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Q&A
Council Member Avilés questions HPD on senior housing initiatives and Housing Connect challenges
1:58:17
·
4 min
Council Member Alexa Avilés engages in a discussion with HPD Acting Commissioner Ahmed Tigani and Deputy Commissioner Lucy Joffe about senior housing initiatives and challenges. The conversation covers the number of units dedicated to senior housing, universal design in new construction, and efforts to make Housing Connect more accessible to older New Yorkers.
- HPD reports financing over 2,900 units dedicated to older adult housing in fiscal year 2024
- Discussion on integrating senior-friendly design in all new construction projects above 40 units
- Concerns raised about older adults being quickly eliminated from Housing Connect applications and long wait times
Alexa Avilés
1:58:17
Thank you.
1:58:18
Thank you chairs.
1:58:20
Good to see you commissioner.
1:58:23
The thing I talk about often is housing for seniors.
1:58:26
I'd like to understand in of the twenty five thousand units that you financed, how much of those units, specifically construction are earmarked for senior housing?
1:59:56
So I absolutely agree that older adults should be integrated and considered and not just simply one modality for them for sure.
2:00:06
However, how will you be able to track?
2:00:10
I mean, you have the projected need of the amount of housing we would need for our older adult population which is growing significantly?
2:01:35
Great.
2:01:36
I'd love to hear an update of the pilot that you all discussed, but also just point of comment in terms of, I've said this to you many, many times, the older adult community that comes into our office who we spend a lot of time filling out housing connect are often immediately eliminated and don't qualify for anything.
2:01:59
Don't have fifteen, twenty years to wait on a queue.
2:02:02
So I guess I would just continue I would encourage, like, some serious urgency in this matter.
2:02:09
It doesn't feel like it's moving as quickly as it needs to, and I just, yeah.
2:02:17
I think I'll leave it
Ahmed Tigani
1:58:40
So I need to break down from a new construction specifically, but in the last, in fiscal year twenty four we had about 29, a little over 2,900 units just dedicated to older adult housing.
1:58:54
I will also note, again due to legislation our own policy and legislation we worked on with Councilmember Hudson for projects above 40 units where we have universal design.
1:59:05
The goal is that for older New Yorkers it should not be that only a senior focused housing is an appropriate place for them to get stable homes.
1:59:17
So throughout our construction, the 14,000 units of new construction, that should be something that is accessible for older New Yorkers.
1:59:26
It's in fact why we put a lot of time and effort into working with DFTA and working with adult care, adult senior centers to get education about Housing Connect and get people through the process.
1:59:39
The Neighborhood Tech Help program is an example of where we're trying to meet people where they are.
1:59:44
We see that a lot of older New Yorkers are using public library to get information about city resources.
1:59:50
So we're using our navigators there to connect them with Housing Connect.
2:00:21
I would have to come back to you and probably we can look at our, or Lucy may know from our housing vacancy survey.
2:02:17
at that.
2:02:18
I would just say since unlike a waiting list approach, this is a lottery, there are people who sometimes find an apartment in a couple of months, sometimes it does take longer.
2:02:28
It's really also a function of supply and again agree with the council that we need to be building more housing, but it's housing on the subsidized side, mixed income side.
2:02:37
So to get more successful, faster outcomes for those individuals, we just need to be more we need to push more supply and more housing and subsidized housing through multiple avenues.
Lucy Joffe
2:00:29
Hi council member.
2:00:30
As you know this is something that we look at a lot and care about.
2:00:32
We both look at it from who is applying and who is moving into our housing whenever possible.
2:00:37
We continue to improve the systems by which we understand not just the primary person moving into a household, but all of the household members who move into it.
2:00:45
We know actually from the New York City Housing and Vacancy Survey that are not surprisingly probably to anyone here, our population of older adults and their living circumstances is quite diverse.
2:00:55
So many actually do live in intergenerational households.
2:00:58
We want to be able to accommodate that as well and we're thinking about how we better incorporate that into some of our programs.
2:01:04
And we also look at that, as I mentioned, overall trends through the New York City Housing and Vacancy Survey which is in particular pretty unique because we can look longitudinally and really see how we're evolving over time.
2:01:18
So this is a big focus for us and we continue to study, understand, and partner with other agencies to best meet the needs of older adults who, as the commissioner was saying, we're seeing have a really wide range of preferences and we want to be able to meet that need.