#NYChousing Day 4: City Pensions Fund

Should the next mayor seek to expand the use of city pension funds to develop affordable housing? (PDF)

WHY IT MATTERS: Some candidates have suggested tapping the city pension funds as a way to maintain or increase the funding available to create and preserve affordable housing. The pension funds of New York City have some $137 billion in assets and might appear to be a valuable source of capital. However, the law limits the potential uses of these funds and restricts the mayor’s ability to control their use.

Read the #NYChousing Pensions brief or read the entire #NYChousing series to date. 

The #NYChousing series identifies 10 key affordable housing issues that will confront the next mayor of New York City, aiming to inform the public about the tradeoffs involved to the public debate by providing an objective analysis of the pros, cons, and questions the mayoral candidates should address head-on. Between August 20th and August 29th we will be releasing daily issue briefs about these key issues (see the topic schedule here.). We will also be hosting daily twitter conversations on the topic of the day at 11 AM ET. Follow us on Twitter at @FurmanCenterNYU.