The number of people experiencing homelessness in New York City has reached unprecedented levels since the Great Depression. On average in July 2025, according to the Coalition for the Homeless, 104,000 people slept in city shelters on a given night, the highest number recorded. Thousands more people are unsheltered while living on subway cars, in parks, or in parked vehicles. If we consider the tens of thousands who are doubled up with family members or friends, the number of New Yorkers experiencing unstable housing is likely in excess of 350,000 (Coalition for the Homeless, 2025).
This is not just a local tragedy; it is a national crisis. However, responses continue to be modest, piecemeal, and reactive. If we are serious about dignity and equity, it is time for a New Deal 2.0; a bold, large-scale program to be adopted and financed for housing, build social supports, and develop innovation within all sectors.
The reasons for this crisis are well chronicled. New York City’s vacancy rate for affordable housing is less than 1%. In the last several decades, the city has lost more than one million affordable units. Rent has risen to astronomical heights while wages for low-income workers have stagnated, leaving households only one crisis away from eviction. Families enter shelters primarily for eviction, overcrowding, and domestic violence, while unsheltered adults wrestle with untreated mental illness, substance use, and/or chronic disability.
The racial disparities are alarming. While Black residents are less than one-third of the city’s population, 56% of shelter heads of households are Black, 32% latino, and 7% are white. Homelessness is far more than just poverty; it is the predictable result of discriminatory housing policies, disinvestment, and systemic racism.
This is a vast-scale challenge that cannot be tackled through incremental fixes. Building more shelter beds and providing temporary vouchers are band-aids, not cures. We need to prevent homelessness when it starts, tackle root causes, and support long-term housing stability. Normal business operations will not work when the 21st century realities of climate displacement and shifts in the labor market shift the landscape.
A New Deal 2.0 would begin with a massive investment in profoundly affordable housing, comparable in magnitude to the infrastructure projects from the 1930s. Federal and state governments must fund the construction and preservation of permanent, subsidized units, and cities must convert vacant land and currently under-utilized buildings to housing. Effective tenant protections, community land trusts, and “right of first refusal” laws would protect residents from gentrification and displacement.
Housing must be considered a human right. Extended housing vouchers that actually keep up with market rent and a legal basis for extremely low-income households are necessary. Universal eviction prevention, with legal aid, mediation, and emergency rental assistance, would help families avoid becoming homeless in the first place. Wraparound supports, including mental health care, addiction treatment, job training, and child care, should be integrated into housing, utilizing the “housing first” model that has already been tested and proven successful across the country.
Innovations across sectors need to be part of the solution. Cities should accept modular and prefabricated housing, adaptive reuse (i.e., buildings that were office spaces are transformed into housing), and green standards around construction. Social enterprises can begin to employ formerly homeless individuals in home building, energy retrofitting, and maintenance support. Public-private partnerships should be considered alongside strict oversight to help unlock capital at scale. A national homelessness data platform could measure shelter use, unsheltered counts, and housing outcomes in real time to measure transparency and accountability.
Equity must be at the forefront. Investment should happen in communities that were the most harmed by redlining, segregation, and disinvestment. Reparative approaches, community land trusts, and direct subsidies can rebuild neighborhoods that were robbed of that wealth by racist policy. New Deal 2.0 needs to have an eye toward those populations who still suffer the most: Black and brown families, survivors of domestic violence, LGBTQ+ youth, and those who have gotten out of jail are at the top of those lists. At the same time, the design of any housing should incorporate climate resilience and readiness as extreme weather and natural disasters drive more and more families from their homes.
The implications of such a mobilization would be moral and economic. Multiple studies show that stable housing provides necessary cost savings in healthcare, policing, and emergency services. For every dollar spent on homelessness prevention, a multiplicative amount is saved downstream. And clearly, the economic costs are one source of justification, but the moral responsibility is clear: in one of the wealthiest nations of all time, allowing homelessness to rise to Great Depression levels is a national shame.
New York City and other cities must lead the way and test innovative methods and push federal and state leaders to commit to this needed scale of change. Community-based organizations, religious leaders, and those with lived experiences must be involved in any policy formulation and oversight, and decision-making. For too long, those who are most impacted directly by homelessness have been divorced from decision-making; in New Deal 2.0, that has to be made right.
The crisis of homelessness affects each of the other major issues we face in America: inequality, healthcare, racial justice, and climate change. It is not ancillary; it is central. If we do not act, the human costs and social harms will only increase. But if we summon the vision and resolve for a New Deal 2.0, we will have recovered dignity, empowered democracy, and built a more equitable and resilient nation.
If America can mobilize for roads, dams, and bridges, we can and need to mobilize for homes. Let a New Deal 2.0 be the legacy of our time.
Dr. Antoine Lovell is a member of the Research Council for the National Alliance to End Homelessness. His work focuses on housing, homelessness, and equity, with a commitment to advancing innovative solutions that center the voices of those most affected.
New York actually good at times and try to help people it’s the people in the buildings even if sometimes the buildings nice..Some not all they do all types of stuff to people who need the support to rebound. There are male workers that make women feel like they coming to the building to see them. They personalize everything and I was told they do sex trafficking in some facilities and the security allow it. Some of the buildings nice however because so many people in NYC have issues with” the man “no matter how much loot you have and I mean that! they have been know to use that time to try and frame or just get at innocent people who minding they business and just tryna ?……Be lucky. if you can really find a good space because hunny!!!!!!!…everyone you see on the streets is not there because of what you think okay..!!!!!!!