§ 1280. Legislative findings and purpose. The state of New York, through the housing trust fund corporation, is empowered to finance the purchase, acquisition, holding or conversion of distressed hotels and commercial office properties for use as affordable permanent housing that meets standards established to ensure safety, habitability, quality, and access to supportive services as appropriate, to be made available to low-income households and people experiencing homelessness immediately prior to entering such housing. These properties shall be owned, operated and managed by appropriate nonprofit organizations through the use of government agency funding, pursuant to such appropriation to support the creation of an adaptive reuse affordable housing program, to acquire and/or convert the property.

The acquired properties shall be converted into permanently affordable housing modeled as financially and operationally deemed necessary by the state or appropriate nonprofit organization for the purposes of creating supportive or permanently affordable housing units; provided that the housing shall remain affordable as defined by the term affordable housing included in this article.