and housing affordability crisis. And I'm here today to say that the Housing Access Factor program is a key tool in mitigating that crisis. Neighbors Together was extremely grateful to see HAVP funded at $50,000,000 in last year's budget. However, 50,000,000 isn't nearly enough to meet the need. It created approximately 1,900 vouchers statewide, and we know that the crisis is far larger than that. So we're here today to ask that HAVP be fully funded at $250,000,000 in the upcoming budget and made permanent. There's no reason that it needs to be a pilot program. We know that vouchers work. This is particularly important with the current instability at the federal level with federal housing programs. And Neighbors Together, we have members using the emergency housing voucher for which funding has been discontinued. And our members who have EHV are terrified about what will happen. They're grinding every day to do what they can to avoid falling back into homelessness. But without the help of rental assistance voucher, the outlook is extremely bleak. One of our members with a NYCHA EHV has been taking on multiple jobs to try and save as much as he can for himself and his daughter so that they aren't left in the cold when their EHV voucher runs out. But the fact is that currently there is no guarantee for them, particularly for people with EHV through NYCHA, of which there are approximately 5,000 people in New York City alone. So I think it is important that we really push for funding for HIVP this year. I think it is absolutely cruel to let people who have survived the trauma of homelessness and finally stabilized be dropped right back into homelessness again. It's also deeply illogical. So we're asking that the state step in and do more, continue to advocate for more to protect tenants and homeless New Yorkers, and to say that you can do exactly that by increasing HIVP funding to $250,000,000. I also want to say that we support the R. S. T. Act, the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act, the Social Housing Development Authority bill, and screen injury reform. Housing and homelessness are a huge issue in this state, and we appreciate all of your efforts to address the crisis. And we really look forward to seeing HIVP funded at $250,000,000 Thank you.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: Thank you.

[Bevin Francis (United Tenants of Albany; National Union of the Homeless)]: Good evening. Please don't mind my voice. I was at a rally this morning. This is protest voice. My name is Bevin Francis, and I am the lead tenant organizer with United Tenants of Albany, a co organizer with the National Union of the Homeless, co legislative advocacy and co governance co chair with Housing Justice for All. But most importantly, I am a working class tenant of Albany. I'm here today to talk to you about making rent affordable for New Yorkers statewide. Affordability seems to be a buzzword in today's political climate. But for the majority of New Yorkers, affordability is not a hot topic. It is a struggle. My personal affordability crisis reflects reality. For thousands of New Yorkers like me, many tenants have lost everything due to a sudden loss of income, whether from a divorce, the death of a partner, a health care crisis, or simply being priced out of their home. Like me, countless New Yorkers have faced homelessness because the safety net was inadequate. And like me, thousands are rent burdened, forced to choose between groceries and paying rent. And like me, so many families lack the space and stability that they need to thrive. When the governor talks about plans for housing affordability, I have to ask affordable for who? I, like many others here in New York State, I pay half of my income to my rent, and I live paycheck to paycheck. Affordable housing often frames the crisis as a supply issue, as if building more units alone would solve it, rather than addressing the underlying issues of price and power. That framing sidelines tools like rent stabilization and strong tenant protections, which directly limit exploitation but challenge real estate profits. Housing Justice for All's platform to make rent affordable by expanding rent stabilization, protecting existing tenant protections, and ensuring tenants have the financial support they need to stay housed. By expanding rent stabilization statewide through REST, the Rent Emergency Stabilization for Tenants Act, The platform limits rent hikes and gives municipalities the tools to keep working class New Yorkers, like me, in their homes, while shielding communities from landlord lawsuits. By protecting rent stabilization and defending the twenty nineteen tenant protection, the platform preserves affordability true affordability for millions and prevents powerful real estate interests from rolling back hard won rights. And by fully funding and implementing the Housing Access Voucher Program, New York can protect tenants from homelessness and displacement, especially as federal affordable housing programs face severe cuts. This platform defines what true housing affordability means to everyday New Yorkers and not big real estate. Thank you.

