City To Help Artists Get Their Piece of the Rock
WYNC is reporting that the city is setting up a $100 million fund to help artists purchase the spaces in which they live and work. In announcing the fund’s creation, City Housing Commissioner Sean Donovan noted that artists deserve to share in the wealth that their pioneering efforts create. “If we believe as I think…
WYNC is reporting that the city is setting up a $100 million fund to help artists purchase the spaces in which they live and work. In announcing the fund’s creation, City Housing Commissioner Sean Donovan noted that artists deserve to share in the wealth that their pioneering efforts create. “If we believe as I think many of us do, that artists not just need affordable housing, but actually create real estate value, what we’re trying to do is create a fund that would actually leverage some of that, bring in investment dollars to follow artists, and allow them, for reduced prices, to buy their space.” Remember the discussion we had about the fate of the artists on South 11th Street?
$100 Million Fund for Artist Housing [WNYC]
I don’t buy that at all, Anon 12:12– artists may be one part of a gentrifying process that raises real estate values, but I really they’re fetishized in a weird way.
Did artists really add more real estate value to DUMBO than Jacques Torres or the slew of designers who moved in there?
I mean, I buy the idea that “creative people” by some definition make a neighborhood better, but I think that there’s a tendency to define that really narrowly– so that it’s only visual artists working in a particular way who get the cred.– and those people often have trust funds, as was mentioned previously….
Without artists moving in to ‘undesirable’ neighborhoods, making them appealing destinations and then hotspots for development, what would you be talking about on this blog? Not Dumbo. Not the ‘Burg. not Chelsea, LIC, Bushwick.
Sure, you’d still be talking about ‘brownstone brooklyn’ but I swear more than half of the threads on here are about the latest behemoth condo development. So without artists, you probably wouldn’t be sitting in Dumbo, getting delivery from Fresh Direct while gloating over your rising on-paper-equity.
Oh, and I’d like someone, anyone to point out to me how policemen, teachers, firemen, social workers, etc. actually CHANGE the neighborhood they live in. I think they should all be paid double, triple what they make. And yes, they provide tangible services. But artists are the ones providing the intangibles, the immesurables that turn a neighborhood into something it wasn’t. And allow you to make more money.
So go buy some art and help artists continue to do their thing. Or, wait! Now i get it…maybe there is animosity towards this potential ‘artists fund’ because you don’t WANT them to be able to settle down. You want them to move on to the next ‘hood so you can take advantage of the opportunities that only exist because they had to start over again. ahah!
Barib, your friend is obviously living beyond his means. I earn less than $140k and I own 2 homes. If it means moving 50-70 miles outside of the city, if his wife has to go back to work, if they have to cram into a smaller place….but I KNOW they can do it on that salary. I should do an infomercial, but if I can do it on my measly earnings, anyone can!!
The reality here is that all of the well intentioned people who complain about building big buildings have created a situation where little new is built and the few new units are bid up by either:
1. People hyperexetending to fit their two kids into a 1br.
or
2. Trust funders who don’t care about six,seven, or sometimes even eight digit price tags.
Creating a program to help one group is wrong for many reasons, including:
1. You’re spending public funds that could be used for much more important things.
2. You’re making it even harder for everyone else by reducing the market supply of housing further and by taking money from everyone else who wants housing.
At the end of the day there are really only three choices:
1. Limited development and high prices. Housing for only the rich (See London).
2. Government housing programs making housing very cheap for a few select people (see the fighting between Hasids and Hispanics in WBerg) and even more expensive than #1 for everyone else.
3. A free market and higher density.
I’m sorry, it’s not me, but it’s life that gives us those choices.
Sorry, Barib, but that’s not a great example. Like all of us, your friend and his wife made choices. Most people I know, including myself, would be more than happy to be pulling in $140K. Sheesh!
Ugh. A buddy of mine works on Wall St. and also has a second part-time job…so that his wife can be home with the children.
Know what? They still can’t buy a house in Brooklyn ’cause they’re 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 hundred thousand big ones. He’s probably pulling in 140k before the taxman. They’d like to move into something bigger, but there isn’t too much at all that is affordable. Come on: do the majority of people have so much money to lay down for homes in Brooklyn?
Housing crisis is real – and my buddy – who is doing very well, is in it just like the real artists are too. The new housing offers a chance for low income and then it’s open to the big bucks crowd – my buddy is not in that crowd.
Outside of not moving 50-70 miles out of NYC and leaving Brooklyn and NYC’s hum and buz behind, what real choices do he and his family have?
We’re talking about $100m here. Somehow, I don’t think anyone here would themselves write a check for this. It’s b/c it comes from the government that it feels free. but, it’s not. And if no one would pay for it themselves, it’s nuts to make the gvt pay for it. $100m can save lives. To spend this on subsidies so people can live in the most expensive place in the US in crazy.
Hmm, help kids with cancer? Sponsor research on an orphan disease for 5 years? No let’s subsidize people who some anonymous city board will call artists.
I paint with poo poo. Where’s the money? I have my Yale MFA to pay for. Poo poo doesn’t grow on trees, you know. I thought that the modern ART world had decided that if one labels IT art. IT is art, and so every activity i do is also art. Like, right now, I’m typing, but it’s art, because i say it is.
Affordable housing for all (artists and firefighters, etc).
Anyone been to San Francisco recently? Pretty place, but lifeless. Keep NYC diverse with manufacturing and working artists. And give me a break about the trust fund comment – many artists I know eat about one good meal a day.
Also be aware that cultural capital (i.e., music, the arts, a vibrant healthy ARTIST community) is one of the significant factors in making a city a dynamic and great place.