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December 22, 2025
What did we do this year? Why did we do it?
The structure of our affordable homeownership program anticipates 3 generations for the full impact of the opportunity to be felt. An inverted “shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves,” if you will.
Initial purchasers of our homes immediately recognize significant equity value (shirtsleeves), their families thrive in their award-winning homes (more shirtsleeves) and the full home equity can be realized by their grandchildren (shirtsleeves all the way down). This instant disruption of intergenerational cycles allows space for long-term financial planning, fixed living expenses and true housing stability.
Every purchaser of our affordable homes has seen their housing expenses drop by around 50%. We underwrite them properly and build them well. As we all know, renting in Kingston is neither cheap nor reliable. By staying in their KCLB homes for generations, these new owners stabilize our community.
We trust that within 30 years, KCLB Homeowners will make their own decisions about the property they own free and clear, for better or worse. We are proud to offer these empowering opportunities.
As the only affordable homeownership provider in our City—and the most productive in the County—we have so far returned 15 affordable, historically renovated, single-family homes and 19 properties total to the tax roll in 5 years. I find a comforting symmetry that our most recent rehab resides on the same Avenue as our first: 174 Hasbrouck was sold in 2021, and a new family will soon call 488 Hasbrouck home.
It’s not much, maybe. But it is a solid start.
Our pivot to new construction kicks off with a trio of single-family, modular, affordable homes at 43 Teller, 35-37 Hanratty and 177 Murray. Each is intended to test a separate design, habitability and underwriting approach. Long-time fans of our work may be excited to learn we will soon offer a home for smaller household sizes than ever before. We have iterated this model all year long and are excited to launch it soon.
Next year, we will also expand into larger-scale developments. We won’t box over our weight and try anything too crazy—rather, we will continue to intentionally scale to serve the unmet needs of our community—but our pipeline is unlikely to involve single homes on many sites going forward. Once we have stabilized this model for new construction, we’ll have a firm foundation to accelerate our efforts further.
And, who knows? We may continue our affordable homeownership rehab efforts as well.
Following a 2023 Federal Supreme Court ruling, the passage of time will actually benefit our options in this case. Meanwhile, we wish the other affordable homeownership rehab efforts in our City a very speedy success to provide hard working households the option to continue to call Kingston home.
Our gratitude for our financial supporters is immeasurable. The State of New York’s Housing and Community Renewal remains our largest partner, without which we would be unable to continue our expansive work. Similarly, the Common Council’s most recent vote of confidence—awarding Federal COVID stimulus funds to our Keystone affordable rehab program—proved to be both critical and well founded, as we completed our 6th home under that program this year.
Rounding out this triptych of triplets, KCLB team members celebrated the birth of 3 sons in 2025. Regardless if they ever learn of or even ask about their parent’s contributions to our work here, the collective effects of what we accomplished over the past 12 months will carry forward throughout their lives.
15 families in new affordable homes is an amazing milestone for this scrappy experiment that it is my endless pride and joy to be a part of. Double-digits, Woo Hoo!!!
However…we live in hope, and in that spirit perhaps we should set a new goal.
If the number of Airbnb units in a community is the collective measure of otherwise vacant privately held homes, whose owners would rather speculate to the open market vs. offering stable, immediate and actual housing opportunities, then maybe we should aspire to directly offset that philosophy of short-term-gain with our efforts. Investors can speculate to make a buck; we’ll offset this with homes that continually provide for our community.
Kingston currently limits short-term-rental permits to 1% of total housing units. Currently, this is 106 units total, so we are 14% of the way there already…to be continued.
Should you find our uniquely important work worth supporting, please consider a donation. Thank you.
Very Sincerely,
Mike
If you like, read our prior annual summaries: 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024.