From the Mill Brook Houses to Lafayette Boynton, families in the Bronx have always been on the front line of fighting for affordable housing. That fight has only taken on greater importance as the borough gets less and less affordable for low- and middle-income families who are struggling to make ends meet.

Thankfully, the borough of the Bronx – and all of New York – has taken a huge step forward in combating our state’s dire housing crisis, as the Governor and State Legislature recently approved $2.5 billion for affordable and supportive housing. With over 88,000 New Yorkers still homeless and more than half of statewide renters struggling to afford their homes, the housing funds could not have come at a more critical time.

The positive impact that affordable housing could have in the Bronx is astounding. In fact, New York’s affordable housing industry generated more than $54 billion in total economic impact across the state between 2011 and 2015, as we found in a recently released report. Most of that spending took place within New York City, where more than 83 percent of the state’s subsidized housing – or around 106,000 affordable units – was built and preserved during that five-year period.

As we continue pushing for resources to build and preserve affordability across the Bronx, advocates should remember that benefits of these developments are not limited to the units of housing they provide.

Our analysis also found that affordable housing production supports more than 65,000 construction-related jobs annually across the state, including hardhat jobs on the worksite and others involved in providing development materials. The same buildings also provided more than 9,000 permanent jobs each year, such as those for building service workers and employees of ground floor retail tenants in mixed-use projects.

Thousands are seeing the power of development firsthand in the Bronx, where Bronx Commons will soon provide 305 affordable homes alongside the world-class Bronc Music Hall, a 300-seat music and arts venue focused on the rooted history of the Bronx music scene. The project will also assist in driving growth through a landscaped public plaza and a wide array of job-creating retail spaces.

While these new funds will have an enormous impact, there is still much more work to be done to address New York’s housing crisis. As we continue to advocate in favor of safe, quality affordable housing for low and middle income families, we will continue to spread the word that well-planned projects provide the local spending and good-paying jobs that sustain neighborhoods and create pathways to the middle class – for residents of the Bronx and all New Yorkers.

Jolie Milstein is president and CEO of the New York State Association for Affordable Housing (NYSAFAH).

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Welcome to the Norwood News, a bi-weekly community newspaper that primarily serves the northwest Bronx communities of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham and University Heights. Through our Breaking Bronx blog, we focus on news and information for those neighborhoods, but aim to cover as much Bronx-related news as possible. Founded in 1988 by Mosholu Preservation Corporation, a not-for-profit affiliate of Montefiore Medical Center, the Norwood News began as a monthly and grew to a bi-weekly in 1994. In September 2003 the paper expanded to cover University Heights and now covers all the neighborhoods of Community District 7. The Norwood News exists to foster communication among citizens and organizations and to be a tool for neighborhood development efforts. The Norwood News runs the Bronx Youth Journalism Heard, a journalism training program for Bronx high school students. As you navigate this website, please let us know if you discover any glitches or if you have any suggestions. We’d love to hear from you. You can send e-mails to norwoodnews@norwoodnews.org or call us anytime (718) 324-4998.