New York City is built, operated, and maintained by working people.

Union construction workers build housing, schools, hospitals, transit systems, and infrastructure. Teachers and nurses educate our kids and care for our loved ones. Public servants keep our streets safe and city going. These individuals, our middle class, represent the foundation of New York.

But that foundation is cracking.

Despite concerns about wealthy New Yorkers fleeing our city, the real exodus is happening in the middle. Middle class families account for the largest share of New Yorkers leaving our state, with Black New Yorkers leaving the state more than double the rate of white New Yorkers.

Schools cannot retain teachers, hospitals lose nurses, neighborhoods lose long-time residents, and small businesses close their doors. This threatens the long-term social and economic vitality of our communities. And housing access and costs are at the core of this.

As New York City ushers in new leadership, we have real opportunity to pursue housing policies where good jobs, stable housing, and real paths to the middle class reinforce one another.

A recent city Economic Development Corp. report found over the last six years, middle income households have seen the steepest increase in cost burden of any income group. Expenses that once took up 88% of household income now consume nearly all of it. Rent, child care, and everyday living costs have surged, while wages have failed to keep pace.

Simultaneously, moderate- and middle-income families are falling through gaps left by housing and social safety net programs. Rigid income and eligibility rules leave many essential workers earning too much to qualify for support and too little to afford market-rate housing. A recent study shows that 39% of eviction orders between 2021 and 2024 have been directed at moderate-income households.

Fortunately, the blueprint for a solution already exists.

More than 70 years ago, Mitchell-Lama program helped rebuild New York’s middle class by creating thousands of affordable homes for working families while supporting good-paying union construction jobs in the process. That successful model recognized a simple truth: a truly affordable city needs accessible housing for working families, paired with good jobs. Today, an estimated 30% of that original housing stock has been lost to privatization and this effective tool for middle class stability has been allowed to fade.

Mayor Mamdani’s recent meeting with President Trump to discuss federal funding for these programs was an encouraging sign, and a welcome acknowledgement of this unmet need hurting New York’s working families. But there is still more opportunity to take immediate action on a local level that is scalable and effective. This is an issue we must prioritize and act swiftly on.

Many members in the building trades grew up in Mitchell-Lama housing themselves. They watched their parents build and serve this city and then went on to do the same. Their path to the middle class was paved through stable housing, predictable costs, and the financial stability necessary to put down roots. Today, those same workers want to partner with the city to help build housing that will provide next generation of working families the same opportunity to build a future in New York.

We cannot continue to price working families out. We must rebuild New York’s middle class by aligning housing policy, workforce development, and long-term investment.

This pursuit of economic justice built New York’s middle class once before. With the right leadership and the will to act, it can do so again.

LaBarbera is the president of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York.

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