Olivia Colbert
May 25, 2017
Mapping Politics
Final Paper
New York City, is a city known for its increasing success in safety, education, hospitality, business, opportunity and prosperity. Over the years, economic inequality has become an increasing factor in New York, which has led to major affairs with affordable housing. Affordable housing is the reason why NYC keeps moving, mainly because it is the basis of the diversity of New York City, and is used to help families prosper for a more realistic lifestyle. Although affordable housing may seem like a good thing, over the past couple of years, affordable housing in New York has become a major problem for working class and middle class residents.
Throughout the years, New York City has been considered the origin of the housing policy, as to where the United States first tenant laws and housing projects were created. The Department of housing preservation and development and the New York City Housing Authority, were the two authorities that controlled the most housing units. The increase in rent around the 1980’s is where the homeless issue began to become much more visible. 1985 was the year in which Mayor Koch has created the Ten-Year Housing Plan, which consisted of 100,000 units for the middle and working class. Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) works with real estate professionals and community sponsors who sell or rent apartments at affordable prices to low- and moderate-income households.” Affordable housing was created with an objective to provide low-income citizens with appropriate living conditions to not resolve in homelessness. “New York City’s pre-eminence as the world’s leading city stems in large part from its unparalleled diversity. That diversity allows people from every imaginable background to live and work side by side, share aspects of their cultures, exchange ideas, then mix, match, and innovate to generate the art, literature, fashion, technology, and conceptual breakthroughs that are the envy of the world. And that diversity drives economic growth, as employers decide to locate in the City to take advantage of its incredible and multidimensional talent pool.” The diversity of New York is what makes it unique and therefore economic diversity must be strong for the continued success of the city. “Wages for the City’s renters have stagnated over the last 20 years, increasing by less than 15 percent, after adjusting for inflation. During the same period, the average monthly rent for an apartment in New York City increased by almost 40 percent.” This is very key in the discussion of affordable housing because it shows how wages have barely been increasing, therefore income has remained relatively stable for families, while the rent pricing has increased drastically hurting New York City. Just like the five-borough ten-year plan created by Mayor De Blasio, this plan was necessary to address the housing shortage in the city.
Affordable housing is used to help working families prosper, and therefore New York is adding 200,000 affordable units over the next decade, ranging for prices that will satisfy those with the lowest income, and the middle-class income. As said by Mayor De Blasio, “This is a five-borough, ten-year plan. It will marshal people and resources from every corner of this city behind a singular purpose: to make this city again a place where our most vulnerable, our working people and our middle class can all thrive. Together, let’s make that vision a reality.” This five-borough ten-year plan is very key to both the lower and middle classes, due to the struggle of the outrageous price ranges of housing in New York.
Since New York has reached a crisis point regarding affordable housing, this plan is needed for individuals living in New York to be given prosperous opportunities. “The crisis has many causes, starting with the erosion of New Yorkers’ purchasing power in the housing marketplace. Wages for the City’s renters have stagnated over the last 20 years, increasing by less than 15 percent, after adjusting for inflation. During the same period, the average monthly rent for an apartment in New York City increased by almost 40 percent.” Due to these drastically large percentage increases, it is very difficult for New Yorkers to find affordable housing, therefore limiting them to spending most of their money towards their rent, and less for necessities. Ranging from the lowest income to the highest income, the increasing rent is hurting everyone. “Another cause of the affordable housing crisis is the mismatch between demand for, and the supply of, housing. For the first time in decades, more people are moving to or staying in the City than leaving: our older residents are aging in place rather than moving after retirement; our young families are remaining in the City rather than moving to the suburbs when their children reach school age; empty-nesters are returning to the City after their children are grown, and people are moving to the City from all over the United States, as well as all over the world.” Throughout the past couple of years, the desirability of having a home in New York City has increased, therefore the demand for housing is increasing, but the problem is that supply is not meeting demand.
