Programs & Events
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Thursday, January 19th 2012
Passport to Opportunity: Innovative Strategies to Increase the Cost Effectiveness of Housing Choice
On Thursday, January 19th, the Furman Center’s Institute for Affordable Housing Policy convened over a hundred leaders from government, academia, community-based groups, and the private sector to discuss the federal Housing Choice Voucher Program in New York City and nationally.
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Thursday, November 10th 2011
Foreclosures & Neighborhood Decay: Implications for Housing and Criminal Justice Policy
In the last few years, the mortgage foreclosure crisis has uprooted millions of households and destabilized myriad communities around the country. News stories have reported growing concerns about the effects of these foreclosed homes on surrounding communities and on crime in particular, as buildings sit vacant and unmonitored. With funding from the National Institute of Justice, the Furman Center is undertaking a set of studies exploring how foreclosures affect neighborhood crime. On November 10th, the Furman Center hosted an invitation-only roundtable to present its research findings to date and to facilitate discussion of the implications for housing and criminal justice policy. Participants represented a broad array of stakeholders, including representatives from local government (including those working in both housing and criminal justice), nonprofit organizations, foundations, and academia. View the working paper on foreclosures and crime in New York City here.
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Thursday, September 8th 2011
Opportunities for Affordable Housing Preservation: Strategies for the Future
On September 8, 2011, the Institute for Affordable Housing Policy gathered leaders from across government, community-based non-profits, private firms and academia for a roundtable discussion to address the future of affordable housing in New York City. The Furman Center and Institute’s Subsidized Housing Information Project (SHIP) was launched on the morning of September 8, 2011 and served as the focal point of the roundtable discussion. The SHIP database provides extensive information on nearly 235,000 subsidized affordable housing units in New York City, consolidating information from 50 separate public and private data sources into one searchable website. This critical new resource will enable policymakers to make informed decisions and help ensure the continued availability of subsidized rental properties for low- and moderate-income New Yorkers.
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Wednesday, April 27th 2011
Driving a Hard Bargain: Parking Requirements for Residential Development
On Wednesday April 27, The Institute for Affordable Housing Policy convened over eighty leaders from government, academia, community-based groups, and the private sector to debate the importance of private off-street parking for new residential housing developments. Our panelists discussed the benefits and drawbacks of New York City’s minimum parking requirement for residential development, and how the requirements interact with the city’s sustainability and affordability goals.
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Friday, April 8th 2011
Free Parking? Managing the Public Parking Supply
Owned and managed by the city, on-street parking is the single largest source of parking in the city. On Friday April 8, the Institute for Affordable Housing Policy convened leaders from government, academia, community-based groups, and the private sector to debate the importance of on-street parking for residents and businesses in New York City.
Panelists discussed the challenges of optimizing curb use in New York City’s diverse neighborhoods, the correlation between available on-street parking and car ownership rates, and potential conflicts between parking policy and the city’s sustainability and affordability goals. The panelists also debated the viability and desirability of potential reforms to the city’s existing on-street parking policies, including residential parking permits, car-sharing programs, and demand-based pricing.
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Friday, February 4th 2011
Navigating Uncertain Water: Mortgage Lending in the Wake of the Great Recession
On February 4, 2011, the Furman Center’s Institute for Affordable Housing Policy hosted an invitation-only Roundtable called “Navigating Uncertain Waters: Mortgage Lending in the Wake of the Great Recession.” The event aimed to assist government, corporations, academics and non-profits address the challenge of mortgage credit need and availability by promoting informed discussion and providing evidence-based, objective research and analysis. The Roundtable included three robust discussion sessions and presentations on the current state of housing finance and recommendations for reform.
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Tuesday, November 16th 2010
New Solutions for Housing Extremely Low Income Households
On November 16, the Furman Center’s Institute for Affordable Housing Policy hosted its second policy breakfast in a two-part series, The Challenge of Housing Extremely Low Income Households in High-Cost Cities. Over 120 leaders from across New York City came together to explore innovative approaches to meeting the housing needs of the very poor.
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Friday, October 15th 2010
Housing Extremely Low Income Households: How Can Current Programs and Resources Better Meet Needs?
On October 15, the Furman Center’s Institute for Affordable Housing Policy hosted a policy breakfast that brought together practitioners, developers, researchers and government officials to examine how existing programs and resources can best meet the housing needs of extremely low income households. As the recession persists, many families in New York City have seen dramatic reductions in their incomes. Meanwhile, evidence suggests that rents for the most affordable apartments have fallen only minimally, leaving a growing number of families facing extremely high rent burdens and even homelessness.
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Tuesday, May 5th 2009
Foreclosures and Neighborhood Stabilization in NYC
Last May, the Furman Center convened leading housing researchers, policymakers, lenders, and nonprofit housing organizations to discuss how to best leverage public and private resources to reuse foreclosed properties in a manner that helps stabilize neighborhoods. A year later, in response to the worsening foreclosure crisis, the federal government has put in place new neighborhood stabilization programs that “provide emergency assistance to state and local governments to acquire and redevelop foreclosed properties that might otherwise become sources of abandonment and blight within their communities.” At the May 5th breakfast, we continued the conversation we began last May with a particular focus on how the Neighborhood Stabilization Programs can work best in New York City. View the Program.
