Priorities

Manhattan’s housing crisis is a mass casualty event.

New York City’s vacancy rate has dropped to a historic low of 1.4% — the lowest since 1968. That’s not just a number. It’s a system failure. It’s a closed door for too many families, young professionals, and longtime New Yorkers who deserve a place to call home.
As an emergency physician, I’m trained to act when seconds matter; not just to treat symptoms, but to diagnose and address the root cause. As Borough President, I’ll bring that mindset to Manhattan’s housing emergency: pinpointing pressure points, creating breathing room to buy time, and rushing resources to where they’re needed most so longer-term solutions have the chance to take hold.

As Borough President, I will:

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Supercharge the Office Conversion Accelerator
In 2024, NYC launched a pilot to convert Midtown South’s empty office buildings into 20,000 homes. It’s a promising start — but we can do far better and more quickly. I’ll fight to expand this program borough-wide and work with Albany to remove outdated zoning restrictions that prevent or slow conversions. More supply means lower cost of rent, plain and simple.

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Champion Supportive Housing with Wraparound Care
We’re all one medical emergency, hospital bill, or job loss away from being unhoused. Supportive housing works, but we don’t have nearly enough. I’ll streamline conversion regulations and expand supportive housing paired with mandatory on-site job training, healthcare access, and social services. This creates a path to stability, turning today's vulnerable neighbors into tomorrow’s rent-paying, job-holding New Yorkers — and reinvesting their success into more housing for all.

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Strengthen and Expand “City of Yes”
Zoning shouldn’t preserve scarcity. “City of Yes” starts to treat housing as a public good by removing parking mandates, enabling infill on underused lots, and supporting commercial-to-residential conversion. My office will push to go further, faster, and with more ambition.

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Apply ER Logic to Zoning Reform
In a mass casualty, we shift from trying to make every one person happy, to doing the greatest good for the greatest number. That’s the logic I’ll bring to zoning: enabling abundant housing supply while protecting tenant rights and preserving neighborhood character. Data-driven, targeted, and decisive.

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Financing New Housing Construction

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The bottlenecks to new housing isn’t just red tape, it’s capital funding. We need to finance the capital stack of real estate development and new models to finance construction and rehabilitation. Multifamily housing developers and public housing struggle to finance projects. NYCHA faces $80 billion in unmet capital needs. Our solutions must match the scale of the emergency.

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As Borough President, I will use the office’s platform and convening power to pursue every available avenue to fund public and affordable housing.

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Leverage PACT-RAD for NYCHA.
Section 9 housing — NYCHA’s current funding model under the US Housing Act of 1937 receives a woefully inadequate $500M annually from Congress.

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Through RAD-PACT, however, we can convert to project-based Section 8 vouchers and unlock hundreds of millions in private and federal capital dollars for critical investments in overdue housing infrastructure improvement and quality of living. I’ll push for aggressive expansion of this tool without compromising tenant rights or affordability.

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Activate the NYCHA Preservation Trust.
This 2022 law gives NYCHA the ability to issue bonds and raise capital for long-overdue renovations and capital improvements. It’s already delivering — like the $93M secured for Bronx River Houses. My office will work directly with NYCHA tenants to identify which campuses need help most and push for Manhattan to get its fair share.

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Bridge Community Groups and Capital.
The NYC Housing Development Corporation (HDC) is critical to unlocking affordable housing. But too often, community groups are left out of the financing conversation. I will connect grassroots organizations, mission-driven developers, and HDC to ensure affordable housing is built with community input — equitably, transparently, and at scale.