New York City is killing homeownership and no one cares

New York City prides itself on cosmopolitan diversity, with neighborhoods as diverse as its skyline — mid-rise walk-ups and iconic brownstones. Yet beneath this celebrated variety, the city is becoming unsettlingly uniform in one uncomfortable way: Nearly all are renters, hardly ever owners.

Today, the American Dream of homeownership in New York is under siege — and no one seems to be sounding the alarm.

For decades, owning a home in New York was a difficult but attainable aspiration. Families could realistically aspire to buy a co-op, a condo, or even a small house in the city’s outer boroughs. Today, those opportunities are fast disappearing. 

City leaders often advocate for “affordable housing,” but what they’re really offering is “affordable renting.” Repeatedly, the city’s programs, laws, incentives, and zoning changes overwhelmingly favor developers, and the burden has fallen disproportionately on long-standing neighborhoods and the residents who built them. Developers with deep pockets — and no intention of ever living in the homes they buy — routinely outbid families who simply want a piece of their own city. Their goal is straightforward: replace it with a structure that maximizes square footage and profit.

In the outer boroughs especially, the pattern has become routine and predictable. The moment a private home goes up for sale, you can practically set your watch to the appearance of green-painted plywood and the rumble of a bulldozer. In its place rises yet another multi-story rental superstructure — buildings that guarantee long-term revenue for developers and landlords but offer residents no path to stability or generational wealth to the community in which they are developing.

The result? A city with a shrinking supply of homes to buy, and where the few left costing millions, unattainable for most New Yorkers; an irresistible scenario for landlords who know they have a captive audience.

New York City’s homeownership rate is one of the lowest in the country. According to New York University’s Furman Center, in 2022 only 32.7 percent of New York City residents were homeowners compared to the national average of 65.2 percent. In the Bronx, the disparity is even more stark. Just 21.1 percent of Bronxites own their homes — just one-third of the national average.

These statistics are especially striking when compared to efforts in the 1980s. In the Bronx, a coalition of clergy and community leaders formed South Bronx Churches, an organization modeled after Saul Alinsky’s Industrial Areas Foundation. It sought to tackle the very same issue of homeownership by sponsoring the development and construction of low- and moderate-income homes and condominiums, giving families the chance to own property instead of remaining lifelong renters. Many of these still stand, lining the neighborhoods of Central Bronx neighborhoods today, serving as lasting proof that community organizing and local political advocacy can make homeownership in New York City a reality for all.

The recently passed New York City Ballot Proposals 2, 3 and 4 further favor developers, giving them unprecedented power to capitalize on neighborhoods where homeownership is already scarce. By “fast-tracking” new developments and altering the City’s Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, these measures make it easier for large-scale projects to bypass local elected authority, prioritize profit over people, and accelerate the replacement of private homes with high-revenue, multi-story rentals. In effect, the city has begun institutionalizing a system where developers design neighborhoods, not people.

New York is, and always has been, a living, breathing city — one that will continue to change with every passing decade. But if it hopes to stay healthy, city leaders must recognize its residents as part of its lifeblood, not as cash cows for clusters of anonymous corporations. If New York wants to remain a city of opportunity, it must protect the chance to own a home.

Homeownership shouldn’t just be a commodity — it should be a right, a foundation for families, and a reflection of the city’s commitment to diversity. Without that, New York risks becoming a city that people visit — but can no longer truly call home, finding, quite literally, greener pastures elsewhere.

Jason Mendez is a recent graduate of Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Conn., and a resident of The Bronx, N.Y.