FROM TINA COREA, NORTHEAST REGIONAL PROGRAM OFFICER, ASSET FUNDERS NETWORK

MAY 2025

AFN Short Take is a blog series highlighting insights and perspectives from recent AFN programming events.
Across the country, the housing crisis is reaching critical levels. Rents are rising, federal supports are shrinking, and both affordable rental and ownership options remain out of reach for too many. While the gap between renter and homeowner wealth remains stark, the urgent need today is for practical tools that stabilize families, reduce financial strain, and, over time, lay the groundwork for wealth-building pathways.

On May 14, 2025, AFN’s New York, New Jersey and Connecticut Chapters, together with Philanthropy New York, convened funders, housing practitioners, and policy leaders across the region for a virtual gathering to explore how philanthropy can advance solutions that meet this moment. Building on a Fall 2024 AFN webinar that surfaced growing momentum around renter-focused strategies, this session elevated community-rooted models that address the interconnected needs of renters, small landlords, and aspiring homeowners alike.

The discussion featured four leaders working across policy, philanthropy, housing development, and community advocacy to advance tangible entry points for asset funders:

A Crisis of Supply, Affordability, and Access to Opportunity

According to the Survey of Consumer Finances, U.S. homeowners have 40 times more household wealth than renters: $254,900 compared to just $6,270. In the New York tri-state region, renters account for 78% of households in Newark, 74% in New Haven, 71% in Hartford, and 69% in New York City.

With high mortgage rates, limited housing supply, and deep affordability challenges, many families—whether renting, owning, or trying to transition between the two—face significant barriers to financial stability. But even amid these constraints, households are making regular housing payments, building community ties, and seeking opportunities to improve their financial futures.

Panelists shared models that recognize this complexity and offer a range of solutions, including credit building, financial coaching, shared ownership, and preservation strategies, that meet households where they are and support long-term financial security. Their work provided clear entry points for philanthropic action.

Credit as a Building Block

Rachel Levy-Culler of CBA spotlighted rent reporting as a powerful yet underutilized tool for financial inclusion. “Less than 5% of renters have their rental payments reported to credit bureaus, yet we know it works,” she explained. “In our pilot studies, renters with the lowest scores saw average increases of 32 points. And for people with no score at all, rent reporting made them scoreable—often in the prime tier.”

CBA partners with affordable housing providers to embed rent reporting into broader financial capability efforts. “Rent is often the largest recurring payment someone makes. Reporting it can be transformational, especially when paired with coaching and wraparound support,” she noted. Improved credit scores can help renters qualify for better-priced housing, reduce borrowing costs on existing debt, and open access to other financial tools, including the ability to secure a loan or mortgage in the future. Over time, this can free up income that can be redirected toward savings, investment, or other asset-building goals.

From Foreclosures to Foundations

Gregory Good shared how Invest Newark is working to reclaim housing as a wealth-building tool for low- and moderate-income residents. “We’re using the city’s land bank to take formerly foreclosed properties and transfer them to local developers, many of whom are Minority or Women-Owned Business Entities, to create affordable homeownership opportunities,” he said.

He highlighted Newark’s layered approach: “We’re offering soft second mortgages to close appraisal gaps, launching a rent-to-own pipeline for the Housing Choice Voucher Program, and exploring shared equity and community land trust models. It’s about creating systems that not only get people into homes—but keep them there long-term.” Good also emphasized the structural context: “By 2035, the New York metro region will be short nearly a million housing units. We can’t just build our way out—we have to innovate our way through.”

As many cities grapple with vacant and foreclosed properties, redevelopment becomes essential and requires coordination across finance, development, credit building, and municipal systems to expand both rental and ownership opportunities.

Funding Systems, Not Stopgaps

Stephanie Greenwood of the Victoria Foundation brought a funder’s lens to the conversation, emphasizing the need to move beyond one-offs and outlining the Victoria Foundation’s efforts to use a systemic economic justice lens. “There’s no single strategy that can solve the systemic mismatch between income and housing costs,” she said, citing data from the Regional Plan Association Newark Housing Profile report. “We’ve seen a 27% increase in housing costs in Newark over the last 20 years—while incomes have declined by more than 10%.”

Greenwood underscored how investor ownership has compounded the challenge, adding perspective based on Rutgers Center on Law, Inequality and Metropolitan Equity study, Who Owns Newark?: “Half of all 1–4 family unit purchases in Newark over the last five years went to institutional buyers. That’s a dramatic shift in who controls housing, how accessible it is, and how patterns of land ownership relate to civic life.”

Given Newark’s market conditions, Greenwood emphasized Victoria’s interest in expanding the definition of wealth building for renters. “We’re exploring shared equity models, employee ownership, and even community-owned utilities—approaches that redistribute ownership and power,” she said. While still early in strategy development, Victoria is engaging peer funders across the AFN network to pursue collaborative, community-rooted solutions.

Preservation as Protection: Supporting Small Landlords and Renters

Khaatim Sherrer El closed the session with a stark reminder of what’s at stake. At Clinton Hill Community Action, housing counselors act as triage workers in an overwhelmed system, securing public benefits, negotiating with landlords, and helping residents avoid eviction. “We’re the emergency room of the housing system,” he said. “And we’re not equipped for the volume of crisis we’re seeing.”

In particular, he lifted up an emerging strategy with real promise: “We’re working with legacy homeowners—many of them older adults—who own multi-family homes. By helping them with estate planning and home maintenance, we’re keeping them housed and, at the same time, preserving affordable rental units for community members they know and trust.”

Where Local Innovation Meets National Potential

Across the country, local innovations like these are proving ripe for replication given the right capital and policy conditions. In Massachusetts, Compass Working Capital is piloting an opt-out expansion of the federal Family Self-Sufficiency (FSS) program, enabling HUD-assisted renters to build escrow savings as their income rises, paired with financial coaching to support long-term goals. The Enterprise Renter Wealth Creation Fund, backed by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, gives low-income renters a cash-back rent rebate and a share of capital proceeds from property sales or refinancing—placing renters directly in the capital stack. These emerging models show how targeted philanthropic investment can help scale local solutions into national strategies.

 

For funders looking to explore additional resources, we recommend: Who Owns Newark Report, and The Aspen Institute’s From Rent to Riches? A Profile on the Wealth and Financial Well-Being of Renter Households. This blog is based on insights shared during a recent webinar hosted by the Asset Funders Network.