Austin Jefferson reports for the Daily Freeman that Ulster County Executive Jen Metzger is proposing a $15 million Housing Action Fund to increase the housing supply there. State and Hudson Valley officials have identified an affordable housing crisis in New York and locally. Metzger proposed the fund at a special meeting of the Health, Human Services and Housing Committee on May 18. Metzger would take $15 million from the county's surplus fund balance to start the fund, and then keep it going with 25 percent of the hotel occupancy tax. Metzger says rent for one- and two-bedroom apartments has risen by 40 percent locally, while wages have stayed stagnant or declined. She says that 12 percent of homeowners and 29 percent of renters in Ulster County spend more than half of their monthly income on housing. Metzger said, “The trends are very bleak," and that "these trends are unsustainable from an economic perspective.” Oversight for the fund would come from a new Housing Policy and Oversight Committee, with representatives with experience in housing, finance, development, and land use. Metzger would appoint four members, and the legislature would appoint three, under Metzger's proposal. Officials in Kingston and Hudson have also discussed efforts to help the affordable housing crisis, but little has been done anywhere locally on the issue. Read more about this story in the Daily Freeman.