By Polina Bakhteiarov, Laura Capucilli, Koray Duman, Palak Kaushal, Hallie Martin, Maulin Mehta, Neil Reilly, Laura Sara Wainer
Immigrants face disproportionate housing challenges in New York City, including lower-quality and overcrowded housing, unsafe conditions, and discrimination and segregation. Immigrants also face structural barriers like low wages from informal jobs, lack of tenant protections, insufficient support systems, and language barriers. Addressing housing justice is critical to ensuring equitable opportunities and fostering inclusive growth for this population, especially as the need to accommodate new arrivals is likely to grow as global crises continue to forcibly displace more people.
Lessons from Poland, Toronto, and Uruguay
Private Hosting for Immediate Arrivals: Poland, Toronto, United States
Private hosting has gained global traction as a compassionate and practical solution to housing new arrivals. Toronto’s Romero House is a support network for refugees, helping new arrivals navigate services and build relationships. Through Building Capacity for Private Sponsorship in the European Union (CAPS-EU), families in Poland housed 1.6 million refugees from Ukraine in 2022-2023. Two organizations in the United States, Welcoming America and Welcome.US, provide similar models. The first connects seniors to tenants, providing financial relief for homeowners and below-market housing options for tenants. The latter mobilized private sponsorships to resettle nearly 800,000 refugees over three years, significantly outpacing the federal government’s annual admissions. Home sharing bypasses the shelter system and provides a sense of stability and support as people navigate the asylum process. The model reduces the burden on local government, with local community groups leading efforts.
Transitional Housing with Supportive Services in Toronto
Toronto supports immigrants’ transition to long-term housing by leveraging existing housing stock, co-living models, and integration of support services. Refugee Houses provides funding to local community agencies to lease housing units, where residents have access to local services as well as opportunities for community-building, and they transition to longer-term housing much faster than in the existing shelter system. Toronto’s Thorncliffe Park neighborhood, known for being an “arrival city” for newcomers, works to integrate immigrants through a network of services delivered by local organizations.
Long-Term Integration: Cooperatives in Uruguay
The Uruguayan cooperative model addresses structural barriers to accessing housing for undocumented immigrants. The Uruguayan Federation of Cooperatives for Mutual Aid (FUCVAM) assists workers in the informal sector who would otherwise lack access to credit, subsidies, or secure land tenure. The mutual aid model provides members with construction training, equipping them with skills that open up formal employment opportunities. The cooperative model fosters solidarity, mutual support, and the development of organizational and management skills, offering crucial advantages to new arrivals.
▲ Areas of work and involvement of a housing cooperative in Uruguay
focused on habitat solutions for elderly members. Source: Cohabitar Carpe Diem
Big Swings for New York City
- Enshrine housing as a human right by enacting a New York State constitutional amendment for the universal right to housing.
- Expand rental housing, private hosting, and cooperative-living models upon immediate arrival to alleviate the burden on shelters while fostering social cohesion and long-term integration.
- Strengthen partnerships between government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and the private sector to coordinate responses to the housing needs of new arrivals.
Fellows
Polina Bakhteiarov
Laura Capucilli
Koray Duman
Palak Kaushal
Hallie Martin
Maulin Mehta
Neil Reilly