In the duration of this ten-year plan, there are many key objectives regarding the building of new affordable housing for all New Yorkers. It is very important to “Significantly increase the number of units serving the lowest income New Yorkers”. This means that the city will need to increase the units of affordable housing in the units with the lowest or mediate income. The city will also have to “Develop affordable housing on underused public and private sites”, which means they will have to have a mixed development from different organizations and institutions. During the progress of this ten-year plan, two new programs will be created. “The City will launch two new programs, the Neighborhood Construction Program (NCP) and the New Infill Homeownership Opportunities Program (NIHOP). These programs will aggregate sites to develop affordable housing, including one- to four-family homeownership opportunities and up to 20-unit rental buildings”. I believe that the creation of these two new programs will help expand opportunities for the individuals struggling with rent. “To promote long-term community revitalization and economic diversity, we will pilot a new mixed income program that targets 20 percent of a project’s units to low-income households, 30 percent for moderate income households, and 50 percent for middle-income households. Middle-income housing is essential to support our economy and workforce, which increasingly cannot afford to live in our city”. Introducing new mixed income programs is very key for this plan because the whole point of affordable housing is to help the residents with low or mediate income. The city will have to identify local needs and opportunities by examining the residents and the surrounding communities. “This collaborative process will focus on the preservation of NYCHA units and assess the potential for underused NYCHA land and development rights to benefit existing residents, increase affordable housing, produce local retail, and community facilities, and serve other shared goals.” By preserving the NYCHA units, a framework will be created for future endeavors. During this process, the city will also be “Promoting homeless, senior, supportive, and accessible housing”, by “shifting funding from high-cost homeless shelters to lower-cost permanent housing” and “developing more supportive housing to improve health outcomes and save public dollars.” By shifting the funding of the shelters, the homeless will be given low cost housing.
In the “Housing for New York City” plan, there are eight guiding principles that are necessary in the success of this plan. The first principle is that the “Housing policies must address the City’s changing demographics and expand the range of those we serve”. This first guideline is specifically used for the expansion of the citizens that will be benefitting from the new affordable housing units. The second guideline states that “The City’s planning processes and land-use policies need to be revamped”. This guideline emphasizes the need for investments for livable neighborhoods. The third guideline says, “Economic diversity must be a cornerstone of housing development”. By diversifying neighborhoods, there will be economic diversity throughout all neighborhoods, which will encourage the need of the affordable housing. The fourth guideline states “Our municipal tools and public assets should be deployed more effectively”. This means that the city needs to rationalize affordable housing programs that will help the expansion of opportunities.
The fifth guideline says, “We must strategically protect past investments and lock in affordability in changing neighborhoods”. This guideline states that the city must protect the money invested in subsidized affordable housing for the money to not be lost. The sixth guideline states “The City needs to protect tenants in rent-regulated units more aggressively”. This means that the landlords aren’t allowed to increase rent whenever they decide, and this is all part of addressing the problem of inequality. The seventh guideline states “We must leverage today’s favorable markets and adapt quickly to future conditions”. This is putting an emphasis of taking as much value as possible from the low interest rates today and the strong program of real estate. The last guideline states “We must increase capital funding to our housing programs.” This final guideline puts an emphasis on the expansion of financial commitment from the city, state and federal governments for success in affordable housing.
