The five boroughs will be getting up to 50,000 new units of affordable workforce housing, Resorts World New York City announced last Thursday.
More than 150 members of the organized labor movement and leadership from Cirrus Workforce Housing gathered with Resorts World executives and area officials for the announcement on May 15 at RWNYC in South Ozone Park.
Most new housing development today targets either wealthy buyers or low-income earners, while middle-income families, those earning between 80 and 140 percent area median income, have seen 18 percent of the city’s new housing investments over the past decade, according to the city Rent Guidelines Board.
To address the issue, Cirrus Workforce Housing in March 2024 announced a memorandum of understanding with the city and the Building and Construction Trades Council to develop workforce housing on public lands using union labor.
That agreement laid the foundation for the new initiative, bringing a major investment from Resorts World, the single-largest employer of Hotel and Gaming Trades Council members, to supercharge the effort and expand its reach across the city.
The initiative will focus on large-scale projects across the five boroughs, RWNYC said, and the partnership will begin to invest in new housing developments in the “immediate term.”
At the time of the March 2024 announcement, the city said pension funds affiliated with BCTC members and other Building Trades unions, along with Cirrus, pledged more than $100 million in an initial fundraising stage. Cirrus expects to raise a total of over $400 million.
While a specific dollar amount from RWNYC was not disclosed, Resorts World officials said the organization has made a downpayment on a multimillion-dollar commitment over the next several years.
Kevin Jones, the chief legal and chief strategy officer at Genting Americas, RWNYC’s parent company, said the organization is committed to quickly addressing the housing crisis.
“Our partnership with Cirrus, labor pension funds and contractors will ensure there is union-financed, union-built, and union-lived in fair housing across the five boroughs. New Yorkers who power this city deserve nothing less, and we are excited to start investing in a solution that delivers for them,” Jones said.
Gary LaBarbera, the president of the BCTC of Greater New York, said, “The investment of union pension funds into the development of this workforce housing exemplifies labor’s historic role in boosting the middle class, generating family-sustaining careers, and providing our communities with economic stimulus. Hardworking New Yorkers, like our tradesmen and tradeswomen, deserve to live comfortably and raise their families in the city they serve.”
“With far too many New York City families living on the sharp edge of homelessness, this generation affordability crisis can only be solved with an unprecedented investment in building affordable housing,” said Queens Borough President Donovan Richards. “I couldn’t be more grateful to Resorts World New York City and Cirrus for this historic, union-centric agreement to build tens of thousands of units of housing to support working families, and I look forward to working with all our partners to create these homes as rapidly as possible.”