Since asset management operates on a timeline of years, not months or weeks, in this moment of the COVID-19 pandemic, Madden isn’t thrown for a major loop. He’s working now on how much cash JOE NYC will be able to set aside from last year and this year so that it can create a cushion for its portfolio buildings as it plans for a protracted economic downturn. Meanwhile, the CDC members’ sense of collaboration has deepened as they are now bound closer together financially.

“It’s not only a financial cushion, but … you feel like somebody’s got your back, group to group and to JOE,” says Ismene Speliotis, executive director of Mutual Housing Association of New York, a JOE NYC founding member.1

In a way, JOE NYC was always a response to a crisis, or really a series of overlapping crises.

The housing stock in New York is predominantly big and old—buildings of 20 units or more contain nearly half the housing units in the city, and the median age of an apartment building in New York is around 90 years old. JOE also focuses on subsidized housing, which in New York largely aligns with areas of the city that were historically redlined—meaning landlords were explicitly denied access to financing for decades, setting them back a generation or more in maintenance.

• 1. It’s hard to find anyone in low-income housing—tenant, landlord, or otherwise—who feels like somebody has their back during this unprecedented pandemic. Some 40 million tenants would be on the verge of eviction by the end of the year, were it not for an unprecedented emergency order from the Centers for Disease Control. Aside from a few legislative champions here and there, calls for canceling rent have gone nowhere. Landlords and homeowners seeking mortgage relief have faced bewildering automated phone-menu mazes and unclear regulations. Mortgage servicers, typically on the hook to make interest payments to investors whether the underlying borrowers make payments or not, are drying up their cash reserves.