END OF THE LINE
End of the Line: Housing Survival in New York
is a 10-month immersive, transit-based public program that examines how the region’s housing affordability crisis shapes where working New Yorkers can live—and how far they must travel to survive.
The Problem
New York City faces one of the most severe housing affordability crises in the United States. Rising rents, stagnant wages, and uneven development patterns have forced many essential workers—including teachers, nurses, transit operators, service employees, and municipal staff—to relocate far beyond the neighborhoods where they work.
As a result, thousands of New Yorkers now endure multi-hour daily commutes from distant boroughs or neighboring counties.
While housing affordability is frequently discussed through statistics, policy reports, and zoning debates, the lived reality of this crisis remains largely invisible to many policymakers, cultural institutions, and residents outside the most affected communities.
Source: ANHD 2025 AMI Cheat Sheet
The Program
Using New York’s extensive public transportation system as both method and metaphor, the project invites participants to travel across the metropolitan region to witness the geography of housing displacement firsthand.
Each journey traces the daily commuting realities of essential workers, long-term residents, and families navigating the widening gap between wages and housing costs. From Harlem and Brooklyn brownstones to Bronx walk-ups, Queens row homes, Staten Island communities, and suburban developments across Long Island and Westchester County, the tour reveals the regional story of housing survival—one defined by displacement, resilience, and unequal access to opportunity. By physically moving through these spaces, End of the Line transforms housing policy from an abstract debate into an embodied public experience.
End of the Line addresses this disconnect by creating a place-based learning experience that allows participants to see, hear, and feel the distance between housing and opportunity. By traveling the routes that thousands of workers navigate daily, participants gain a deeper understanding of how housing inequity reshapes the geography of the region.
The project also situates the current crisis within a longer history of urban planning decisions—including redlining, exclusionary zoning, public housing development, suburban expansion, and transit infrastructure investments—that have shaped patterns of segregation and displacement across New York. For more information on the project and partnership opportunities, please contact our Development Team at development@cvhaction.org.
Ride with CVH: Support Our Movement!