New York City Mayor Eric Adams recently announced the team who will lead his administration’s affordable housing strategy, including the appointment of former Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrión Jr. to the head the Department of Housing Preservation and Development as commissioner.
Adams rounded out his housing appointments by naming Jessica Katz as the city’s chief housing officer and Eric Enderlin to continue serving as the president of the Housing Development Corporation.
Adams also reiterated his support for several measures that will help the city build housing and reduce costs, including upzoning areas with robust infrastructure and around major transit hubs, as well as creating new housing supply around the five boroughs; legalizing basement apartment dwellings, Accessory Dwelling Units, and other small units; and converting underused hotels and office buildings into affordable housing.
“I said from day one of my campaign that we are going to end the housing affordability crisis, and this is the team of extraordinary leaders who will do just that,” said Adams. “This team has a clear mission: To create, preserve, and maintain safe, affordable housing that will build a more equitable city. I know they will ‘Get Stuff Done’ for New York and deliver the housing New Yorkers deserve.”
Carrión is the CEO and founder of Metro Futures LLC, a real estate development and consulting firm, whose focus is the development of affordable housing, mixed-use and economic development projects, and strategic planning in the New York City area.
Carrión has spent his professional career working to build and improve historically marginalized communities in the Bronx, in other areas of New York City, and around the country. Before starting Metro Futures, Carrión served as regional administrator for Region II of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, deputy assistant to President Barack Obama, and director of the White House Office of Urban Affairs.
“There is no greater responsibility we share than to build nurturing communities that provide families an affordable and safe place to live and an opportunity to move up the economic ladder,” said Carrión. “My parents came from Puerto Rico in the 1950s and moved into a tenement basement apartment in Williamsburg, then into NYCHA’s Jacob Riis Houses and HUD-assisted Haven Plaza on the Lower East Side, and then, with the help of an FHA mortgage, to our first home in the North Bronx. This was all possible because our city and country invested in us.”
His work resulted in the establishment of a White House Urban Policy Working Group and the first interagency review in 30 years of federal government policy and funding in U.S. urban and metropolitan areas.
Prior to his tenure in the federal government, Carrión served as Bronx borough president and as a member of the New York City Council. His work as borough president ushered in a new era of building and growth in the Bronx that increased investment in housing, schools, millions of square feet of commercial space, the new Yankee Stadium, and new businesses. Carrión also served as president of the National Association of Latino Elected Officials (NALEO), is an Aspen Institute Rodel Fellows alumnus, and has served on numerous boards for non-profit and government entities.
“We’re going to work hard to create neighborhoods of opportunity, where families have a chance to get ahead,” he said.
He also served as executive vice president of Stagg Group, a housing development and management firm, and senior advisor for Corporate Development to the CSA Group, the largest Hispanic-owned architecture and engineering firm in the U.S.
