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<\/p>\nA trio of bills just introduced by New York\u00a0state legislators aims to bring relief to affordable housing landlords, who have seen their insurance costs more than double in the past seven years.<\/p>\n
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\n The Bronx has the highest concentration of affordable housing in New York City.\n <\/p>\n
Among the proposals\u00a0is the creation of a $50M fund to provide grants to bridge the gap between affordable housing landlords\u2019 net operating incomes and their insurance costs.<\/p>\n
The two other bills introduced by Assemblymember Em\u00e9rita Torres, whose district covers the south and southeastern Bronx<\/a>,\u00a0would mandate collecting and reporting data on insurance rates and convene a task force to recommend policy solutions.<\/p>\n Torres’ bills were introduced following\u00a0the publication of a study<\/a> by\u00a0nonprofit affordable housing providers\u00a0National Equity Fund and Enterprise Community Providers that found the cost of insurance per unit for affordable owners jumped from $712 to $1,495 between 2017 and 2024.<\/p>\n New York Housing Conference<\/a>\u00a0Executive Director\u00a0Rachel Fee<\/a>\u00a0advised Torres on the bills, calling specifically for the data reporting requirement as a first step.<\/p>\n \u201cThat has really been a barrier in us figuring out, as advocates, what should we be asking for, because the public data here is really lacking,\u201d\u00a0Fee said.<\/p>\n Overall operating costs have shot up by 40% for landlords of\u00a0affordable housing over the past seven years, according to the study. Staffing costs are up by 51% and maintenance by 35%, but insurance, up by 110% in that time, is the main reason costs have soared out of control.\u00a0<\/p>\n The same study found that 57% of affordable housing owners are spending more on costs than they are bringing in via net operating income.<\/p>\n The discrepancy could get worse for owners if\u00a0Zohran Mamdani<\/a>, the front-runner in next month\u2019s mayoral election, enacts the rent freeze for stabilized units that he has campaigned on.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the short term, we are already seeing this distress, and now we are looking down this potential for a four-year revenue freeze,\u201d Community Preservation Corp. Senior Vice President of External Affairs Erin Burns-Maine said. \u201cThe rent is too high for the tenants, but it’s also too low for healthy operations in these buildings.\u201d<\/p>\n The bill that creates a fund for landlords will distribute grants worth up to $3K per unit or $2M per project.<\/p>\n Gov.\u00a0Kathy Hochul<\/a>\u2019s office declined to comment on the pending bills but said that the governor secured more than $1.5B to expand housing supply and create more affordability for renters and buyers.<\/p>\n The other two bills\u00a0would require\u00a0the state\u2019s departments for financial services and for housing and community renewal\u00a0to provide yearly reports on premiums, nonrenewals and denials for affordable housing insurance.<\/p>\n They would also\u00a0create a statewide task force led by the same departments, with input from insurers, reinsurers and housing stakeholders, to assess market conditions. The task force\u00a0would collect and publish data and issue recommendations.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n The New York Capitol in Albany\n <\/p>\n More information is crucial for understanding what factors are driving cost escalations and the relationship between insurance premiums<\/a>, claims and risk mitigation, Fee said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have some anecdotes and examples, but we don’t have a real pattern that we can see with any public data,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Discrimination by insurers remains a problem for affordable housing landlords, Torres said at a rally outside City Hall last week announcing the bills.<\/p>\n Many\u00a0have refused to cover buildings with low-income residents or tenants paying with vouchers as recently as 2023, a Gothamist investigation found<\/a>. The following year, Hochul proposed and signed legislation\u00a0forbidding\u00a0insurers from refusing<\/a> to provide coverage for affordable housing.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cInsurance companies were declining to cover the properties, not even to quote on them, because they were affordable housing,\u201d said Susan Camerata, chief financial officer at Wavecrest Management, which oversees roughly 35,000 affordable apartments across the city. \u201cI found it quite upsetting.\u201d<\/p>\n Additionally, several insurers have left NYC\u2019s market entirely, Torres said at the rally. The exodus of insurers has left few options for landlords, who need coverage to secure loans to maintain their buildings, and has resulted in unfair market power for the few insurers that remain.<\/p>\n \u201cEven if you can get your existing company to renew, you may not get multiple offers,\u201d Fee said. \u201cIt’s not a competitive market.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n