About us

ANHD’s HISTORY AND MISSION

ANHD is a membership organization of New York City nonprofit neighborhood housing groups engaged in community development and organizing throughout the city. ANHD’s mission is to ensure flourishing neighborhoods and decent, affordable housing for all New Yorkers. Leaders of the city’s community development corporations founded ANHD in 1974 to provide a unified voice for grassroots housing groups that focus on the needs of working-class and low-income neighborhoods. Over the past 36 years, our membership has grown from eight founding members to today’s 98 groups.

ANHD provides training, technical assistance and advocacy for and on behalf of our 98 neighborhood-based nonprofit housing organizations in New York City. Our goal is to assist those organizations to expand and preserve affordable housing opportunities for low- and moderate-income New Yorkers.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Our accomplishments in 2010 include:

• Winning an extraordinary commitment of public and private financing to promote “preservation transfers” of distressed predatory-equity buildings, with a city commitment of $750 million, and $100 million from private financial institutions.
• Working with ANHD member groups in the struggle for “preservation transfers” to take overleveraged buildings out of the speculative investment cycle, achieving milestone victories in the Bronx;
• Taking major steps toward achieving a city policy of permanent affordability of publicly subsidized housing with our report, “A Permanent Problem Requires a Permanent Solution.” In response to ANHD’s multiyear campaign, the city required permanent affordability in many key 2010 land-use decisions.
• Holding an ambitious, successful policy conference on “The Future of the CDC Movement in New York City”, analyzing our sector’s core strengths and obstacles, and challenging ourselves to become even more effective and competitive.
• Issuing our influential report “The State of Bank Reinvestment in NYC: 2009,” documenting a dramatic drop in banks’ community reinvestment activities and building support for passage of a NYC Responsible Banking Act.
• Graduating our inaugural class of 10 apprentice community organizers in the Center for Neighborhood Leadership (CNL), and strengthened the capacity-building and funding by our Initiative for Neighborhood and Citywide Organizing (INCO).