No single policy will solve New York City’s homelessness crisis on its own, but a little-known program with tremendous potential offers one of the most effective paths from shelter to permanent housing. Affordable Housing Services is a proven model that can help thousands of New Yorkers move into deeply affordable, stable homes, and it deserves a significant role in the incoming administration’s strategy to end homelessness.

At the end of last year, the Institute for Community Living, the New York City Department of Social Services, and Camber Property Group came together to acquire and open The Atlantic in East New York. What was once a vacant, unrealized market-rate building is now home to 183 families and individuals who are finally leaving shelter. For people who have faced years of discrimination and countless barriers in the private rental market, The Atlantic represents something rare: a rapid path to long-term housing stability. And this wouldn’t have happened without AHS.

The AHS program enabled the city and ICL to finance an entire empty market-rate building with a CityFHEPS contract, creating guaranteed rental income that allows ICL to pay the mortgage. Because of this structure, ICL leased every unit to formerly homeless households in under a year. That pace is almost unheard-of in traditional affordable housing development, where new homes can take nearly a decade to become available. It demonstrates what can happen when DSS, nonprofit providers and mission-aligned developers collaborate with urgency and a shared goal.

AHS also represents a creative shift in how the city uses its resources. DSS is traditionally responsible for emergency services and voucher administration. Under then-Commissioner Molly Wasow Park, the agency stepped up to help create the housing supply where these vouchers can be used. It is one of the most inventive uses of social service dollars New York City has seen in years, and during a historic housing shortage this creativity is essential.

Many New Yorkers experiencing homelessness need deeply affordable homes and a landlord committed to their long-term stability. Since nonprofits own and manage these buildings, they are uniquely positioned as landlords dedicated to the well-being of their residents. At ICL, our work does not stop at housing. We connect residents to behavioral health care, primary care and recovery supportive services. Our whole-health model ensures that housing stability is paired with the care people need to thrive.

AHS has already created more than 1,000 deeply affordable units, yet the need is far greater. Nearly 13,000 households in shelters hold vouchers but cannot find a landlord willing to accept them. AHS offers a direct and immediate solution for this part of the homelessness crisis. It creates new units faster than traditional development, reduces the financial and human costs of prolonged shelter stays, and provides stable homes for those who need them most. It is not the only answer to solving homelessness in New York City, but as a scalable pathway from shelter to permanent housing, it is one of the strongest tools we have.

To unlock its full potential, AHS must be part of a broader housing strategy that prioritizes nonprofit ownership and expands creative financing sources for supportive and affordable housing. As we scale housing production, we must also fund the on-site social services and create new funding streams for integrated housing and health care that make stability possible.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani has ambitious affordable housing goals. To achieve them, we do not need to start from scratch — we can build on what is working. Mayor Mamdani should invest in AHS, scale it and make it a central solution for New Yorkers who are ready to leave shelter for good.

Every New Yorker deserves what residents at The Atlantic now have: a front door, a key and a home to return to.

Jody Rudin is president and CEO of the Institute for Community Living. Rick Gropper is the founding principal of the Camber Property Group.

City officials have selected the team to develop an almost 300-unit mixed-use project in Hudson Square.

The Department of Housing Preservation and Development and the Department of Parks and Recreation have tapped Camber Property Group, Services for the Underserved and Essence Development to construct the project at 388 Hudson St., they announced Thursday.

The complex, called Hudson Mosaic, will feature affordable and supportive housing, along with a new recreation center that the Parks Department will own and operate. It will be the first city-led development to combine affordable housing with a Parks Department rec center and marks the latest push from Mayor Eric Adams’ outgoing administration to build more housing on public land.

Hudson Mosaic will rise on what is now an underutilized lot owned by the city’s Department of Environmental Protection, located between Clarkson and West Houston streets. The entirely affordable residential units will be for single adults, couples and families earning a range of low to moderate incomes, with at least 15% of units set aside for the formerly homeless. Services for the Underserved will provide on-site clinical and support services for residents.

The recreation center, meanwhile, will include an indoor pool with six lanes, a gym with a full-size basketball court, an indoor track and multipurpose rooms for a range of different programs. It will serve as an anchor for the city’s roughly $164 million investment in what it has dubbed the Clarkson Street Corridor, a plan the city announced in August that aims to transform this stretch of the West Village and Hudson Square into a hub for recreation, culture and fitness. Other amenities in Hudson Mosaic will include an outdoor terrace on the sixth floor, a computer room and a children’s playroom.

The development team and the city will now work to get the necessary public approvals for the project and secure construction financing. They are still working out many details, including the exact number of residential units, the area median income levels those units will accommodate, the size of the project and the expected total cost. HPD expects the project to take at least a few years to complete. Ahmed Tigani, acting commissioner of HPD, called Hudson Mosaic “a demonstration of HPD’s commitment to building homes and neighborhoods that give every New Yorker the chance to thrive and live a life with dignity.”

Increasing the city’s housing supply has been a major goal of the Adams administration, which has selected a flurry of development teams to build projects on publicly-owned sites in its final weeks. Officials recently tapped Slate Property Group, Xenolith Partners and Comunilife to construct a more than 600-unit mixed-use project at 4095 Ninth Ave. in Inwood. They also picked GFP Real Estate to turn 100 Gold St. in the Financial District into a project with 3,700 housing units.