Strengthening the City’s Health Systems

NYC Health + Hospitals (H+H) is the nation’s largest municipal health care delivery system in the United States dedicated to providing the highest quality health care services to all New Yorkers and plays a critical role in addressing longstanding health inequities. H+H is making investments through its hospitals and facilities to improve safety, patient comfort, and operations including state of good repair and life safety projects for building systems as well as updating technology equipment to ensure secure and seamless healthcare services. For example, the city is investing $14 million in 2026 for the Far Rockaway Primary Care Center to expand primary care services and improve local community access to comprehensive healthcare, with a focus on serving underserved populations.

DOHMH works to strengthen our public health system through investments and a framework to improve overall health outcomes and reduce premature death. Important to this mission is investing in our network of primary care centers. For example, the city is also investing $16 million in building rehabilitation and restoration at the Washington Heights Family Health Center and $18 million on interior and exterior renovation at the Morrisania Health Center. These investments will create improved facilities and a more welcoming environment for patients and staff.

It is also crucial to strengthen the city’s ability to face public health crises in an effective and equitable manner. Formally known as the Pandemic Response Institute (PRI), the NYC Preparedness and Recovery Institute, launched in 2022 through an interagency collaboration among NYCEDC, DOHMH, and New York City Emergency Management Department (NYCEM) with a contingent city capital award of $3 million. Led by ICAP at Columbia University in partnership with the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy, the institute is embedded within the public health infrastructure. Its primary goal has been to ensure that all New Yorkers have access to health solutions, information for decision-making, and the capacity to prepare and respond to public health emergencies.

In the last three years, the PRI has developed data-sharing programs, funded new tools and technologies to enhance emergency preparedness, and advanced epidemiological modeling to better predict and respond to infectious disease and climate-related threats.

Investing in housing for health

Stable and environmentally safe housing is critical to support the well-being of New Yorkers. The city is investing in multiple programs to make sure the city’s affordable and stabilized housing stock continues to provide safe and healthy living spaces, and that adding supportive housing for New Yorkers with intensive health needs remains a priority.

NYC Health + Hospitals recognizes that homeless individuals suffering from chronic health issues cannot be treated effectively without stable housing. H+H’s Housing for Health is a comprehensive initiative to serve the health system’s large patient population experiencing homelessness by connecting them with housing supports. H+H has four strategic areas of focus: (1) housing navigation services, (2) medical respite beds, (3) social service supports for patients in permanent housing, and (4) new supportive and affordable housing on hospital land. Over the next five years, H+H plans to leverage additional land to create nearly 650 new affordable homes, which will deliver continuity of care for vulnerable New Yorkers. The development of the new apartments are currently in the HPD project pipeline. Going forward, H+H will continue to assess underutilized land to deliver on the city’s commitment to housing and health.

Improving and expanding outdoor public space

Investments in outdoor public space is an investment in health. The city’s parks, plazas, sidewalks, and even streets provide essential safe space for recreation, exercise, and socializing.

The Parks Department works to strategically allocate resources to maintain existing parks resources and improve the quality, accessibility, efficiency, and sustainability of the city’s park system. The Community Parks Initiative guides investment in public parks in neighborhoods that are densely populated, growing, and contain higher than average concentrations of poverty. In order to close gaps where residents are living further than a walk to a park, the city is using multiple strategies to increase access, including partnerships with public and private institutions and acquiring private property to create new parks.

The Department of Education (DOE) and SCA have partnered to renovate, open or maintain outdoor recreational facilities such as playgrounds and athletic fields that serve both students and local residents during non-school hours to improve open space resources for students and communities. City programs also support the transformation of existing assets into multifunctional outdoor spaces, such as the DOT Open Streets program which opens pedestrian space by closing streets to car traffic and is being expanded to increase participation of historically underserved neighborhoods. DOT is also committing capital funds to make the city’s most successful Open Streets locations permanent, including 34th Avenue and Woodside Avenue in Queens, Willis Avenue in the Bronx, Underhill Avenue in Brooklyn, Minthorne Street in Staten Island, and Dyckman Street (Quisqueya Plaza) in Manhattan.

