Living in New York has become increasingly expensive especially for a reason: the house. The administration of Zohran Mamdani is trying to increase the number of affordable apartments and yesterday, Tuesday, August 11, provided a first figure to measure what he is doing. In the first six months of 2026 the city financed the construction or conservation of 12.491 affordable homes.
It is a policy that can also affect Italians who live and work in New York. A part of the apartments at regulated prices is in fact assigned through NYC Housing Connect, the public system of the city’s property lotteries, to which you can participate even without being American citizens.
Before understanding how it works, however, we must explain what the 12.491 houses announced this week represent. They are not all new apartments already built and ready to be rented. The number includes both the financing of new buildings and the interventions with which the city maintains affordable housing already existing.
The 12.491 houses are not all the same or are intended for the same type of tenant. More than half is reserved for people and families in the lower income bands provided by the city’s programs: for a couple, in this case, the limit is about 68 thousand dollars total per year. Over 2 thousand houses are instead destined to people who have lived a state of homelessness.
These houses are not necessarily available. Financing is one of the first steps of a process that may take months or years. In order to give an idea of how many people actually entered a house, the administration provided a separate data: between January and June 9,970 New Yorkers have obtained affordable accommodation through the citizens programs, and 4.370 of them were previously homeless. It is therefore a different figure from the 12.491 houses financed in the first six months of the year and the two numbers are not directly comparable.
The aim of the administration is much wider. The Block by Block plan, presented in May, plans to build 200 thousand new affordable accommodation and preserve another 200 thousand in the next ten years. The city has provided $22 billion of investment in the housing sector over the next five years and also wants to reduce the bureaucratic times needed to build and assign new homes.
For those living in New York, one of the main ways to access apartments produced through affordable housing policies is NYC Housing Connect. On the portal are published lotteries for apartments available in the five boroughs. There are mainly houses for rent in regulated canon, but also opportunities to buy apartments, cooperatives and some types of houses at prices subjected to restrictions.
And this is where the system directly affects the Italian community. According to the city’s official directions, it is not necessary to register for Housing Connect to be U.S. citizens and migration status does not prevent applying. This does not mean that you are automatically entitled to a house.
Each lottery has its own requirements. The two main parameters are the total income and the number of people composing the family nucleus. On the Housing Connect portal you can enter these two data and check which batches are compatible with your situation. If an application is selected, you must then demonstrate compliance with the requirements through income documents and, when required, on the assets. The initial selection does not guarantee the allocation of the apartment.
For an Italian who works in New York means, for example, that having a regular income does not automatically exclude from affordable housing. The apartments are not only intended for people with very low incomes: the bands change from project to project and some opportunities also concern families with moderate or medium income. HPD provides a guide to understand the requirements and submit the application.
Not all 12.491 houses announced by the administration will end naturally on Housing Connect. In total there are also houses for the elderly, supportive housing, public building and existing apartments that are preserved as affordable. And programs like NYCHA or Section 8 follow different rules, even with regard to migratory status.
But if New York really succeeds in building the 200 thousand new affordable homes promises in the next ten years, they will also increase the apartments that will be made available to New Yorkers through the different programs of the city. For Italians living here, therefore, the question is not only about the real estate policies of the Mamdani administration: it can become concretely a way to look for a house at a price lower than that of the private market.
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