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Last month, we wrote a blog on New York’s growing number of zombie properties and what the New York Attorney General planned to do about it. Here is an update on the state of housing of NYC as we discuss the mayor’s plan to make housing more affordable for NYC residents.
De Blasio’s new plan is called “Housing New York,” and its main objective is to better provide housing to accommodate the growing number of people flocking to New York City and to support a vast range of incomes, starting from the lowest end of the spectrum and extending to the middle class. De Blasio plans to have 80,000 new low-cost homes and 120,000 more homes preserved. The mayor hopes New York’s residents will carry out legal living arrangements in response to the plan. Currently, it is common for residents to not register all occupants in an apartment. But with newfound affordable housing, this issue may lessen.
Living arrangements are said to be a problem for citizens in NYC. Currently, one-third of tenants in NYC spend more than half of their paycheck on rent. Homelessness is also a major issue there, with more than 60,000 residents being homeless.
Ted Houghton, Executive Director of the Supportive Housing Network of New York— a nonprofit membership organization representing more than 220 nonprofits that operate and develop supportive housing—backs de Blasio’s plan, saying it ”…provides the exact solutions we need to end our city’s record levels of homelessness.”
There is also opposition to de Blasio’s plan. Christopher Jones, vice president for research at the Regional Plan Association- an independent urban research and advocacy organization— said that New York is in a housing crisis in part because affordable housing is not being built in the suburbs. Jones believes that even though the mayor has ambitious plans, there still won’t be enough housing to cater to the ever-growing number of people coming to New York and the demand for affordable housing.
There are over 50 proposals in “Housing New York” to conserve or build the new units of affordable housing. It promotes the establishment of a housing agreement between New York State and New York City as an amendment to the former 10-year New York/New York Ⅲ Supportive Housing Agreement.
In the mayor’s speech last month at Baruch College in NYC, de Blasio spoke about the high cost of living in NYC and how this allows for inequality to thrive. De Blasio went on to say that his new plan can close the gap of inequality by providing affordable housing to NYC’s inhabitants.