The city has become the center of housing for all ages, and therefore the supply of housing needs to increase to prosper. To accommodate the increasing residency of New York City, the marketplace will need to produce more housing units and then stimulate the pricing to a moderate range. Throughout New York, more than 50,000 homeless individuals are sleeping in homeless shelters, while other thousands of people struggle daily to pay the outrageous rents. Housing New York is a five borough, ten-year strategy to address the City’s afford- able housing crisis. The plan, which was created through coordination with 13 agencies and with input from over 200 individual stakeholders, outlines more than 50 initiatives to support our goal of building or preserving 200,000 units of high-quality affordable housing to meet the needs or more than 500,000 people. To achieve this strategy, the city will have to foster diversity within neighborhoods, preserve affordability, preserve new units for affordable housing and promote housing for the homeless and elderly. In the “Housing New York, the mayor planned out the constructions and preservation by numbers as well. According to the graphs you can see that 40% will be new construction and 60% will be preservation. As well, the graph shows that the focus will be on the households with middle, moderate, low, very low and extremely low income. You may ask yourself, what is the appropriate pricing for rent for each income level that won’t cause a rent-burden? By viewing the graph shown in the Executive Summary of Housing Assets, I could determine what affordable housing really means in term of pricing for rent. For the individuals that are given an extremely low income, the monthly rent required to prevent rent-burden is up to $629, and for very low income is $630-$1,049. For individuals with low income, the monthly rent required to prevent rent-burden is approximately $1,050- $1,678 and for moderate income the rent is $1,679-$2,517. Lastly, for middle income, the monthly rent is $2,518-$3,461. As stated in USA Today, Mayor De Blasio stated that We risk losing the very soul of this place, if it isn’t a place for every kind of person. If we do not act, and act boldly, New York risks taking on the qualities of a gated community. A place defined by exclusivity, rather than opportunity. In keeping New York, a city of opportunity, it is necessary to build healthy and affordable neighborhoods that will help individuals prosper.
On February 3rd, 2015, Mayor De Blasio delivered the State of the City Address. During this address, the Mayor announced the importance of the confrontation of economic inequality regarding affordable housing. During his speech, he spoke about six major neighborhoods that are going to be used to build affordable housing. These neighborhoods include East New York in Brooklyn, Long Island City in Queens, Jerome Avenue Corridor in Bronx, Flushing West in Queens, Bay Street Corridor in Staten Island, and East Harlem in Manhattan. In his speech, De Blasio also proposed to bring more affordable housing and better infrastructure to the southwest Bronx and to seize the opportunity for affordable housing and stronger communities at the Sunnyside Yards. He also proposed to free legal defense for tenants in all areas undergoing rezoning, to end the homelessness among veterans, and to keep New York City affordable for artists and makers. Mayor De Blasio also stated that the new programs created for affordable housing will end homelessness and will help seniors live independently. He also spoke about the uniqueness of New York City, and how the multiple races and different income levels impact New York.
During his speech, De Blasio proposed 200,000 new units, which 80,000 would become affordable homes and the other 120,000 units would be preserved. For this five-borough ten-year plan, there are many existing rules that will need to be changed or adjusted regarding affordable housing. During the current programs regarding affordable housing, there are income restrictions that need to become modified to fit a wider range of incomes. The city will need to increase the number of subsidies, which would increase the range of incomes. By creating middle income housing strategies, the neighborhoods will become economically diversified and will help the middle class prosper. When thinking of 200,000 units of affordable housing, the cost for these units is significantly $42 billion dollars are said during the State of the City Address. At the end of the housing plan, Mayor De Blasio wrote “We must remember that the best and the brightest are born in every neighborhood, in every zip code. And what marks a just society is that it allows them all to reach their potential”. I believe that his approach towards affordable housing is very prosperous, and I believe that it will be very successful.
New York City is the city of opportunity, and I believe that this ambitious Housing Plan will help put New York City at its peak once again. With the help of the federal and state government, real estate, stakeholders and many others, the five-borough ten-year plan will allow the middle class and lower class live an affordable life without the rent burden. With the elimination of economic inequality throughout the neighborhoods, New York City will allow for the emphasis of diversity. Affordable housing, being the base of the progress of New York City, will allow for financial stability and opportunity.
SOURCES
• http://www1.nyc.gov/nyc-resources/service/1021/affordable-housing
• http://www.nyc.gov/html/housing/assets/downloads/pdf/housing_plan.pdf
• http://www1.nyc.gov/site/housing/index.page
• http://www.nyc.gov/html/housing/assets/downloads/pdf/housing_plan.pdf.
• http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/03/26/nyc-mayor-faces-familiarproblem-with-affordable-housing/24732691/