[Canyon Ryan (Executive Director, United Tenants of Albany; Board Member, Tenants PAC)]: Good evening. Thank you all for sticking it out. I know this has been terribly long, but I really appreciate everybody's time. My name is Canyon KENNON Ryan. I'm a board member of Tenants PAC, which is a volunteer organization that works to support tenant centric legislators and policies. I'm also the executive director of United Tenants of Albany, which is a fifty two year old community based organization located here in the city of Albany. UTA is a member of the Neighborhood Preservation Coalition and during our last fiscal year distributed over $677,699 in emergency rental assistance to support over three fifteen low income neighbors, low income households that were at risk of imminent eviction and or actively overcoming homelessness. We also supported over 500 households in Albany and Rensselaer County during their eviction proceedings and supported dozens of tenants at risk of displacement due to landlords being in foreclosure. Shout out, hop. We also received 7,700 calls on our emergency housing hotline in Upstate New York. And our office received over 1,200 walk ins. And all that's really just to say that UTA wholeheartedly supports the request for $20,680,000 through the Neighborhood Preservation Program, because that funding is the lifeline of our organization. 99% of the tenants that we work with every year have an area median income of below 80%. And in fact, the average household income for a tenant assisted by UTA, excluding those that report having no income, which is about 13% of tenants that we assisted last year, had an area median income below 30% of well, below 30% of the area median income a monthly income of below 30% of the area median income. And we're spending more than 45%, just less than 50, per month on their rent. We hear both their horror stories on our emergency housing hotline, as well as their greatest desires. Our neighbors and friends are struggling because it's becoming increasingly difficult to afford to live, let alone to retain shelter. And we know what folks want because they tell us every day. They just want housing. But it's not just housing. It's not just more units. They want and need affordable housing, homes that they can build their lives around, build families in, and dependably live in for the foreseeable future, which is what we all want. The problem, though, is that this need is difficult to realize when rents are so high. In the capital region, rent increases have outpaced the income increases by more than two to one. We know that there are two solutions to this crisis. They're part of a much larger program to solve the housing crisis. But two solutions that the two organizations I'm here representing support, both Tenants PAC and United Tenants of Albany, are the Rent Emergency Stabilization for Tenants Act and the Housing Access Voucher Program. I'm going to run out of time, so I just want to say thanks again.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Thank Thank you.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: Assemblywoman Rosenthal.

[Assemblymember Emérita Torres]: Thank

[Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal (Chair, Assembly Housing)]: you so much. WSFISH, Westside Federation for Senior and Supportive Housing Does a lot of work in my district. I work very closely with them. I'm sorry. Smith couldn't go, but you did a great job representing her. I'm also the sponsor of the bill and working with Leading Age to ensure that seniors can stay in their homes and get assistance to manage all of the complicated technological and other issues that they will face as they get older. Bebin, beautiful as always, beautiful testimony. Thank you. And I think all of you, a perfect ending illustrating really the essence of the need and what we our job is to take care of. Our job is to ensure that people aren't homeless. Our job is to ensure that people can afford affordable housing. Our job is to make sure there's enough affordable housing so people can go out and have productive lives. But we know housing first is very important. You can't organize your life if you have nowhere to live. And so I appreciate all of your efforts. I appreciate all of your testimony. And you know, here's to fighting hard to getting all of these concerns accomplished in the budget. Thank you.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Thank you. Senator Cordell, clear?

[Senator Cordell Cleare]: I'm going to say much of the same. And I carry the bill in the Senate now, formerly carried by Brian Kavanaugh. But I chair the Committee for the Aging, and I know how important it is and wish wishes also in my district. And I really appreciate the work they do for our seniors who are a vulnerable population and the fastest growing population, but are sometimes invisible because people forget about them. But I want to thank all of you for your testimony because it isn't about just building housing, It's about building housing that's targeted to the income of the people for who that housing is being provided. And sometimes I do see the word affordable, and I wondered if they really know the definition of affordable. You know, you look at the income levels for people just in my district alone and and and and for black people across the state average $55,000 a year. This is not affordable when you're talking about three and four and five thousand dollar a month rents for people who will be just living to pay rent, basically. You know, don't buy any food and don't have any children, don't feed them. Know, so we really have to do something about it. And I know that we talk about the AMI, which is a federal rate, but we have to look at ways that we don't have to use that measure and actually use the measure for. But thank you. You thanked us, but thank you for hanging out. We appreciate you staying and delivering the testimony.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: You. Oh, sorry. I didn't realize. Yes, Rachel May.

