Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced Monday that, unlike his predecessor, his administration will not oppose a controversial supportive housing project on the campus of Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx.
“As we reactivate the Just Home supportive housing project, we are not simply creating 83 new apartments…we are advancing the cause of justice,” Mamdani said in an afternoon press conference, nodding to the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
The “Just Home” project would convert a vacant hospital building in Morris Park into affordable apartments, including 58 units of supportive housing for New Yorkers who are leaving Rikers Island with complex medical conditions like cancer or heart failure.
Two dozen apartments would be reserved for low-income tenants.
The nonprofit Fortune Society, with decades of experience providing housing and re-entry services for formerly incarcerated people, will operate the site. Fortune Society President and CEO Stanley Richards, himself formerly incarcerated, said at the press conference that he was born at Jacobi Medical Center, and that proceeding on the Just Home project felt like coming home.
The plan received formal approval from the City Council in September, despite last-minute opposition from then-Mayor Eric Adams and former councilmember Kristy Marmorato, a Republican who campaigned against the project.
The Council vote marked a rare override of the tradition of “member deference,” where lawmakers typically fall in behind a local member’s stance on land-use proposals in their district.
Adams’ administration had initially championed the Just Home proposal when it was unveiled in 2022, but reversed course in the lead-up to the 2025 election. On the eve of the September Council vote, Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro sent a letter urging lawmakers to abandon the project, citing opposition from local residents and proposing an alternative site in Brooklyn.
Council speaker Adrienne Adams and other supporters of the project framed the vote as a necessary step to expand housing access for some of the city’s most vulnerable residents.
Mamdani’s reversal represents a sharp policy departure from former Mayor Eric Adams. Mamdani’s decision to support the project is in line with his campaign platform of decarceration, tenant protection, and expanding non-police responses to public health and homelessness.
“This is an example of the scale of progress that was being held up for years,” Mamdani said at the press conference. “We want to build as much as possible across this city.”
Just Home is modeled on Castle Gardens, a Fortune Society-run development in West Harlem that combines supportive housing with on-site services and civic uses like a polling site and food distribution. Supporters say the approach has shown success in reducing hospitalizations and helping tenants avoid reincarceration.
Just Home’s opponents, including former Councilmember Marmorato and some local residents, have argued that housing people with criminal records at the Jacobi site is unsafe. Marmorato was defeated in 2025 by Democrat Shirley Aldebol, a longtime labor leader who supported Just Home. Aldebol did not respond to a request for comment.
