The Rent Guidelines Board voted yesterday to freeze rents for almost 1 million rent-stabilized New York City apartments. The rent freeze applies to 1- and 2-year leases, and goes into effect October 1. Freezing the rent was a major part of Zohran Mamdani’s platform; the board’s decision is a landmark victory for the socialist mayor.

Earlier this week a number of candidates endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) were re-elected and flipped seats in New York City: Claire Valdez, Darializa Avila Chevalier, Emily Gallagher, Illapa Sairitupac, and Samantha Kattan, to name but a few. 

Three congressional candidates endorsed by Mamdani (Valdez, Chevalier, and Brad Lander) centered housing affordability in their historic campaigns. How might this crop of newly elected progressives tackle New York City’s affordability crisis?

Here’s what to know.

The Social Housing Development Authority

Valdez, who will represent the 7th Congressional District, and electeds headed to Albany such as Kattan (37th Assembly District), Sairitupac (65th Assembly District), Jessica González-Rojas (34th Assembly District), Diana Moreno (36th Assembly District), and others support a bill that would create a new Social Housing Development Authority (SHDA).

The SHDA would empower the state to build publicly owned homes using 100 percent union labor. It was proposed in 2024 by Cordell Cleare (30th Senate District) and Gallagher (50th Assembly District). Today it is sponsored by Julia Salazar (18th Senate District), Zellnor Myrie (20th State Senate District), Jabari Brisport (25th State Senate District), Phara Forrest (57th Assembly District), and many others. 

In the state assembly Mamdani supported the SHDA; he told AN in the run up to the general election in 2025 he will continue to support the SHDA as mayor.

House the Future (HTF), a wing of the DSA, is actively lobbying for the bill. Iziah Thompson, of the HTF organizing committee, told AN the primaries have him feeling optimistic.

“It was great to hear so many of the candidates specifically talking about the bill,” Thompson said. “I’ve been doing this work for five years. This isn’t a thing I could have imagined happening in an election cycle. It makes me really hopeful.”

Thompson and others in HTF have been holding “vision sessions” across New York State, galvanizing support for the bill outside of the five boroughs. And it’s paid off. “The number of sponsors has shot up, a lot, just in this last year,” Thompson continued. “People are starting to see this as a real solution to the housing crisis.”

In the months ahead, “lobbying will definitely be ramped up,” Thompson affirmed, specifically in relation to debates in Albany over the next state housing plan, and rural housing, community land trusts, adaptive reuse, and preserving existing public and Mitchell-Lama housing.

“We are going to push to raise the voices of people already living in social housing,” Thompson said, “and make sure that residents in social housing know that they’re a part of this too, and that we see them.”

A Referendum on RAD/PACT?

Public housing policy perspectives among progressives are far from monolithic, despite DSA party backing.

The Mayor’s FY27 financial plan, should it pass, would allocate $1.5 billion for the conversion of Section 9 public housing into Section 8 private housing.

This election cycle myriad candidates adopted alternative positions that break from the consensus in City Hall, however, suggesting a split in approaches.

Chevalier unseated Adriano Espaillat to represent New York’s 13th Congressional District. In her campaign Chevalier endorsed a program called Citywide Solutions for Section 9 that calls for a moratorium on RAD/PACT and the Preservation Trust, and offers a roadmap for funding Section 9 public housing. 

Lander, who defeated Dan Goldman and will represent New York’s 10th Congressional District, criticized RAD/PACT and supported Section 9 comprehensive modernization in the city council and as comptroller, specifically at Brooklyn’s Wyckoff Houses. 

During his congressional campaign Lander said he supports Section 9 comprehensive modernization but remains open to RAD/PACT, if NYCHA residents vote for it.

What Public Housing Advocates Are Saying

Public housing advocacy groups like Save Section 9 and Residents to Preserve Public Housing are calling upon electeds to halt RAD/PACT conversion projects and commit to preserving Section 9 public housing.

“We’ve seen flawed approaches to housing affordability for years,” said Ramona Ferreyra, founder of Save Section 9, a Bronx-based public housing advocacy group. “This new slate has an opportunity to invest in the only program that provides true affordability, Section 9. If they don’t the city will never recover from their error.”

Marquis Jenkins, formerly of Residents to Preserve Public Housing, told AN he wants politicians to support “binding residence governance, real co-governance structures, and resident veto power over any proposed changes” to the homes of NYCHA residents.

“The government has the means to do this,” Jenkins said, “what we need now is the political will to work with residents to truly preserve, modernize, and expand public housing in New York City.”

Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses

In Lower Manhattan, the future of NYCHA’s Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea (FEC) Houses was a major touchpoint in recent city council elections and the primaries.

Layla Law-Gisiko and Jack Schlossberg ran against the demolition of FEC Houses in their unsuccessful campaigns for New York City Council District 3 and New York’s 12th Congressional District respectively. 

This stance won Law-Gisiko and Schlossberg endorsements from FEC Tenants Against Demolition, an advocacy group fighting the plan supported by the Mayor’s FY27 budget. Carl Wilson won the District 3 City Council seat in April, and Micah Lasher the 12th District Congressional seat this week. 

“For years, we’ve been seeking elected officials willing to stand with us in the fight to stop the demolition of our homes at Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses,” said FEC residents Celines Miranda, Renee Keitt, and Jackie Lara, of FEC Tenants Against Demolition, in a joint statement.

They added that, “Unfortunately, NYCHA and the private developers Related and Essence went into this demolition proposal confidently knowing the elected officials of our district were on their side.”

FEC Tenants Against Demolition commended Law-Gisiko for demonstrating “a clear commitment to preserving our FEC NYCHA homes,” and Schlossberg for advocating “against the demolition” on the group’s behalf.

Miranda, Keitt, and Lara vowed to “continue our fight to stop the Fulton & Elliott-Chelsea demolition proposal.”

“Our goal,” they said, is “for Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses is to preserve public housing which means keeping our Section 9 leases where our housing protections are strongest and guaranteed under the federal government.”