Rivera Resigns Council Seat to Head NYS Assn. for Affordable Housing
The longtime housing advocate’s move to head up the nonprofit representing architects and developers in the affordable housing world will mean a big boost in pay.
| 18 Aug 2025 | 06:04
Carlina Rivera (blue cap), at the opening-day parade of the Peter Stuyvesant Little League this spring, has resigned her City Council seat to head up the NYS Association for Affordable Housing. (
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Carlina Rivera holds her son Benny at the Peter Stuyvestant Little League opening-day parade. Looking on to the right is Assembly Member Harvey Epstein, who in June won the Democratic primary to succeed Rivera on the City Council. If he wins, he will be sworn in right after the November election. (
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Carlina Rivera, right, at a rally in downtown Manhattan protesting cuts in funding to libraries. (
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Carlina Rivera at a ribbon-cutting for a new playground on the Lower East Side. (
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Carlina Rivera has represented the East Village, Kips Bay, and Gramercy Park area since 2018. She was term- limited at the end of the year and resigned to head the NYS Association for Affordable Housing (
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City Council Member Carlina Rivera, who has represented the East Village and parts of Midtown East since 2018, is resigning to head the NYS Association for Affordable Housing.
“We’re excited to have Carlina join us as the new president and CEO of NYSAFAH and look forward to working with her on delivering affordable housing solutions statewide,” the group’s board chair, Samantha Magistro, said in a statement to Politico NY, which first reported the news, since confirmed by Our Town.
“I am deeply honored to step into a new role as the president and CEO of NYSAFAH, an organization with a proud legacy of delivering affordable housing solutions statewide and advocating for its members,” Rivera said in a statement to Our Town. “From the very start of my career, I’ve seen the lack of affordable housing as a foundational issue holding New Yorkers back from equity and opportunity. The only true solution is clear: We need more housing, especially affordable housing. I’m excited to take on this next chapter, working with policymakers, advocates, and NYSAFAH’s members to drive bold solutions to expand housing opportunities across the state.”
Rivera, whose district includes the East Village, Gramercy Park, Kips Bay, Lower East Side, Murray Hill, and Rose Hill, was reelected by a wide margin in 2023, and is term-limited so would be leaving office at the end of 2025.
At the trade association, she succeeds Jolie Milstein, who for a decade headed the association, which represents developers and architects involved with affordable housing.
The move into the not-for-profit world could mean a big pay boost for Rivera. She was paid $148,093 for her job on the City Council in 2023, the most recent year for which figures are available.
The NYS Association for Affordable Housing paid its most recent president and CEO, Milstein, $332,118 in salary in the most recent reporting data on its federal 990 tax return, with another $41,495 in other compensation, bringing the total package to $373,613.
Milstein, an architect by training who had specialized in building affording housing, announced in late May that she was stepping down to go back into private practice with Avard Daniels Architecture, which specializes in affordable housing.
Harvey Epstein, the Assembly member representing much of the same terrain as Rivera but at the state level, won the Democratic primary for the soon-to-be-vacant City Council seat in the heavily Democratic district in June and is the presumed front runner in the November election.
With the seat vacant, the winner of the November election would immediately fill the seat.
That of course would speed up the process for finding a replacement to represent the district in the NYS Assembly, if, as expected, Epstein wins.
Rivera, 41, was the legislative director for former Council Member Rosie Menendez when she decided to run for her mentor’s seat. Menendez was term-limited.
In 2022, Menendez made a bid for the new downtown Congressional seat but came in a disappointing fourth in the Democratic primary behind the eventual winner, Dan Goldman, and State Assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou, and Congressman Mondaire Jones.
Before she entered politics, she was director of programs and services at Good Old Lower East Side (GOLES), a local nonprofit organization focused on neighborhood housing, and was also a member of Manhattan Community Board 3.
On the City Council, she was chair of the women’s caucus and was instrumental in getting money to fund abortions for women who did not have Medicaid coverage. She supported the East Side Resiliency project pushed by former Mayor Bill de Blasio, which antagonized some community activists who decried the chopping down of 100 year old trees and long term closure of East River parks that have only been partially reopened in recent months. She insisted rebuilding the parks at a higher elevation was necessary to protect the East Side from the ravages of another Superstorm Sandy.
Rivera introduced a bill in June 2018 requiring Airbnb and other short-term rental companies to report host data to the city.
She joined with many other political leaders in a bid to block Mount Sinai from shutting Beth Israel, but the healthcare giant ultimately shuttered the hospital in April after a protracted legal battle.
On the development front, Rivera was one of the 31 City Council members who voted “yes” on Mayor Eric Adams “City of Yes” housing overhaul plan to allow office buildings to be converted to residential units.