A building with three-bedroom apartments in a refurbished tuberculosis treatment center in Jamaica. Studio apartments with a back garden on an old parking lot in Bed-Stuy. A residence with one-bedroom units and a community health clinic on the ground floor in the Southwest Bronx. These units aren’t part of the latest strategy by real estate developers or Mayor Eric Adams’ City of Yes initiative, but rather, part of a housing effort led by the city’s public hospital system.
The city last week opened a 93-unit affordable housing development at 171 Throop Ave., the latest such endeavor on property owned by New York City Health + Hospitals. The $41.1 million project, run by the Midtown-based nonprofit Comunilife, is part of the housing for health initiative which aims to build 650 apartments on hospital land by 2027 to address the city’s severe housing shortage.
The effort leverages H+H’s vast real estate footprint to help the city ramp up residential capacity, specifically for homeless and low-income individuals. The public hospital system owns 11 million square feet of property in the five boroughs – more than half of which could be available for development, according to data compiled by the NYU Furman Center, a research institute focused on housing and urban planning. The city has built nearly 1,700 units on hospital property to date, and there’s still untapped land to capitalize on. But not all projects are a smashing success; the race to build 650 apartments has been stymied by pushback from communities and local politicians who don’t want to build affordable housing in their neighborhoods, jeopardizing the city’s efforts to reach housing goals and the health systems’ aim to serve homeless individuals with health concerns.
The mayor launched the housing for health initiative in November 2022, deputizing the public hospital system to offer up its land to help reduce homelessness. Hospitals surrender mostly vacant property, and city agencies including the Department of Housing Preservation and Development hand over millions to developers to build, operate and collect rent on affordable apartments. In return, H+H gets a built-in patient population that is sometimes literally in its hospitals’ backyard.
The effort also aims to cut the health systems’ costs by helping patients access stable housing and reducing their reliance on hospital services for shelter and acute care needs. Homeless patients, who use emergency services three times as often as people with stable housing, make up 6% of H+H’s total patient population. These patients often have more complex medical conditions that are more costly to treat, said Leora Jontef, assistant vice president of housing and real estate at H+H.
“As a physician, if you can treat homelessness, housing is how you treat it,” Jontef said, noting that 80,000 of H+H patients are homeless or housing insecure. Stable housing reduces emergency room use and length-of-stay for those patients, helping the safety-net system improve outcomes and reduce costs, she added.
Bumps in the road
The opportunity on hospital land, like many affordable housing efforts, is hindered by community opposition. Health + Hospitals has three housing projects in the pipeline in the Bronx and West Harlem that could begin construction within the next year, and would help the city surpass its goal of building 650 apartments, Jontef said. But some of those projects have been stalled after backlash from community members who don’t want to see the housing in their neighborhoods prolonged the city’s efforts.
Health + Hospitals endured fierce backlash in 2022 after it introduced Just Home, a 70-unit development planned at 1900 Seminole Ave. on Jacobi Medical Center’s campus. The Morris Park building, which is being developed by the Fortune Society, a Long Island City-based nonprofit that supports formerly incarcerated individuals, will include apartments for low-income individuals leaving prisons and jails who have acute medical conditions, such as cancer or congestive heart disease.
Residents quickly spoke out against Just Home, raising concerns about safety that proponents said were unfounded. Councilwoman Kristy Marmorato, a Republican, won the local seat after running on a campaign to block the proposal. Although the City Council typically does not vote against local members to approve a project, the body could still greenlight Just Home without her blessing. The council has received the proposal but has not yet set a date to vote on it.
The hospital system is also planning a 200-unit development at 1727 Amsterdam Ave., which is being developed by Bowery Residents’ Committee. But the building’s current tenant, Heritage Health Center, has yet to vacate the building and the city cannot tear it down to make way for its housing project. Health + Hospitals sued Heritage Health Center to force it to vacate the property last year and the health center appeared to take action to begin moving out. The case is ongoing and the project is stalled, Jontef said.
H+H is also awaiting the start of construction of a 200-unit residence at 1225 Gerard Avenue, at the site of its Gotham Health primary care clinic in Morrisania.
Jontef is hopeful that the city will be able to overcome the barriers to its affordable housing plans.
“This city needs more housing and using our land for this is the right thing to do,” said Jontef. “I’m hoping with time we will overcome these hurdles and get it done…. But it is taking a little bit longer than expected.”
