Mayor Eric Adams has been vocal about his commitment to addressing New York City’s housing crisis, particularly for low- and middle-income families — but a recent data analysis reveals potential shortcomings in the city’s approach.
At a June 2022 event announcing his housing plan, Adams emphasized the importance of keeping families in New York City by addressing affordability issues.
“We have a hemorrhaging of Black and brown families leaving New York because it’s no longer affordable,” Adams said. “We’ve decimated the middle class and we need to refocus our attention on stabilizing these families.”
However, a closer look at city data by Gothamist suggests a discrepancy between the housing being built and the needs of families.
Approximately 70% of the roughly 24,000 subsidized, affordable units built or financed citywide since Adams took office consist of studios and one-bedroom apartments, which are less suitable for families due to their smaller size. This concentration is particularly problematic in neighborhoods with higher proportions of families, such as the north Bronx and eastern Queens, exacerbating the challenges for those in need of larger living spaces.
City Council members, such as Eric Dinowitz, express concerns that the current housing program fails to fully meet the needs of their communities. Vacancy rates for affordable units priced below $2,400 a month are alarmingly low, further worsening the crunch.
“It sounds really great to maximize the number of [affordable] units that you build, but oftentimes you do that at the expense of two- and three-bedroom apartments,” Dinowitz told Gothamist. He represents Bedford Park, Norwood and other northwest Bronx neighborhoods where 76% of subsidized units are studios and one-bedroom apartments.
The Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) argues that the demand for smaller units is being met, pointing out that the majority of those registered for the affordable housing lottery live in smaller households.
However, critics like Dinowitz argue that this focus comes at the expense of larger, family-sized units, leaving many families without viable housing options.
“They’re not meeting the needs of the blocks on which they’re built,” he said.
Supportive housing for formerly homeless individuals, a pressing need in the city, also contributes to the prevalence of smaller units. But the emphasis on smaller units raises questions about whether the city is adequately addressing the needs of families amid the housing crisis.
Howard Slatkin, Executive Director of the Citizens Housing and Planning Council, underscores the necessity of balancing the demand for smaller and larger units, emphasizing that both are essential components of a comprehensive housing strategy.
“It’s a continually vexing issue: Which of these things do we need more of?” Slatkin told Gothamist.
“Like so many things in housing, we end up answering like it’s an either-or question, but there’s such a need for both.”
The City Council, along with Mayor Adams and housing development groups, is advocating for measures to increase affordable housing of all types, including urging state lawmakers to revamp tax break programs for developers.
Additionally, there are proposals for the creation of a “social housing” authority to develop publicly owned mixed-income housing tailored to community needs.
However, the challenges persist for families like that of Ben Furnas, a former advisor to Mayor Bill de Blasio, who struggles to find affordable, adequate housing for his family of four.
Furnas emphasizes the urgency of expanding housing options in the city, calling for policy choices that prioritize housing growth across all sizes and income levels.
“We’ve seen very slow or no housing growth, and the city really sort of feels frozen in amber,” Furnas told the outlet. “These situations are much, much harder than they otherwise could be if different policy choices were being made.”
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