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It is very difficult to get into an affordable unit. First you have to beat the odds and get randomly chosen, then you have to go through a detailed examination of your financial history-credit score, tax returns, bank statements, w2s, pay stubs, rent checks, lease, and more. You also go through a criminal background check. So by the time someone is approved you have a better tenant than a market rate renter.
This isn't true of all affordable housing. This is true of programs like 80/20s and perhaps Mitchell Llamas. But of course NYCHA, LAMP,Scattersite Housing/Halfway Housing, and Section 8 housing is affordable, and they don't go through all those checks for those programs. So depending in the "affordable housing" program, it may be aimed at working class to middle class people, or it may be aimed at people on welfare, SSI, drug addicts (they put them in SROs, scattersite housing, halfway housing), ex convicts and the like.
I know there may be physical room....but these half million people will not just stay in their apartments. The city is jam packed as is, the infrastructure just can not support it at some point. Couple the 200k affordable housing units with the west side manhattan redevelopment - how is the city going to support all these people? Do we really need a more dense city? Heck, if that's the case, lets auction of central park to the highest developer (well, with the right amount of affordable housing of course)
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Originally Posted by NyWriterdude
NYC can put up more apartments in empty industrial spalce (this is currently being done in the West Side of Manhattan). There's still more space that can be converted in East River neighborhoods (including LIC). And there's plenty of space in the South Bronx.
Why use valuable Manhattan real estate to house these skells. How about the city construct barges with apartment and anchor them along the newtown creek and gowanus canal.
With DeBlasio wanting affording housing - realized I don't know exactly what it is.
Sorry, excuse my ignorance. I originally thought it meant that a landlord built an apartment house, and maybe agreed to charge less in exchange for some tax breaks. But maybe does it really mean that the government pays part of the rent so that the resident gets charged less? Sorry, I really don't know. And then is anyone eligible if poor, or is it at all on the basis of merit?
Why use valuable Manhattan real estate to house these skells. How about the city construct barges with apartment and anchor them along the newtown creek and gowanus canal.
I know there may be physical room....but these half million people will not just stay in their apartments. The city is jam packed as is, the infrastructure just can not support it at some point. Couple the 200k affordable housing units with the west side manhattan redevelopment - how is the city going to support all these people? Do we really need a more dense city? Heck, if that's the case, lets auction of central park to the highest developer (well, with the right amount of affordable housing of course)
Phase One of the Second Avenue Subway is under construction. Real estate taxes were used to issue bonds for the extension of the 7 train to 34th and 11th. The city could similarly issue bonds and back them up from future real estate taxes from the areas slated for development and use this to fund future phases of the Second Avenue Subway, including an extension to the Bronx, as well as additional subway lines.
Do we need a more dense city? No. But considering real estate is an important part of NYC's economy (as is selling the NY dream), then so long as the market supports it a more dense city is what we'll get.
And besides, as noted, it would be be utilizing real estate in parts of the city that are under utilized due to industrial collapse.
With DeBlasio wanting affording housing - realized I don't know exactly what it is.
Sorry, excuse my ignorance. I originally thought it meant that a landlord built an apartment house, and maybe agreed to charge less in exchange for some tax breaks. But maybe does it really mean that the government pays part of the rent so that the resident gets charged less? Sorry, I really don't know. And then is anyone eligible if poor, or is it at all on the basis of merit?
Affordable housing means units where a family or person is not paying more than a certain percentage of their total monthly income towards rent or housing expenses such as mortgage. Therefore what is "affordable" varies greatly by one's income. IIRC the number sought is about thirty percent (30%).
Forget the exact numbers but NYC uses a metric that takes input from the median household income for various families (single, two, three person, etc...) living in either in the City as a whole and or for a local community.
Right now a large portion of City residents are paying >50% of their household income towards rent. This obviously is not good because it creates a situation where such persons are "rent poor". That is after paying housing costs they have little or nil money left each month. Because they are sitting so very close to the window's edge it often takes one setback such as a loss or reduction of income even if only temporary to cause them to fall behind in rent. Once that happens eviction is usually not far behind.
The median income in NYC is about $50K per year. Affordable housing for such persons would run about $15K per year. Good luck with that. Even for households earning between $80K and $100K or more per year finding *affordable* rental housing can be a challenge. Especially that with more than one bedroom (family sized units).
Obviously as the household income moves higher what is affordable does as well. In situations such as some living in RS apartments or those that luck out and find a great deal, while they can *afford* to pay more in rent they actually are paying less.
