In 1983 New York City municipal employee pension funds made the historic decision to commit 2% of their assets for the rehabilitation and construction of affordable housing. These were known as economically targeted investments.
During the following 10 years that each of us served as New York City comptroller, we used this funding commitment as a powerful tool to build and upgrade tens of thousands of units of affordable housing. The pension funds’ investments in renovating rental housing created jobs, rescued some of the city’s most dilapidated neighborhoods and supported both small for-profit and not-for-profit owners.
This initiative, successful for decades, can play a similar role today in
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