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In these Times -  New York State Assemblymember Emily Gallagher and State Sen. Cordell Cleare introduced a bill to create the Social Housing Development Authority. This proposed agency would be tasked with developing permanently affordable, union-built social housing, which would be owned by the public — not private developers. While social housing hasn’t yet caught on in the modern United States, examples of this approach can be found all over the world, and housing activists believe it may be the only way to actually meet tenants’ needs.  Gallagher and Cleare’s bill would establish a state-run Social Housing Development Authority as a public benefit corporation, which would increase the supply of permanently affordable housing in the entire state, both through the construction of new housing and through the acquisition and rehabilitation of existing properties. Cea Weaver, the Campaign Coordinator of Housing Justice for All, tells In These Times, ​“a public authority has all sorts of powers that you can’t really reach through the private sector: like the ability to issue bonds, to override zoning, and to basically take profit out of the equation and re-invest money back into the authority so that it can expand itself.”