Through policy change and new development, two alumnae are working to solve the housing crisis one unit at a time.
For Rachel Fee ’97, the logic behind her work at the New York Housing Conference (NYHC) is simple: “We have Social Security for when you grow old. We have food stamps for when you are hungry. We need a safety net for housing.”
For nearly two decades, Fee has been working to provide “decent, stable, affordable housing” for more New Yorkers through policy change, addressing the city’s growing demand for affordable units and skyrocketing rents — the worst shortage since the late 1960s and what Mayor Eric Adams has called a “housing emergency.” As executive director of the New York City– based nonprofit, Fee and her colleagues analyze public policy and work with legislators to “find solutions,” she says.
Fee, who graduated with a dual major in political science and peace and conflict studies, got “bit by the housing bug” as a project manager for New York City’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, working on a supportive housing loan program for the formerly unhoused. Soon promoted to the agency’s director of strategic planning then federal affairs, Fee worked in the Bloomberg administration for eight years before moving into advocacy, successfully leading an effort to double capital investment in the city’s affordable housing plan under Mayor Bill de Blasio.
In her current position since 2014, Fee often serves as NYHC’s spokesperson in the media and works with policymakers — including Mayor Adams and Governor Kathy Hochul — to advance legislation that can alleviate the crisis, which, says Fee, is especially dire in Black and Latinx communities.
“Exclusionary zoning practices that limit the number of multifamily or low- income units that can be built in certain neighborhoods perpetuate decades-old segregation and discrimination,” says Fee, who is currently leading the Yes to Housing Coalition on citywide zoning reforms. “At its core, housing poverty is really a social justice issue.”
Fee is especially passionate about federal policy change, including a push to strengthen the federal Low-Income Housing Tax Credit and remove a requirement that limits the construction of new affordable units.
“About half of Housing Tax Credit developments are subject to a test in which they can receive the full amount of financing only if at least 50% of the project is financed with tax-exempt private activity bonds,” Fee explains. According to NYHC’s research, lowering that threshold to 25% would incentivize construction projects and could create more than 60,000 affordable and low-income units over the course of the next decade.
Fee is also a proponent of expanding New York’s Section 8 program, making rental assistance universal for renters who fall below an income threshold. This expansion — the subject of a 2021 New York Daily News op-ed Fee co-authored with House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries — would have an outsized impact on Black, Latinx, and single-female–headed families, lifting them out of poverty and, most important, says Fee, transforming lives for generations of children.
“We have research to show that children who grow up in stable, affordable housing have better physical and mental health outcomes. So for me, that’s the driver,” she says. “At the end of the day, the people who are left out are the ones we need to lift up.”
Building a Solution
Andrea Kretchmer ’84, founder and co-owner of Xenolith Partners, is addressing the supply-and-demand problem at the heart of the crisis by increasing supply.
But, she says, her work requires incredible patience.
“It’s taken us six years to create 200 new apartments when there are thousands and thousands of people in need. The system moves very, very slowly,” Kretchmer explains. “But if we don’t do what we’re doing, there’s no hope at all.”
Her company specializes in building affordable units in and around New York City, many of which feature supportive services for vulnerable populations, including the formerly unhoused and incarcerated, LGBTQ+ seniors, and people living with HIV and AIDS.
Raised on Manhattan’s Upper West Side by “hardcore, liberal, New York Jews,” Kretchmer learned early in life the importance of community. Later, as a full-time mom after pausing her career in environmental consulting (she was a geology major at Colgate), Kretchmer committed herself to volunteerism: the PTA, Little League, and her synagogue.
But after a decade, she was ready to get back to work — this time in real estate. She enlisted her father, a longtime Manhattan real estate developer, to help her break into the affordable housing development business.
“People said to me when I started, ‘there are faster and more profitable ways to do real estate,” she says. “But [affordable housing] was something I wanted to do. I wanted to make a difference.”
The father-daughter duo had enough success that Kretchmer was confident to strike out on her own, founding Xenolith (the name a nod to Kretchmer’s geology background) in 2016 and adding partner Terri Belkas-Mitchell, a former real estate analyst.
Their work requires navigating the tangled web of state and federal tax credits and withstanding “deep scrutiny” from city agencies. What helps Xenolith win bids, says Kretchmer, is their proposals’ focus on community. They’re not just building units for residents to sleep in, but true neighborhoods, with fitness centers, playgrounds, gardens, and pools; and supportive services like workforce training programs, legal assistance, and even medical care for residents who need them.
Xenolith is also known for taking a creative approach to new development. Current projects include the conversion of a former elementary school in Connecticut into affordable senior housing, a former police station will become housing for people living with HIV and AIDS, and a 72- unit Brooklyn complex provides supportive services for formerly incarcerated women and their families.
“We want everybody to not just live independently, but also to live with dignity and with support, if that’s what they need,” she says.
And despite the grim data surrounding the crisis (in spring 2024, NYC hit its lowest vacancy rate since 1968 at 1.4%), Kretchmer is characteristically patient — and optimistic. “We just have to keep chipping away at this massive problem, one unit at a time.”
Fee and Kretchmer are pals — and cross paths once a year in Albany on Lobby Day, where they join other advocates for affordable housing to push for funding.