It can be easy to get sucked into the horse race dynamic of politics. I’m sure more than a few of us were guilty of this over the past few months.

Who’s ahead in the polls? Who landed the best verbal haymaker at the debate? Whose campaign commercial moved us the most?

But you also have to concentrate on what’s truly important to everyday families trying to get by – even if it sometimes can get lost in the election season noise. 

That’s been my focus as Queens Borough President. It’s what I owe the 2.4 million residents who call “The World’s Borough” home. 

And to me, the most overlooked and all-encompassing issue of our time is, and has always been, the affordability of our city. 

Affordability: For some in elected or government office, it’s a buzzword or a campaign slogan. For families across Queens, though, it’s what every aspect of their lives revolves around.

From income inequality to food insecurity and beyond, the affordability crisis, exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, has left gaping holes in our communities and our borough economy. But there can be no comeback, no recovery from this painful period, if we fail to ensure our families can afford the most basic of human rights: Four walls and a roof.

Right now, New York City is in the throes of a housing crisis, and the evidence is everywhere. 

According to a September 2022 report on the Queens rental market by MNS Real Estate, the average rental price for a two-bedroom home in Astoria, for example, is $3,425 – up $200 since June and about $800 more than the average price in Jackson Heights. 

We’ve seen a surge in evictions since the pandemic-inspired moratorium on them was lifted in March, with more than 158,000 filings in New York City according to Eviction Lab.

Meanwhile, the estimated odds of winning an affordable housing unit through the NYC Housing Connect lottery system is nearly 1 in 600. 

It is clear that more must be done to address this housing crisis. To me, it’s also clear that we need to build our way out of it. 

Demand for housing in Queens and throughout New York City has exceeded supply for too long. If we’re going to continue to be a city that welcomes immigrants, including our newest asylum-seeking neighbors, with open arms, that must change.  

Here in Queens, we’re starting to see the fruits of our labor. Down in Far Rockaway, developments like Rockaway Village, Arverne East, Resilient Edgemere, and the Beach Channel Apartments will add thousands of affordable housing units to our depleted stock.

On the mainland, thousands more affordable units are in the varying stages of development between the design phase to the ribbon cutting. Just two months ago, we cut the ribbon on the Kira in Jamaica, giving nearly 150 families the opportunity to call that community their home at an affordable rate. 

Many of these projects are also being built to the highest standards of energy efficiency, sustainability, and resiliency, as we guard against the impacts of climate change that will only exacerbate our affordability crisis.

I’m proud to champion these developments because I believe to my core that all our neighbors, regardless of their socioeconomic status or their ZIP Code, deserve to put a roof over their heads at a price they can afford. 

For that very reason, we need to go beyond the Rockaways and Southeast Queens, where we’ve historically seen the most investment in terms of City subsidies for housing, and ensure smart, affordable housing is built in every part of our great borough. 

That’s why over in Astoria we’re working with our government and community partners to hammer out the most beneficial deal on Innovation QNS – a massive $2 billion project that is slated to bring more than 1,100 units of affordable housing to the area, with hundreds of those homes being available at rents of less than $1,000 per month. I look forward to a positive resolution on Innovation QNS with the City Council, which will soon vote on this project. 

And as communities like Ridgewood, Long Island City, and Forest Hills continue to grow, we must act now as a city to keep them affordable for the families who have lived there for generations.

We must build. Now. 

Failure to understand this reality would be a failure to understand the basic law of supply and demand, and would result in additional displacement of those who have been struggling for so long to find affordable places to live.

The future of the five boroughs depends on the hard-working families who make our city run being able to afford to call it home. The status quo simply isn’t good enough. 

Donovan Richards is the Borough President of Queens. This is part of our “Voices from the Boroughs” series featuring the current cohort of borough presidents.

Photo by: Francisco Azola