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All subsidized housing, PJ's, section 8 etc charge about 1/2 of your take home pay for rent. Most people will not be able to escape from them. Maybe their children will.
Yes most of them only consider gross income.
I think subsidized housing was the worst thing to ever happen to NYC. The projects allowed millions of people to stay in NYC that otherwise wouldn't be able to make it here, it also has psychologically kept healthy people from stepping up their game, and pursuing education, skills, and entrepreneurship to achieve more in life, just so they can stay in the projects and pay lower rents. Also as the OP mentioned student loans, people maybe put off from pursuing higher education knowing that they will have student loans, also knowing that as young adults their incomes still may not warrant getting an apt on their own in NYC, but at the same time staying at home a couple of years will raise the families rents in subsidized housing where the family could lose the subsidy.
I think projects section 8 housing and other programs should only have been for the disabled and elderly.
It is too late now, but maybe in the near future they could limit new applications to only that. All others should have to think of some other plan concerning housing. It will be chaotic for a while, but the gov't and the working middle class can no longer keep supporting this lifestyle through taxes, while people lose all ambition to make it in life and support themselves.
When I started out and was working my way up in my career, I had to sacrifice. I had to have money to wear certain clothing to work, which meant that I didn't have the latest fashions for a night on the town. I couldn't afford but so much for furniture and the latest technology. While relatives that lived in the projects had all of that and more, where their apts looked like palaces, because of the low rents. I mean custom window treatments, the latest technology, designer clothes and sportswear. Yet never payed a tax dollar other than sales taxes on the stuff they bought, while I am taxed like crazy on every dollar I earn.
Subsidized housing has also ruined the housing market in NYC for working/middle class people. A person can hardly find an affordable apartment that is not subsidized. Which means that they have to be within gross income guidelines. Realistically a person or couple making $40K with 2 children will have a hard time paying the $1100 dollars rent for the 2 bedroom subsidized apt. that I saw advertised for a housing lottery. Every year they will have to verify their income. If this is section 8 type their rents will rise with their income giving them no incentive, or make it very hard for them to save and move to something or somewhere that will allow them to pursue more wealth.
This has also made Ghetto Landlords only take section 8 because they can get so much subsidy from the gov't in these neighborhoods while working people that can only afford to live in these neighborhoods can't pay what these landlords get from the subsidy. It has also created another kind of subsidy by the city renting apts from these landlords for shelters for families.. If they are going to do that it would be better and cheaper to just pay the going market rents for the apt for these families.
Then there is the whole scam of low income working people that are getting large tax return checks every year, spending it all and going to HRA for one shot deals. The landlords working with them to get them. Some of these people have homes they own in other countries but can't be traced here. Why doesn't the city just take their tax returns the following year and get their money back, instead of allowing this to happen every year?
But yet there is no affordable housing offered by landlords that do not require people to prove income year after year that is not subsidized, and that allow people to just work and pay their rents, and live.
Das there is some truth to your statement. It seems like the more the city meddled in trying to regulate the market, the worse it became, the more programs and subsidies were created, and the more dysfunctional the market, and the population have become. And as soon as the mandate to house every man/woman/child was implemented in NYC, the hope of ever righting the housing market was lost forever. At this point there is no hope of fixing this mess because the city is obligated to house anyone who knocks on their door, at a rent they can afford, for life (and the life of their offspring..and on and on.)
Definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different outcome.
Beginning with rent control laws in the 1940's and then adding RS and a whole host of other interventions NYC and to an extent NYS has meddled in the housing rental housing market. The result is nearly 60% of all rental housing currently in NYC is under some sort of government intervention, control and or subsidy. The result has been a vast distortion of the housing market that continues to grow. And yet the de Blasio administration, the City Council and others are proposing *MORE* regulations including mandating "inclusive" development and set asides of a minimum of 50% of future units as "permanently affordable/low income". None of these proposals deal with the real issues but do drive up the cost of market rate housing for everyone else.
The latest fad of affordable housing lotteries is just deja vu all over again. Just as with RS a few will be chosen for "inexpensive" housing out of thousands so again the City is creating winners and losers.
Recent and classic example of this is 22 River Terrace.
