New York Housing Authority Connects Residents with Free Internet

Jan. 28, 2026 – Residents of older, affordable housing buildings in the Bronx and upper Manhattan may soon get free, high-speed internet directly in their homes.

New York City’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development recently broke ground on the first Liberty Link projects; the pilot program announced in July will bring internet service to at least 2,200 households across 35 affordable housing buildings.

But, well over 20,000 households living in affordable units financed by HPD already receive free internet, HPD's chief digital equity officer Dave Seliger told Broadband Breakfast.

Five years ago, the housing agency adopted policies requiring new affordable housing developments it finances to offer internet service at no cost to residents. Under the policy, the internet service must remain free for at least 30 years.

Seliger said the model offers certainty for providers, who are guaranteed 100 percent take rates as HPD covers the cost of service building-wide.

“We have everyone from the big incumbents like Verizon, Spectrum, and Optimum delivering service to buildings we finance, as well as startups like Honest Networks or Flume,” he detailed. “Even nonprofits, NYC Mesh has done a few buildings that we've financed.”

HPD upgrading infrastructure in aging buildings 

HPD is now turning its focus to older buildings that have gone decades without upgrades with its Liberty Link pilot.

“We're going back in now and installing public line wiring in buildings that haven't seen infrastructure upgrades since maybe the 80s,” Seliger said. 

“We're doing primarily wireless for the older buildings, and then bringing fiber to a few high rise buildings in the area, and seeing if this hub-and-spoke mesh model works well for hyper dense environments,” he said.

“The buildings themselves, many of them are not in great shape,” Seliger said. “They're in disrepair.”

With $3.25 million in funding from HPD, the Liberty Link program is set to run for three years and will test a variety of models and technologies to determine the most effective and scalable approach for a citywide expansion.

HPD offers tech support where residents live

To ensure residents can use the new internet access, HPD pairs Liberty Link with its Neighborhood Tech Help initiative.

The agency provided funding for NYC's three public library systems to launch teams of digital navigators, called “tech helpers,” who provide drop-in assistance directly in housing developments and other community spaces.

Using data from the city’s libraries and nonprofit partners, HPD found that households served through its Section 8 rental assistance program were largely not using library services. 

To overcome that gap, the agency began placing digital navigators in locations residents already frequented – community centers, older adult centers, soup kitchens, other nonprofit spaces, as well as cafés.

“Just like with any problem in New York City, with housing and with broadband, the challenges are uniquely large and complex,” Seliger said.

Pandemic pushes the HPD to expand digital access

HPD’s push to expand digital access began during the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, when the agency shifted much of its work online and discovered how disconnected many of the households it serves were.

The agency administers Section 8 rental assistance for roughly 40,000 households, and at the time was spending close to $1 million a year on postage to stay in touch with residents.

When staff attempted to move communications online, they found many households lacked home internet access, and in some cases, even an email address.

That realization prompted HPD to explore longer-term solutions.

 “We explored hotspots; we began toying with the idea of a mesh network,” Seliger said. “I had the idea, ‘could we establish our own internet network to serve people receiving Section 8 rental assistance?’” 

“We had no idea how long the Covid emergency was going to last. We had no idea what the future looked like,” he recalled. “But, it felt like the type of investment that would be innovative and actually have a long standing impact on all of our residents.”

As Liberty Link expands into older buildings, HPD’s pilot will inform how the authority scales broadband access in an effort to create a model that could bring near-universal broadband to New York’s residents in affordable housing.