Affordable housing push not helping those who need it most
The details that have emerged about this year’s budget package suggest Gov. Kathy Hochul continues to have a skewed sense of “affordable” housing. Her proposal to give tax breaks to developers for units aimed at households making more than $110,000 echoes a project she touted last year when she unveiled Seneca, the winning proposal for a project that will transform the former Lincoln Correctional Facility in Harlem into what she called “more than 100 affordable new homes.”
That’s defined as affordable to households earning between 80 percent and 100 percent of the area median income. For New York City, that’s $79,120 to $98,900 for a single individual and $101,680 to $127,100 for a three-person family. A 5 percent down payment would be required to purchase one of these homes.
That’s not affordable for me or for many of the people I know. So, we need to be clear about what we mean by “affordable housing.” Who is it affordable for?
As someone who was incarcerated at Lincoln in the 1980s and who has also experienced homelessness, sleeping on the streets and navigating New York City’s shelter system, I think this redevelopment effort should provide housing for low-income New Yorkers.
Ask yourself: Would a single adult earning New York City’s minimum wage, $16 an hour, be able to purchase one of these homes? That’s an annual income of about $33,000 a year. How about a family receiving SSI public assistance looking for housing with a Section 8 voucher? The answer is no.
Personally, I receive $291 in food stamps monthly and $71 in cash bi-weekly, part of which goes to my electricity bill. I live in a supportive housing program run by Urban Pathways, which receives $104 weekly for my rent.
There is no way that an individual like myself or those who are in a similar situation would be able to buy one of these homes. In the meantime, record numbers of people remain in overcrowded shelters waiting for affordable apartments.
And there are more than 10,000 households with housing vouchers in the city shelter
system who can’t find permanent housing, according to a recent Gothamist article.
In other words: The housing plan is another missed opportunity to lower the city’s homeless population and move people from temporary placements to more permanent housing. In addition to providing tax breaks to developers for no meaningful return of affordable housing, it also fails to include the Housing Access Voucher Program, a statewide rental subsidy that would help the record number of people experiencing homelessness move out of shelters into permanent housing.
When I was released from prison in November 2017, my two main goals were to find employment and an apartment. Most of my family passed away while I was incarcerated, so I came out to nothing and no one.
I wound up being sent to Bellevue shelter for two weeks, then to the Wards Island shelter for three months. I got housing in Brooklyn through Ready Willing and Able; I was one of those individuals in blue uniforms you see cleaning the sidewalks. After I graduated from that program, I found a job and met my significant other, and we moved into an apartment.
When she passed away in 2020, I couldn’t afford the apartment on my own and had to go back into the shelter system. I was housed at the Lucerne Hotel during the pandemic and was eventually placed in supportive housing.
In order for me to move into an apartment, I’d have to find a place I could afford.
The lack of options for lowincome New Yorkers creates a backlog that contributes to rising homelessness. At the moment, there are individuals and families in the city’s shelter system who are “housing ready.” Their paperwork is done, they have their vouchers and they are just looking for a place to call home.
The smart thing to do is help these individuals move out of the shelter system into truly affordable apartments, which would free up space so more people could be moved off the streets.
If New York is serious about creating “affordable homes,” it should do so first for the people who need them the most.