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Thursday, February 12th 2009
A Crisis is a Terrible Thing to Waste: Transforming America’s Housing Policy
With support from the Rockefeller Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation, New York University’s Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy convened leading thinkers for the conference “A Crisis is a Terrible Thing to Waste: Transforming America’s Housing Policy” on Thursday, February 12 and Friday, February 13 2009 in order to reexamine federal housing policy, and its connections to the broader economy and other areas of federal policy.
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Wednesday, December 10th 2008
The Future of NYCHA
At the second breakfast our panel examined the pressing issues that will determine the future of NYCHA. The panel discussed both the challenges that threaten the city’s stock of public housing and the opportunities for creative solutions to help NYCHA preserve its developments, including the current economic downturn and the new Obama Administration.
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Friday, November 21st 2008
How to House the Homeless
On November 21, 2008 the Furman Center, in partnership with the Columbia Center for Homelessness Prevention Studies and with generous funding from the Russell Sage Foundation, invited a host of scholars and practitioners to discuss current issues and ideas in homelessness prevention.
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Wednesday, November 12th 2008
The Educational Outcomes of Children Living in NYCHA
The first breakfast in this series focused on the experiences of students living in NYCHA. A recent Furman Center-Institute for Education and Social Policy report found that children living in public housing perform worse in school than other poor children. The panel will review these findings and explore what can be done to improve the life chances of children living in public housing.
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Friday, May 2nd 2008
Transforming Foreclosed Properties into Community Assets
On May 2, 2008, the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy, with support from the Ford Foundation, convened leading housing researchers, policymakers, lenders, and nonprofit housing organizations to discuss how to best leverage public and private resources to reuse foreclosed properties in a manner that helps stabilize neighborhoods.
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Wednesday, April 9th 2008
The Future of Middle Class Housing
At the April 9th breakfast, we focused on the importance of middle-income households to the City’s economy, and the challenges the City faces in retaining them. We evaluated the successes and failures of previous City and State middle-income housing programs, and asked: what can be done by the public and private sectors to preserve and create housing for New York’s middle class?
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Wednesday, March 12th 2008
A Conversation on The Blueprint for American Prosperity
A special breakfast forum to discuss a recent initiative from the Brookings Institution. The Blueprint for American Prosperity: Unleashing the Potential of a Metropolitan Nation sets forth a framework for federal-state-metro partnerships to tackle today’s most potent policy issues - housing, transportation, education, the global economy, climate change and environmental policy.
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Thursday, December 6th 2007
Open Space Land Use and Development Issues
At the second breakfast in our Fall 2007 series, we assembled a panel to delve into the land use and development controversies that surround open space in New York. Panelists discussed policies to protect gardens, parks and other green spaces that the City might consider as it embarks on its ambitious PlaNYC 2030 green agenda, as well as strategies for funding the construction and maintenance of green space.
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Wednesday, November 7th 2007
The Costs and Benefits of Community Gardens and Open Space
Our first breakfast in the Fall 2007 series explored research and thinking on the costs and benefits of community gardens and open space more generally, including recent Furman Center research on the impact that gardens have on residential property values.
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Wednesday, May 2nd 2007
Thinking Outside the Block and Lot, Part 2
Our Spring 2007 Breakfast Series explored strategies for creating affordable housing on underutilized land. In May, we examined how non-profits are partnering with affordable housing providers to develop un-used FAR on property they own.
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Wednesday, April 4th 2007
Thinking Outside the Block and Lot, Part 1
Our Spring 2007 Breakfast Series explored strategies for creating affordable housing on underutilized land. Our April breakfast explored creative strategies for building affordable housing on publicly-owned, underutilized FAR.
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Monday, February 12th 2007
Housing and America’s Future
On Monday, February 12, 2007, the Furman Center hosted Jonathan Fanton, President for the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, for a major policy address, including an announcement that the MacArthur Foundation will invest $25 million in new research to build and deepen our knowledge about the ways that housing affects children, families, and communities.
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Thursday, May 4th 2006
Alternative Strategies to Preserve the Affordability of Low Income Housing Tax Credit Developments
Our third breakfast of the Spring 2006 series featured Naomi Bayer (Director, New York Partnership Office, Fannie Mae), Bill Frey (Executive Vice President and Eastern Regional Director, Enterprise Foundation [invited]), Bill Traylor (President, Richman Housing Resources), and Adam Weinstein (President and CEO, Phipps Houses Group).
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Monday, April 24th 2006
Affordable for Whom? Meeting Diverse Housing Needs in High-Cost Cities
As housing prices rise in many big cities, the need for innovative strategies—and subsidies—grows more pressing. At the same time, the range of households who face financial difficulties purchasing or even renting a home continues to widen. How do municipalities balance the need for affordable housing at all income levels, and what are the implications and opportunities in communities? What is the appropriatebalance of subsidy and tax dollars for low-, moderate-, and middle-income development, and what is an appropriate income mix for a healthy community? How do public agencies address the needs of higher-income households while continuing to serve those of the lowest-income ones? This conference will address these questions inhousing markets such as New York City, San Francisco, and Boston—cities in which the question is not “is this unit affordable” but, rather, “for whom is this unit affordable?”
