New York City’s Famed Cooperative Housing Is Under Threat
The Bronx’s Amalgamated Housing Cooperative opened in 1927 and has provided thousands of families with affordable housing since then. Now it’s facing an existential threat.
The Amalgamated Housing Cooperative in the Bronx, New York, New York. (CEANYC / Twitter)
The North Bronx’s Amalgamated Housing Cooperative opened in 1927, developed and funded by the trade union movement. Today, it is the oldest limited equity housing co-op in the United States, providing thousands of New Yorkers with affordable homes.
Yet how long it’ll survive is now under question. Underinvestment and the current economic climate mean 1,482 households at the Amalgamated face an uncertain future — eight hundred of them could have their cooking gas shut off on June 30.
Addressing New York State politicians on March 1, the Amalgamated’s treasurer and lifelong resident, Ed Yaker, said the co-op is being driven toward bankruptcy by a perfect storm of rising costs, interest rates, and repair backlogs caused by historic underfunding. But he insisted the “cause of death” would be administrative negligence.
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