This comes to another point and you saw this with DeBlasio's big speech yesterday. What many persons in NYC need is not *affordable* housing but "low income", the two are not the same.
If total household income is <$40K per year in NYC for all intents and purposes you are poor. You might be working class poor but never the less finding *affordable* housing on such an income is near impossible. Yet plenty of workers (including government), those on various federal benefits (SSI, SS, etc...) must live on just such incomes.
If you want to see what "affordable housing" turns into, look no further than those new "affordable housing" complexes built in the south Bronx. There's actually a few threads on CD about how "hood" people have infiltrated the complex, bringing their hood behavior along with them.
The smell of weed being smoked in the lobbies and hallways, trash being thrown out the window, graffiti popping up in the hallways, teenagers and young adults loitering in front of the building and causing a nuisance, etc.
I swear...you can't have nothing nice without hood people messing it up. Hence why I'm not a fan of "affordable housing". There are good intentions behind it but the real world results has a negative impact on the area.
And this will happen to some extent or another in these "affordable housing" buildings. It will attract the low lives and quality of life in the area will ultimately decrease.
Affordable housing means units where a family or person is not paying more than a certain percentage of their total monthly income towards rent or housing expenses such as mortgage. Therefore what is "affordable" varies greatly by one's income. IIRC the number sought is about thirty percent (30%).
Forget the exact numbers but NYC uses a metric that takes input from the median household income for various families (single, two, three person, etc...) living in either in the City as a whole and or for a local community.
Right now a large portion of City residents are paying >50% of their household income towards rent. This obviously is not good because it creates a situation where such persons are "rent poor". That is after paying housing costs they have little or nil money left each month. Because they are sitting so very close to the window's edge it often takes one setback such as a loss or reduction of income even if only temporary to cause them to fall behind in rent. Once that happens eviction is usually not far behind.
The median income in NYC is about $50K per year. Affordable housing for such persons would run about $15K per year. Good luck with that. Even for households earning between $80K and $100K or more per year finding *affordable* rental housing can be a challenge. Especially that with more than one bedroom (family sized units).
This comes to another point and you saw this with DeBlasio's big speech yesterday. What many persons in NYC need is not *affordable* housing but "low income", the two are not the same.
If total household income is <$40K per year in NYC for all intents and purposes you are poor. You might be working class poor but never the less finding *affordable* housing on such an income is near impossible. Yet plenty of workers (including government), those on various federal benefits (SSI, SS, etc...) must live on just such incomes.
Thank you to BugsyPal for being one of the few people to try to address my question. I didn't hear DeBlasio's speech, just pick up some bits of opinions in articles.
But so the idea is still that with the favoring for lower income people, it's in the form of a tax break for the landlord, not actual money paid out to the tenants? And it's based completely on poverty, not merit? In other words, to use my example, someone finishing his last year of medical school, or a hard-working car mechanic, gets no preference over an unmarried mother of four who hasn't worked for the last 20 years?
Thank you to BugsyPal for being one of the few people to try to address my question. I didn't hear DeBlasio's speech, just pick up some bits of opinions in articles.
But so the idea is still that with the favoring for lower income people, it's in the form of a tax break for the landlord, not actual money paid out to the tenants? And it's based completely on poverty, not merit? In other words, to use my example, someone finishing his last year of medical school, or a hard-working car mechanic, gets no preference over an unmarried mother of four who hasn't worked for the last 20 years?
Mr. deBlasio's plan was long on plans but short on specifics so how things will play out is pretty much going forward a work in progress.
Have read somewhere that when it comes to NYC and poverty housing preference has been given to households where at least one adult is working full time. That may be a model going forward, who knows.
What is clear is that developers who already in some camps aren't happy with being basically turned into providing social services will allow for "ghetto" behavior in better housing. To this point the City seems to have realized this with the various affordable housing schemes and the vetting process seems to indicate.
The mechanic with a track record of steady employment and so forth probably would rank ahead of a serial unwed mother who is unemployed.
As to how deBlasio and the City intend to get developers to go along with this plan, again that was not spelled out and the administration indeed was quite vague. Some say this was done on purpose to forestall any local community reaction (and action) against low or affordable housing being shoved into their neighborhoods. The deputy mayor woman Mr. de Blasio has put in charge of housing already has ruffled feathers on Staten Island with her comments that the place could support "more low income/affordable housing".
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