Housing Plan for a City of Immigrants

Immigration has always been a key force driving New York City’s growth and success. Newcomers from across the globe founded the colony that would later become New York and established the city’s significance in a growing young America. Immigrant New Yorkers fueled the city’s workforce and population growth throughout industrialization. In the 1970s, a massive resurgence in immigration to New York brought the city out of fiscal decline and led to its transformation into one of the most prosperous cities in the world.

Today, immigrants play a more integral role in the city than ever before. Yet public policy has often failed to meet their needs, depriving immigrant communities of equal access to opportunity and quality of life.

In the context of a federal attack on immigrant communities nationwide and a pandemic that has disproportionately impacted foreign-born New Yorkers, local policy must step up. New York needs to ensure the success and stability of its immigrant communities, not just to advance social equity but to secure the city’s future as a diverse, thriving metropolis.