[Senator Rachel May]: Thank you. And I echo the thanks to all of for your powerful words and for your commitment. This question is for Canyon. So in Syracuse, the Common Council just deadlocked on good cause eviction, four to four, which means it failed. And it came out in the debate on that that 61% of the residents of Syracuse are renters, Zero people on the Common Council are renters. And precious few people in city government at all are renters. And I've been trying to think about this for a long time, like what we can do to help tenants have more power at the ballot box so that they can be making policy in or at least have tenant centered policies in our cities. And I just wonder if you have thoughts about that. I have a bill called Tenants Organizing for Power that's specifically about allowing people into apartment buildings to either campaign or give share information with the tenants. But it feels like small bore stuff. So I'm just curious what your message would be to the tenants of Syracuse.

[Canyon Ryan (Executive Director, United Tenants of Albany; Board Member, Tenants PAC)]: J. That's tough. I mean, I think our message to the tenants of Syracuse is keep fighting. We know that there is this vacancy on the council that should soon be filled. And this hopefully is a person who supports tenant initiatives. Really disappointed to see it end in a deadlock like that. I actually spoke to Donna Moore. She told me she supported good cause and would vote in favor of it. She didn't. But I think when it comes to what we're doing with Tenants PAC, the whole goal is to bring tenants forward and engage them in the political process beyond just being voting at the ballot box and even getting their names on the ballot box. There's a group called Syracuse Tenants Union up in your neighborhood, of course. And I think we would encourage people to engage in those kinds of organizations, engage in organizations that allow you to identify as a tenant, to build tenant consciousness, to base built around those issues, and to come out of those organizations as a leader and somebody who wants to get involved in the political process that has historically neglected their voice. So to Syracuse and tenants, my message is keep fighting, join Syracuse Tenants Union, win good cause, and start running.

[Senator Rachel May]: J. Thank you.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: J. D.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Thank you. And we also have Senator Jack Martins.

[Senator Jack M. Martins (Ranking Member, Senate Housing)]: J. Thank you. I just wanted to take the opportunity, Madam Chair, to thank you all. I can tell you without a question in my mind that we're going to disagree on policy. And yet, I want to thank you because I know that what you're doing is from a good place, from a place of helping people and helping people and giving them a hand up. Not a handout, but the ability and provide dignity at a time when they properly reach rock bottom. I think there are ways of us getting there. I do think there's common ground. But I did want to since it's 08:30 and we're all still here, I did want to thank you for your testimony here today. And I do appreciate it. Thank you.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: J. Thank you. J.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: And I also just want to thank you all for your work and just reaffirm that we all find what you're doing incredibly important. And appreciate that. Thank you.

[Senator Mark Walczyk]: Thanks.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: And I too want to thank you for all that you do. And homelessness is an issue. I don't know how we solve it. There are so many, what they're calling, drop in centers, which I think are really torturous, where people are taken to various locations at 07:30 at night, and at 07:00 they're kicked out. And they're left to walk the streets, pushing their belongings around, trying to find some place to stay warm or some place to eat. And that's not what we should be doing. We should be trying to create more housing. But, you know, there is that whole supply and demand thing. And I know I have a personal feeling that HUD destroyed the rental market when it came up with Section eight and told people what a rent should be not what it was, but what it should be. People that were, at the time, renting units for $506,100 dollars a month when HUD said a one bedroom I live in Westchester was $1,600 a month. That $600 apartment went up to $600 and it started pricing people out of the market. And it's been really a downhill trick since then. So I don't know how we get out of this. There are a lot of plans out there. I know the neighborhood preservation programs. Have, know, Melvernay United tenants and Dennis Hanalready runs at Melvernon. He does the same thing that you're doing here, trying to keep people from from being evicted, you know, saving people, you know. But it's it's an uphill battle. So, anyway, we in the legislature do our best to try to be helpful to everyone that we can. Like I say, we just appreciate everything that you guys have been have been doing. With that, I'm going to close this section of the hearing. And This is the

[Senator Rachel May]: last section of the hearing.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: This is the last section of the hearing. And I'm going to close this section. And I'm going to invite everyone to join us at 09:30 tomorrow morning, where we will do economic development.

[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair, Senate Finance)]: Thank you, everyone.

[Assemblymember Gary Pretlow (Chair, Assembly Ways and Means)]: Thank you. Okay, Jay. Bye bye.