Developed as an "80/20" building the property was recently sold and market rate tenants forced out as the new owners convert the place into luxury housing. Neither love nor money could save them even though many offered to purchase their units at market rate. The RS "20%" cannot be touched so though they will live through years of construction (and probably file tons of complaints) when all is said and done they will be living in a higher end building than what they moved into at same controlled rents.
I know teachers, nurses, police officers, etc. who make good money, but not enough/or too much for "affordable" housing.
A lot of newer developments see to cater to people who can't make no more that $30k a year for a single person.
The rich pay fair market for their homes. The poor qualify for section 8 housing. Few lotteries exist for "middle income" people. If they do, it is still too much money. Almost more than half of your take home will go to rent.
For example, I was looking for a 1 bedroom in an 80/20 building where a single person making between 88k and 109k would have to pay $2,500 a month. What if your on the low end and have essential debt like student loans. (I suppose you would not need to apply then)
But what do you think?
What I notice about NYC and erks me about is that you cant be average or in the middle of the road person. This city is a city of extreme means and polar opposites. Since this is the city of extreme oppsoites and no room in the middle ground is positing me to move out of the city.
What I notice about NYC and erks me about is that you cant be average or in the middle of the road person. This city is a city of extreme means and polar opposites.
Same goes for females in NYC. They can't be average or middle of the road. LOL!
NYC government's housing policy falls under the school of "you can't save everyone". Depending what party and or whom is mayor one or maybe two classes are favoured, everyone else has to make way the best they know how.
I do agree. In NYC you will either be a master or a servant, the gap is widening at a rate that makes me uneasy.
And yet, if you do not want to submit to the gentrification, you will have to accept a low rate job in order to afford housing designated for servants to the community (20-30k incomes).
If not, you must leave to a less commodified location of the city.
I think politicians don't care because the middle class continues to flock to the city for jobs & bear the cost of commuting. The only way things will change is if it becomes difficult to fill positions. This will not happen because people continue to flock to the city for jobs because the pay rate is usually higher than the surrounding suburbs; if they can even find a job in the suburbs.
If you mean by "New York City" the mayor and Council yes, they are aware the middle class (who would be considered upper middle to wealthy most anywhere else in the USA with the same income), face housing problems. Bloomberg to a small extent favoured doing something for such persons. De Blasio and the current CC are set on helping the "lowest of the low" that is the poor. They have gone on record saying so and that is where the policy initiatives thus far seem to trend.
New York City has a problem. High land prices, construction, taxes and other costs simply make building anything but luxury housing impossible. When you add on the "costs" of NYC's archaic, byzantine, and often interfering rules and laws regarding construction and property (everything from zoning, landmarking, historical districts, building regulations, etc...) the costs go up further.
The other problem is the high tax rates for both NYC and NYS. This means usually about 33% of what a person earns comes off the top in federal, state and local taxes. So right there someone earning 80k per year is down to about 50k. The latter number is what you work with and that may go down further for various payroll deductions and servicing debt.
NYC is not alone in becoming unaffordable to middle class households. Places such as Boston, San Francisco and a good number of other real estate markets are going the same way; housing for the wealthy and the poor. Everyone else must fend for themselves.
Bugsy, we have the identical problem in London. But in truth I cant see what can be done. I think it is a reflection of the larger economic trend that the Middle Class is shrinking. NYC like London had areas of Manhattan that people with low to middle incomes could afford to live, that era is pretty much over.
The poor in New York like in London are really just a historical hangover, usually in public or subsidized housing that is in areas that have been gentrified. In London our current and previous mayors tried to tackle this issue with little success. The fact is the super high end is just too lucrative, why waste money on units that sell for 200-700k. When you can sell to foreign investors from Russia, China, Asia, Nigeria and Middle East who will buy off plan for tens of millions (Go figure).
The poor are a political issue and are paid for via direct public spending or weird stipulations for new building. Hence poor doors on new apartment buildings which are common both here and in New York.
Also in truth like in London it is a reflection of either city's success. I remember tales from my parents of both London and New York in the 80s (although I appreciate New York was worse). Thats why I get worried about populist mayors like De Blasio, he has to be very careful that he doesnt break the success formula which has been very good for New York. If investors get scared their money will flow elsewhere, which is the same issue for us here in London. Rent controls etc are dangerous tools for what is a far more complex problem..
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