August 2026 Positive Change Recipient – INHS
A Note from GreenStar: INHS was selected by GreenStar members to be among our 2026 Partners for Change. Round Up your purchase at the Co-op to support their work!
Celebrating 50 Years of Ithaca Neighborhood Housing Services
Fifty years ago, just five years after a group of Ithacans had organized the fledgling GreenStar Cooperative Market, a similarly civic-minded and energetic group of neighbors gathered in Ithaca’s Southside neighborhood. Their mission: increase homeownership rates, revitalize their neighborhood, and ensure residents had a voice in shaping their community. Determined to prevent displacement and preserve the character of the neighborhood , they joined forces with the City of Ithaca and began renovating the dilapidated homes that dotted their community. Today, the organization they founded, INHS, has grown to serve seven counties, offering access to affordable housing for low- and moderate-income residents through first-time homebuyer programs, rental property development and management, and home repair programs.
INHS has grown to be a nationwide leader in the affordable housing field. We currently house nearly 1,300 residents in our rental communities and have over 159 new rental units in development. As a significant developer of green homes and apartments in central New York, we are looking to the future. INHS’s developments are designed to remain affordable in the long term, as they are energy-efficient and low-maintenance, and convenient to local services, jobs, and public transit. Our Trumansburg community, Village Grove, was recently recognized as the New York State Association for Affordable Housing (NYSAFAH) Upstate Project of the Year, exemplifying what’s possible when community needs, sustainability, and inclusive housing come together.
We’re also building stronger communities and empowering the residents in those rental neighborhoods. In 2024, we launched our Resident Services Program, hiring staff to provide support for residents in crisis and connect residents to community resources. We also focused on the wellbeing of our rental communities as a whole, organizing resident events to bring local communities together for food, socialization, and community-building. We continue to build on that success with trauma-informed care training for all staff and stronger tenant engagement.
Our homebuyer programs have assisted generations of Ithacans to purchase their first homes, offering down-payment and closing-cost assistance, as well as education and counseling for prospective homebuyers. Over our history, we’ve extended loans to help purchase first homes to over 1,350 community members and provided education or counseling for nearly 11,000 households! We also help existing homeowners make critical safety and accessibility improvements. Since our founding, we’ve done free repair projects for over 9,000 homeowners who are seniors or have disabilities.
Just as GreenStar has worked during its long history in Ithaca to improve our community’s access to healthful and nourishing food, INHS has been there to provide safe, stable, quality housing. We are tremendously grateful to GreenStar Food Co+op for choosing INHS as a 2026 Partner for Change. The generosity of GreenStar and its members will help us continue our work for the next fifty years to come — keeping homeownership accessible, offering safe and stable rental housing, and helping our most vulnerable neighbors to age with dignity in their homes.
To learn more about INHS’s mission, history, and programs, please visit www.ithacanhs.org or call us at (607) 277-4500.