Edward Poteat

09/16/2026

Candy Vasquez has been a long-time advocate of Social Equity and Affordable Housing in NYC. Today I'm speaking with her about gentrification in El Barrio!

09/16/2026

09/14/2026

A rent freeze sounds like good news. But if rents in New York City are still hitting all-time highs at the same time, something isn't adding up.

The fact of the matter is that we don't have enough housing. And until we build more, the demand for housing (and rent) will only continue to increase.

Follow for more on what's actually happening in New York's housing market.

09/03/2026

One building. 117 apartments. 70,000 applications.

That's the reality of affordable housing demand in New York City - and it means every spot in the lottery matters.

If you make $150K or $200K a year, you can compete for market-rate housing. Most New Yorkers can't. When you apply for affordable housing you don't need, you're taking a slot from someone who has no other option.

In a city where even a $100K salary still means struggling to pay rent, "affordable" housing exists for people with nowhere else to go. If that's not you, step out of the lottery.

08/11/2026

just made history - the first-ever 2-year rent freeze on stabilized apartments in NYC.

For the million households already inside those units, it's real relief.

But NYC's housing market doesn't work in isolation. Here's why the full picture is more complicated than the headlines suggest.

08/04/2026

Colon Plaza at 55 E. 115th St. was built 15 years ago in partnership with the 116th Street Block Association, and from day one, the commitment was clear: 50% of residents would come from El Barrio itself.

We wanted to provide condominium-style housing for the teachers, bus drivers, and workers who keep this city running — without displacing a single family.

That's what development with intention looks like. That's the standard we hold ourselves to.

07/30/2026

Standing right here in NYC, you can see two very different buildings — and both are affordable housing.

One of them is Colon Plaza, which my firm () built 15 years ago, and looks like a luxury condo because affordable housing doesn't have one look.

The biggest misconception? That affordable housing = NYCHA. It's not. Affordable housing is a wide spectrum of developments that house police officers, teachers, nurses, and working families — people who keep this city running.

Public housing and affordable housing are not the same thing. And understanding that difference matters if we're ever going to have an honest conversation about solving New York's housing crisis.

07/28/2026

Frederick Douglass Blvd was heavily associated with open drug markets and gang violence. Since then, it's undergone a dramatic transformation and boasts new developments and a bustling nightlife!

This gentrification is good for residents of Harlem, like myself, who have been able to benefit from all the improvements. But here's the question we can't ignore: does revitalization lead to displacement?

Because wanting the restaurants and wanting the people who built this community to stay aren't mutually exclusive — they have to coexist.

Harlem's glow-up shouldn't come at the cost of the people who held it down through the hard years.

What are your thoughts?

07/26/2026

07/20/2026

Growing up in a one-bedroom tenement in East Harlem — family of five — there was plenty to worry about. Crime. Schools. The street.

Thankfully, decent housing wasn't one of them.

My parents moved us into a Mitchell-Lama development, and that stability changed everything because it removed one of the biggest problems families face - the cost of housing.

That's why I build what I build.
Every affordable unit created by my firm Carthage Advisors provides that same foundation to another family. Our goal is to have one less thing standing between them and a real shot forward.