Many housing advocates and more moderate Democrats, including President Biden and Mayor Adams, have called for a broad effort to build more housing as people nationwide struggle with homelessness and affording decent homes. Leaders in other parts of the country, like Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, have more aggressively put in place policies to encourage the construction of housing and overcome resistance from local officials and activists. The openness to more development among some in left-leaning circles in New York may signify that the political momentum behind the pro-housing movement is growing and may foreshadow significant changes to the city’s landscape. There is a shortage of homes available to a wide range of income levels, though the problem is most acute for lower-income New Yorkers. The New York metropolitan area needed more than 340,000 additional homes in 2019.