Abad of CHI, mayor Adams and Park of DSS celebrate opening of 64-unit affordable housing site for women-led households

Bronx, NY Community Housing Innovations (CHI) CEO Ron Abad joined with mayor Eric Adams and NYC Department of Social Services (DSS) commissioner Molly Wasow Park to celebrate Women’s History Month with the opening of a new 64-unit site with affordable housing that will prioritize women-led households.

It is the first Affordable Housing Services (AHS) site to specifically prioritize renting units to women-led households. At this site, 64 units were created through the AHS initiative, which was launched last year to fast track permanent, affordable homes for people in shelter. With the opening of this building, the Adams administration has already created 460 affordable homes for New Yorkers in shelter through the AHS initiative.

A highlight of the program was remarks by Chanda James Govan, a single mom with an 18-year old autistic son and a 27-year old daughter. Govan was one of 44 families who have just moved into the new building managed by CHI. Her story of courage, gratitude and positivity moved everyone. She talked about the simple joys of having her own home, seeing the sunshine in the morning and raindrops on her window. “In the shelter it was dark, with no windows. I didn’t even know if it was snowing until i went outside,” she said.

“Community Housing Innovations believes that quality, affordable housing provides a firm foundation for a prosperous life, and all of us need a home of our own,” said Abad. “We celebrate and welcome home each family that has progressed in their housing journey, moving from shelter to a permanent home. All New Yorkers should be proud of this great accomplishment.”

“We are putting New York City’s women first and giving them homes to call their own so they can thrive,” said mayor Adams. “This new building is the latest in our efforts to create subsidized apartments for New Yorkers using our administration’s Affordable Housing Services initiative, and it marks more than 450 deeply affordable homes we have created for New Yorkers in shelter. It also builds on our record-breaking progress connecting New Yorkers in shelter to permanent, affordable homes.”

“As someone who started their career in the field of affordable housing, I’m incredibly proud of our expanding housing footprint at the Department of Social Services and the work we did to move a record number of households from shelter to stable homes in 2024,” said Wasow Park. “With the Affordable Housing Services initiative, this administration has found an innovative way to connect at-risk New Yorkers to housing in the face of a citywide vacancy rate of 1.4 percent.”

Located at 4180 Carpenter Ave. in the Bronx, the 64-unit building for mostly women-headed households is the latest AHS site, and the first to prioritize women-led households, to open as part of the Adams administration’s push to fast-track the creation of deeply affordable homes. With 460 units now open across AHS sites over the last year alone, DSS is working to expedite the opening of 568 more deeply affordable homes for New Yorkers in the shelter system with City Fighting Homelessness and Eviction Prevention Supplement (CityFHEPS) vouchers. DSS continues to develop the AHS pipeline, working with various not-for-profit providers to identify new high-quality proposals as the city looks to build on last year’s record-breaking progress connecting New Yorkers in shelter to permanent subsidized housing.