100% Affordable Project One45

Yesterday at Canaan Baptist Church, JFK announced a change in the agreement for affordability at Project One45 after consulting with the Interfaith Commission on Housing Equality.

Candidate James Felton Keith (JFK) & Bruce Teitelbaum agree to change Harlem’s Project One45 to 100% Deeply Affordable Working-Class Housing with the NY Interfaith Commission’s demands for equality 

Harlem, NY — 10/13/2025 — James Felton Keith (JFK) responding to reports from New York Interfaith Commission for Housing Equality’s Defend Harlem Campaign and confirmed an agreement with developer Bruce Teitelbaum to ensure that Project One45 becomes 100% deeply affordable working-class housing.

“From Stuyvesant Town to Co-op City, Penn South, Electchester, and Riverton Houses, New York once understood that government, labor, and developers had to work together to keep working families in the city,” said James Felton Keith, candidate for U.S. Congress (NY-13). “One45 should be no different. More than 60,000 Black & Brown people have been displaced from Harlem since the pandemic ended. Harlem’s essential Black & Latino workers deserve the same opportunity to stay rooted in the city they built.”

Project One45, located at West 145th Street and Malcolm X Boulevard, has been the subject of negotiation at the City Council level for years with current and former councilmembers Yusef Salaam, Kristin Richardson Jordan, and Bill Perkins. “Actual affordable housing in Harlem is worth investing in — with federal funds and the new mayor” says Kristin Richardson Jordan. “This is a project that requires Federal infrastructure support,” said JFK. His coalition proposes converting the entire development into deeply affordable homes for essential workers who have been displaced since the COVID-19 pandemic. This is a part of his vision to sustain a multicultural city for the future.

After a months long campaign, on October 7th the Interfaith Commission contacted Mayoral candidates and all Federal, State, Municipal elected’s to note that Project One45 “symbolizes discriminatory housing policies targeting working-class residents earning $34,320 to $65,000 per year.“ Developer Teitelbaum committed in an October 10th meeting with JFK to “build a 100% affordable building for the working class of Harlem with a training center for the A.I. & Data Science workforce” and would reduce his IRR “internal rate of return to 8%”. He stated that “elected officials would not work with him to build a Black working class subsidy,” which is what Interfaith's Defend Harlem is demanding.

“We demand a meeting with Mamdani, Cuomo, & Sliwa to secure their backing for a 100% deeply affordable One45, as a start to solving the supply and price issues of NYC ” said JFK. “Every mayor from LaGuardia to Koch once saw housing as the backbone of a working city. We expect the next mayor to do the same.”

This agreement between the activist, the clergy, and the developer seeks to prove that true affordability can be an addition to the YIMBY (yes in my back yard) movement. JFK says, “This is bigger than one building. This is about a thoughtful future and setting a precedent on price, to grow the NY population and to take back the national majority’s moral defense of individual agency and choice. We are done losing seats to Florida."

Public Announcement:

The plan will be announced on Thursday 10/16/2025 at 6:30 PM during Debate Watch Event Harlem Tavern 2153 Frederick Douglass Blvd, New York, NY 10026 https://www.mobilize.us/jamesfeltonkeithforuscongress/event/857195/