Politicians Can't Back Sell-The-Projects Idea
Unsurprisingly, a group of legislators has a serious bone to pick with HUD regional director Sean Moss over his recent comments that selling some public housing developments might help solve New York’s affordable housing crisis. A letter addressed to HUD secretary Alphonso Jackson that was signed by 14 assemblymembers (including Joan Millman and Hakeem Jeffries)…
Unsurprisingly, a group of legislators has a serious bone to pick with HUD regional director Sean Moss over his recent comments that selling some public housing developments might help solve New York’s affordable housing crisis. A letter addressed to HUD secretary Alphonso Jackson that was signed by 14 assemblymembers (including Joan Millman and Hakeem Jeffries) makes the case that selling public housing is in no way a long-term solution for the city’s housing crisis:
At issue is the assertion that mass displacement of residents in one neighborhood, would benefit residents of another. At the very least, this assertion is misguided. The existing NYCHA developments are of much more value, to both the number of individuals which they provide shelter to as well as the diverse communities they help foster, than a short term budget windfall. Likewise, any purchase and/or development of affordable housing, short of new construction of full scale NYCHA developments, would be comparatively wasteful of the suggested sales proceeds and could by no means accommodate the same numbers of residents currently served by existing developments. In short, a sale of NYCHA properties would be a ‘one-shot’ deal, and would offer very few benefits for those in need of public housing extending past the year of the sale.
Full text of the letter on the jump.
HUD Official Speaks the Unspeakable: Selling The Projects [Brownstoner]
Stuck_in_the_middle;
When I said that your story wasn’t convincing, I meant that it did not make a strong enough case of the benefits of subsidized housing, from a policy point of view. Of course I believe your story itself!
I respect your point-of-view, but I have to disagree. In my mind, one of the reasons that NYC is so expensive (which is why your mom had to move out) is all of these inefficient subsidies. I really believe that we would all be better off if these subsidies would be eliminated. It would lower the cost of living in NY, allowing room for all. This is the way it used to be in NYC, before rent control, before the projects, etc.
By the way: we have a similiar story. When I was a boy,my family’s wooden shack in Red Hook burned to the ground, and we were placed in the Red Hook projects on an emergency basis. My grandma lived in the projects for 39 years (in the Canarsie area). So, you would think I would be a big supporter of the projects. My experience has shown me, however, that these projects do more harm than good. They trap alot of people in a dependent life style.
Good luck!
Benson
What is considered middle class in this city now? I’m not trying to be sarcastic. I have a feeling that most people in Brooklyn would not make the cut, or would fall into the subclassification of lower middle class. I know I would. That is one reason I can relate to and defend those in the projects. There isn’t that big a gap between them and me, and if I had a long term disability, or my industry and work disappeared in a deep recession, I might well be forced to apply for public housing. Who knows? I don’t think I’m above, or better than, a run of bad luck. It doesn’t mean I don’t pay taxes, work my butt off, or “deserve” it. Most of my end of the middle class could easily go into deep debt with just one serious illness. I think working for a fair housing solutions for all, without demonizing those who have so little, is called for, if for no other reason that “they” could become “we” faster than you think.
I. TO THE POSTERS OPPOSED TO PUBLIC HOUSING
While you resent your tax-dollars subsidising shelter for the poor, you forget that the vast majority of gov’t housing subsidsidies goes to those making over $100,000. Mortgage tax-deductions are a form of welfare as much as public-houing is. To that, I might add all of the tax-breaks given to developers. The issue isn’t free-market vs. hand-outs but who gets the hand-outs and under what conditions.
If you are so opposed to welfare, feel free to return your mortgage deductions to the public coffers (and your parents’ deductions).