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Thursday, April 6th 2006
Strategies to Preserve the Affordability of Expiring HUD-Assisted and Mitchell Lama Housing
Our second breakfast in the Spring 2006 series featured Marc Jahr (Vice President, Citibank Community Development Bank), John Kelly (Partner, Nixon Peabody LLP), Deborah VanAmerongen (Director, Multifamily Housing Division, United States Department of Housing and Urban Development), and Emily Youssouf (President, New York City Housing Development Corporation.)
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Thursday, March 9th 2006
Department of Housing Preservation and Development Commissioner Shaun Donovan
Our Spring 2006 breakfast series began with New York City’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development Commissioner Shaun Donovan. Commissioner Donovan spoke about his agency’s efforts to deal with the “expiring use” problem. Numerous federally- and state-subsidized housing developments in New York City and around the country are now at risk of converting to market rate housing as the long-term subsidies and agreements that have guaranteed affordability expire.
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Thursday, January 19th 2006
Competing Approaches to Inclusionary Zoning
Our third breakfast in the Fall 2004 series featured Ronald Moelis, a principal of L & M Equity Participants, who spoke about the competing approaches to inclusionary zoning proposed by Councilmember Yassky and the City Planning Commission from the perspective of a financer and developer of both market rate and affordable housing.
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Friday, December 9th 2005
Opposition to Urban Density vs Affordable Housing
Our Fall 2005 series continued with three panelists discussing the major proposals for resolving the tension between opposition to density on the one hand and affordable housing on the other. These proposals include rezoning of non-residential land such as manufacturing zones; upzoning of underused residential land; and reuse of obsolete facilities.
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Friday, November 18th 2005
Preserving Neighboorhood Character vs. Affordable Housing
In our first breakfast of the Fall 2005 series, our panelists considered the extent and nature of the tension between the goal of preserving neighborhood character and the need to make housing affordable. Three speakers discussed their particular experiences with this tension.
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Thursday, April 21st 2005
VU2005: The Economics of Residential Real Estate
On April 21, the New York Times and the Furman Center hosted the VU2005 real estate conference at NYU School of Law’s Vanderbilt Hall. Panelists included Richard Ferrari, Senior Vice President at Prudential Douglas Elliman, Sharon Baum, Senior Vice President at The Corcoran Group, Rafael Cestero, Deputy Commissioner of Development at HPD, and Anne Bagamery, Senior Editor of Personal Finance from the International Herald Tribune.
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Tuesday, April 12th 2005
Possible Solutions to Predatory Lending
The second breakfast in our Spring 2005 series featured an in-depth discussion of, and possible solutions to, predatory lending. Participants included Michael Bosnick, Assistant Commissioner, NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development; Barbara Kent, Director of Consumer Services and Financial Products, State of New York Banking Department; Mark A. Willis, Executive Vice President and Director of JP Morgan Chase’s Community Development Group; and Josh Zinner, Director of the Foreclosure Prevention Project of South Brooklyn Legal Services.
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Thursday, March 10th 2005
The Magnitude and Dimensions of Predatory Lending
In the first breakfast of our Spring 2005 series, Sarah Ludwig, Executive Director of Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project, Phyllis Rosenblum, Senior Vice President of Community Development at HSBC Bank, and Sarah Gerecke, Chief Executive Officer of Neighborhood Housing Services tackled the magnitude and dimensions of predatory lending.
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Monday, March 7th 2005
Barriers to the Development of Housing in New York City
The Furman Center brought together two panels of experts to critique the recommendations included in Reducing the Cost of Housing Construction in New York City: Update 2005 to discuss more broadly the appropriate balance between the need for lower‑cost housing and the need for zoning, environmental and health and safety regulations.
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Monday, December 6th 2004
Constitutional Constraints on Local Governments’ Exercise of Eminent Domain
Inspired by the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent grant of certiorari in Kelo v. City of New London, New York University’s Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy, the Municipal Arts Society and the law school’s Real Estate & Urban Policy Forum (REUPF) presented a mini-conference on the controversy over the “public use” requirement as it relates to government takings.
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Wednesday, December 1st 2004
NY’s Department of City Planning’s Strategic Plan
Our second breakfast in the Fall 2004 series featured Amanda Burden, Chair of the Department of City Planning, who spoke about the Department’s Strategic Plan. The plan highlights rezoning initiatives throughout the City, including the Williamsburg/Greenpoint waterfront rezoning that would be subject to Councilmember Yassky’s proposal.
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Thursday, November 18th 2004
Planning in the Digital Age
This conference addressed the ways in which public agencies, community development organizations, and research and policy organizations are using technological advances to improve their planning and policy-making processes.
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Tuesday, October 19th 2004
The Affordable Housing Zoning District proposal
Our first breakfast of the Fall 2004 series featured Councilmember David Yassky, who spoke about his Affordable Housing Zoning District proposal.
