Long before the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, many New Yorkers faced severe rent burden, overcrowded living conditions, unstable employment opportunities, and other immense challenges to their housing security. For years, rising rents outpaced wage growth, and now an estimated 475,000 New Yorkers may lose their jobs over the coming year, which will exacerbate housing instability in New York City.

Working with its partners in the Family Homelessness Coalition (FHC), CCC is focused on advancing policy priorities to prevent homelessness, improve conditions in homeless shelters, and expand access to affordable housing. These priorities are even more critical today as we move towards a citywide recovery plan. In our COVID brief on housing affordability and homelessness, CCC highlights existing data that point to the alarming and disproportionate impact that COVID19 has on communities that were already grappling with housing instability.