II. TO THE POSTERS OPPOSED TO *SELLING* PUBLIC HOUSING
Many of your arguments emphasize the economic benefits to NYC of income diversity (“these are the people who serve your food, clean your homes and offices.”). Yet several of the projects being considered for sale are federally-designated NORCS (“Naturall Occurring Retirement Communities”). Significant numbers of their residents aren’t in fact contributing to the full-spectrum economy you celebrate because, well, they’ve retired. NYCHA’s “working-family preference” will change that at a glacial pace given the miniscule turn-over rate. There may be good moral arguments in favor of not selling the projects in more desirable neighborhoods, but the economic one’s don’t hold up under close scrutiny under current policy.
One can support public housing and also support the sale of these projects, assuming an equal number of units are built elsewhere.
Hi Benson, it’s 11:21 (stuck_in_the_middle).
I’m not sure why my story isn’t convincing, as is it is 100% true. Perhaps I misunderstand you?
We moved to Westchester because my mom had $10,000 to put down on a house, and upper upper Westchester was where she could afford to go. She wanted to be an owner, and this was a place she could afford to own (it was Yorktown Heights, in 1983, if that means anything). We lived in the Bronx from 1975-83.
What’s comical to me is that so often on these boards I read that people who can’t afford to live in NYC should leave. Well, that’s what my mom did. When she had enough money to buy, and her life was such that she could (part of the reason we stayed in the Bronx was so that my grandma could watch me) she moved to the place where she could afford to. It wasn’t Scarsdale or another river town. She and my step-dad commuted 4 hours a day from our Yorktown Heights house (30 mins to the train station, 60 min on the train, 30 mins to their offices, twice a day).
In any case, I shared this story just to give a perspective from someone who was helped by subsidized housing.
On behalf of my mother, who is nothing short of a superstar, I thank you for your kind words on the success she made of herself in the face of very difficult circumstances.
stuck_in_the_middle
Probably, 1:00 because they are squeezed out. Middle class gets it from both ends- and sadly no one bothers to understand how crucial the role of the middle class in society is. A huge mistake, and a costly one for all of us.
12:59 is me, spelling errors and all.
BLACK, WHITE – meet gray
so sick of these threads turning into poor vs rich with ZERO consideration for the true middle class in NYC…you know, the ones that keep the economy afloat
12:53- very intelligent, well thought out answer. I congratulate you on your forward thinking and short memory.
the reason you are feeling so safe today is because they are working so hard to keep us that way. Perhaps a little research on your part would make you sound less ignorant on the subject.
Idea for you: if the city is safer why would that be? Did you honestly think it came about by itself? Did the Fairy of Safety wave her magic wand over the city and say “despair not my post 9-11 city, I have sprinkled safety dust over you and you are now safe”?
Excuse me, Benson, but while the poster’s mother lived in NYC, she certainly was paying back in the form of the taxes she paid the city as a resident, and in the form of all of the other taxes – sales, etc, that everyone pays while living and spending money here. Why hold her, or anyone else, up to some ridiculous standard of pay back? Because she got some help, she’s supposed to do what? She did it already. Working people in public housing are paying taxes, just like you and I do, their subsidy is not “free”.
And puhleeeze, 12:35. Can we stop the stereotypes? For every SUV in a projects parking lot are 200 residents who have no car at all, and can’t scrape up the $2. for the subway. For every pair of sneakers are those who barely have shoes. There are far fewer parking spaces than residents, so your so-called factual evidence is only an observation made as you cruised by a project on your way out of the vacinity. And perhaps someone scraped and saved for months for that I-Pod? You don’t know what you are talking about.
And if a cadet gets a whole $25,100 as a student in the Academy, that hardly is enough for anything but public housing. Cadents don’t live in dorms, you know. $32K is hardly compensation for risking one’s life everyday until that glorious day you reach $59K. What difference does one’s educational background make when you are either a target, an object of fear and derision, or have to live with the consequences of having shot someone, innocent or not? Funny how no one wants to be a cop, or pay them decently, but still scream there aren’t enough of them to protect them from those people in the projects.