A $4,900 per month two-bedroom apartment could qualify as "affordable," under a formula that includes housing for people making up to 165 percent of AMI. "The corporate model has brought us to this point," he said.įor the past 30 years, the City's efforts to create "affordable housing" have mainly relied on efforts to have it trickle down from luxury development, by giving tax breaks and zoning incentives to for-profit developers who include up to 30 percent below-market-rate apartments. Yet "affordable" is defined in relation to the federal "area median income" (or AMI, in housing policy jargon) that is standard for the metropolitan area-$120,000 per year for a family of three-instead of the City's median household income of about $70,000. New York City now has the highest rents and the most housing code violations in its history, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams told the people at the rally. (The Housing Justice for All coalition is developing legislation to create a similar state authority.) The Council is also considering resolutions urging the state legislature to pass bills that would give tenants the right to make the first offer if their building is being sold create a rent voucher program for people who are homeless or about to be evicted and prohibit evicting tenants without a "good cause," such as nonpayment of rent. Intro 714, sponsored by Manhattan Councilmember Gale Brewer, would establish a City land bank, which could acquire property and transfer it to community land trusts and nonprofits.Ī fourth bill, sponsored by Nurse, would have the City conduct a study on the feasibility of establishing a social housing authority. Manhattan Councilmember Carlina Rivera is sponsoring Intro 196, or the Community Opportunity to Purchase Act, which would give "qualified entities" the first opportunity to purchase apartment buildings that are for sale. Intro 637, sponsored by Brooklyn Councilmember Lincoln Restler, would require the City to give first priority to nonprofit developers and community land trusts when selling City-owned land. Three bills pending in the Council have been backed by more than half its members. "We know the speculators are out there trying to flip our homes. These bills "will keep truly affordable homes in our neighborhood," Debra Ack of the East New York Community Land Trust told Hell Gate at the rally, timed to coincide with a Council Housing and Buildings Committee hearing on the legislation. The goal of these bills, Brooklyn City Councilmember Sandy Nurse said at a rally outside City Hall in late February, is to "defend our communities against the class war that is being waged against us" and give working-class New Yorkers the opportunity to stay here. Now, the City Council is considering a package of legislation to support building more social housing. But their limited scope points to how much needs to change-these bills are primarily procedural changes to enable more nonprofit development, a far cry from the massive housing construction programs that existed from the end of World War II to the beginning of the Reagan era. Over the years, these bulwarks against rising rents have been significantly eroded. New York City has a rich history of creating social housing: affordable housing co-ops, Mitchell-Lama buildings, public housing, and community land trusts. What sets social housing apart from other forms of so-called "affordable" housing are its general principles: "deep affordability," or being truly affordable to poor and working-class people democratic management and being removed from the speculative market.
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