Open space investment and access is a priority in planning for large-scale neighborhood change. The city has continued to work on plans for future additions to the city’s public space through neighborhood plans, including the Gowanus Neighborhood Plan which will generate nearly six acres of new public parks and open space with waterfront esplanade areas elevated to respond to long-term daily tidal flooding. The zoning framework for the plan also creates incentives for private developers to incorporate community amenities like comfort stations, boat launches, and historic interpretation elements. The plan also calls for public investments in new waterfront open space, city-owned street ends, and design interventions around bridge crossings to support the overall vision of a safe, resilient, and active waterfront esplanade.

Investing in a network of green infrastructure

In addition to expanding recreational space, the city is pursuing strategies to use open space and natural areas to soak up water and reduce pollution from stormwater runoff. The city envisions protecting approximately 2,800 acres of fragile wetlands and streams on parkland through the early 2050s as part of Parks’ Wetlands Management Framework. These natural area restorations are paired with investment in the city’s urban infrastructure to create a network of nature-based solutions to the impact of extreme weather and a changing climate. Green streets, rain gardens, bioswales, and permeable pavement projects are being implemented and planned throughout the city’s streets and dense urban areas to capture stormwater, provide small habitats, and clean runoff.

The city builds and manages ecological and infrastructural mechanisms for stormwater management to divert additional rainfall away from sewers. One type of stormwater management tool is bluebelts, which are preserved and enhanced natural drainage corridors such as streams, ponds, and wetlands intended to store, filter, and convey runoff. Another is cloudburst management systems, which are designed to mitigate the impacts of high-volume and especially sudden rainfall by combining green infrastructure with supplementary sewer additions to retain water until the normal sewer system can again handle the added flow.

These infrastructure interventions are at times integrated into larger open space projects, such as the East Side Coastal Resiliency project which integrates floodwalls, berms, and flood gates into planned improvements to recreational space.

Enhancing public safety

The city is focused on improving public safety facilities to strengthen relations between the community and police. The NYPD renovated it’s 40th and 116th precinct buildings to provide state of the art facilities for officers as well as comfortable and welcoming spaces for community members. The 40th precinct introduced the first ever community event space inside of a precinct to highlight collaborative efforts between community and the police in order to encourage stronger relationships and create safer streets. Both buildings promote environmental sustainability through features that include green roofs to reduce stormwater runoff, and high efficiency fixtures to reduce energy usage and solar panels.

Improving the city’s multimodal transportation network

Over the next decade the city will invest in interconnected transportation options to help even more New Yorkers access essential services, go to work, and move about the city. The TYCS includes $5.5 billion for street reconstruction with approximately $3 billion allocated for Vision Zero, which was implemented in 2014 and directs resources to much- needed safety improvements to streets, bike lanes, and pedestrian walkways. Between 2014 and 2024 pedestrian fatalities nationwide increased by 48 percent. However, during that same period, pedestrian fatalities in New York City has fluctuated but remained relatively steady. In February 2023, DOT released a new Borough Pedestrian Safety Plan, which outlines the next set of streets, intersections, and areas that will be the focus of Vision Zero initiatives. In March 2025, DOT released a new Vision Zero Initiative to increase the public’s access to traffic safety messages on street light poles and city-owned buildings across the city. This latest iteration maintains the project’s aim of improving street redesign for public safety, install and monitor speed and red-light cameras, and conduct public education to complement Vision Zero work.

The city continues to enhance the pedestrian, transit, and bicycle network as part of 2019’s NYC Streets Plan legislation.

In the Making New York Work for Everyone action plan, the city promised it will embrace a broad range of transportation improvements so people and goods can get to their destinations faster, more reliably, and more sustainably. In September 2023, DOT released its Curb Management Action Plan to improve the way curb uses are regulated, priced, programmed, and enforced. Working with business improvement districts and other neighborhood organizations, the agency piloted model curb management strategies and implemented a data driven and technology-based enforcement and reservation system. Furthermore, through the Smart Curbs program, the agency prioritize safety and curb uses based on community needs.

The city continues to invest in NYC Ferry, which connects often transit deprived neighborhoods to job centers and brings much needed transit access to NYC’s waterfront and recreational areas. Critically, Mayor Adams’ NYC Ferry Forward plan supports a more equitable, accessible, and financially sustainable system. To accomplish all of these goals, the city has invested in a fleet of vessels, homeport and maintenance facilities, multiple landings throughout the city, and state of good repair needs that take into account demanding maritime environments.