Views from the Northwest Bronx

The Northwest Bronx Resource Center’s beloved ASK UNHP sessions turned 5 this year! Initially launched in 2021 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, ASK UNHP still remains relevant today, connecting Bronx residents to valuable financial and housing resources. Since its initiation, ASK UNHP has evolved from online-only sessions to hybrid events, allowing attendees to gather information in person and follow up on referrals to our partner organizations, which provide specific financial coaching and services to meet individuals’ needs. Recently, ASK UNHP partnered with ARIVA, a free tax preparation and financial counseling service based in the Bronx, to provide a bilingual webinar for small businesses.

The Multifamily Water Assistance Program was approved by the New York City Water Board in 2016, scoring a win for the affordable housing sector by offering a $250 credit per residential unit on water and sewer bills.  Savings from the program have allowed UNHP to reinvest in multifamily properties and install additional cost-saving technologies, such as LED lighting in public areas and roof upgrades. In our latest report, Every Nickel Counts: Recommendations to Preserve Distressed Affordable Multifamily Housing, we emphasize the rising costs of water and the devastating effects this has on affordable housing. Our recommendation to address this challenge is to increase funding from $16.25 million to $100 million, and increasing the per unit credit to $500.

University Neighborhood Housing Program has supported IPED Fellows from Fordham University’s International Political Economy and Development Program since 2006. This year marks 20 years since the relationship began, bringing former Peace Corps Volunteers to the Bronx through the prestigious Paul D. Coverdell Fellows Program. The program offers Returned Peace Corps Volunteers the opportunity to continue their service while pursuing an advanced degree. In partnership with Fordham, Fellows are offered a full tuition scholarship and a Bronx community internship. UNHP is one of the partners and has benefited from receiving RPCVs, during a 3-semester-long commitment, who served all over the world, from Ecuador to Madagascar and beyond. Over the years, Fellows have contributed to UNHP’s work through their commitment to service by providing invaluable skills in data analytics, research, writing, and more. In particular, they have been instrumental in advancing our advocacy efforts in the Northwest Bronx by using their skills to assist with community outreach events, track energy conservation efforts, write detailed reports on UNHP’s affordable housing preservation, and contribute to crucial research.

20 years ago, with the labor of a fleet of interns, UNHP manually looked up more than a dozen data points for each of the 7,175 Bronx multifamily buildings and issued our first Building Indicator Project (BIP) database release to multifamily lenders. Since that time, the BIP, a tool of UNHP’s Multifamily Research and Action Center (MFRAC), is mostly automated and shared quarterly with over 100 multifamily lenders, community organizations, and regulators. The database and its scoring system identify NYC multifamily buildings likely to be in physical and/or financial distress. The BIP has aggregated over a decade of data on 70,000+ rental buildings in the city, with more than 120 data points tracked per building.  Non-profits use BIP to identify distressed buildings in their catchment areas, organize them, build portfolios by landlord or lender, and conduct analysis to support advocacy. Financial institutions use the data to monitor properties in their lending portfolios and hold their borrowers accountable for conditions. During CRA examinations, regulatory bodies review BIP scores for buildings within a bank’s portfolio to ensure that loans meet community needs. The MFRAC holds yearly lender roundtables to share citywide analysis of BIP findings and trends in NYC Multifamily real estate. The integrity of the data played a significant role in identifying the multifamily buildings that were part of the collapsed Signature Bank portfolio. Pictured above: A big thank you for the UNHP BIP Masters through the years- Gregory Jost, VaNessa LaNier, Jacob Udell, and Ana Peña! – all under the direction of Jim Buckley, UNHP’s Executive Director