Podcast: How Democrats can harness grassroots energy

New York City’s housing crisis is no longer a slow‑burning emergency. It is a daily reality reshaping neighborhoods, displacing long‑time residents, and testing the limits of what it means to build a life in the nation’s largest city. Nowhere is this more visible than in Brooklyn, where the collision of rising rents and speculative development has pushed entire communities to the brink. This instability has also fueled a sharp rise in “doubling‑up” homelessness—families and individuals living in overcrowded, precarious apartments because they cannot afford housing of their own—a crisis affecting more than 200,000 New Yorkers each year.

This pattern is not unique to New York. As The Fulcrum recently reported in its coverage of Colorado’s housing crisis, “doubled‑up” homelessness is also surging in Denver and across the state, particularly among families who are one rent increase away from losing their homes. In that same report, Denver City Councilmember Sarah Parady mentioned social housing as a solution during an episode of The Fulcrum: Voices of a Nation, arguing that cities must move beyond reactive crisis management and toward publicly owned, permanently affordable homes that insulate residents from market volatility. Her message resonates powerfully in New York, where similar pressures are pushing tenants to the edge.