Fighting for affordable housing in New York

NEW YORK (FOX 5 NEWS) - New York City officials are pretty much in agreement over the need of more affordable housing. What they don't necessarily agree on is how to pay for it.

Advocates are fighting for what they call real affordable housing. They brought voice to their cause and they brought a new plan to the steps of City Hall.

More than 14,000 of the roughly 20,000 affordable units created in 2015 went to households making between about $38,000 and $62,000 a year, according to the mayor's office. A fraction went to the income groups below that.

The group assembled Thursday included, community leaders, and nonprofit developers are making the case that there is a direction correlation between lack of affordable housing and the growing homeless community.

On Monday, Mayor Bill de Blasio proposed a mansion tax of 2.5 percent on homes that sell for $2 million or more to help generate money for affordable housing in the city.

De Blasio campaigned on a message of closing the inequality gap in this city. But he has certainly faced challenges. The mayor announced plans last week to build 90 new shelters. Those would-be shelters are intended to keep residents in communities they are from.