$25 MacArthur Grant for Affordable Housing Research
During the past decade, the booming real estate market and waning federal subsidies resulted in the loss of over two million units of affordable housing, according to the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation which announced on Tuesday that it was committing $25 million to the study of housing policy in the United States….
During the past decade, the booming real estate market and waning federal subsidies resulted in the loss of over two million units of affordable housing, according to the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation which announced on Tuesday that it was committing $25 million to the study of housing policy in the United States. “A greater national commitment to affordable housing requires a greater understanding of the impact of housing on the well-being of children, families, and communities,” MacArthur President Jonathan Fanton, speaking at New York University’s Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy, said today. “This new research will produce a deep, empirical evidence base to show how housing affects children’s cognitive, emotional, and behavioral development and how housing choices shape the economic, emotional, and physical well-being of adults.” According to a reader who attended the event, panel member and HPD Commish Shaun Donovan disclosed that a big focus of HPD over the next year or two is going to be addressing the need for “permanently affordable” housing that doesn’t trap families (by disincentivizing them to move) or disappear when initial owners turn around and sell.
Maybe MacArthur wants to devote a few bucks to an idea we’ve had lately: What if the government created a comprehensive housing voucher program that made subsidies linked to people and not properties? This would remove the incredible inefficiencies and disincentives of the current system, while providing a much more liquid subsidy program to the people who need it. Crazy?
MacArthur to Invest $25 Million in Housing Research [Newswire]
Affordable Housing [Macfound.org]
Photo of Boulevard Homes in East New York by gkjarvis
Anon 5:51
>>Downtown Manhattan only looks the way it does because people decided it was worth saving old buildings!
I meant downtown downtown, the Woolworth building is my favorite. Imagine what it would have looked like if they had RC back then and such burdonsome zoning. Say hello to a Mitchell Lama ugly butt.
>>And once again, you fail to address the fact that until recently, Brooklyn has had little in the way of restrictions on residential development, and yet we didn’t see stuff going up.<< That's not true, it's very hard to build up there. It's only gotten worse. And, with RC/RS, you can't clear out tenants. >>Because there’s more money to be made building for the wealthy<< That's true, but there is still money (at least in every other city) in building for the middle and lower classes. You have to ask yourself why not here? >>Most of the rest of the country does not have the kind of extremities of wealth as exists in major cities. So the comparison doesn’t hold.
Believe it or not, rich people are everywhere. It’s just that in New York, because of all of the commies and their community boards that a middle class person here feels po’.
JoshK,
Downtown Manhattan only looks the way it does because people decided it was worth saving old buildings! Don’t you think developers would be delighted to build high rises in Greenwich Village? Is that what you really want?
You seem to be of the opinion that any effort to determine a common good must be the work of “commies”. I see you worship at the altar of the free market. I know this is a religion with some people, and it seems to make considered debate impossible.
And once again, you fail to address the fact that until recently, Brooklyn has had little in the way of restrictions on residential development, and yet we didn’t see stuff going up. Why not? Because there’s more money to be made building for the wealthy. Eliminating zoning doesn’t solve that problem.
Most of the rest of the country does not have the kind of extremities of wealth as exists in major cities. So the comparison doesn’t hold.
“Unlike the vast majority of Brownstoner readers, not everyone can afford market rate housing, and there just isn’t enough to go around. As a supposedly enlightened society, we should be prepared to help anyone to get a decent roof over their head.”
Well said, Crown Heights Proud. How about accepting a section 8 voucher for your rental? Put your money where your mouth is.
There is no affordable housing because the rich continue to impose draconian zoning laws on us.
Eliminate zoning laws in NYC, or at least eliminate height restrictions, and there will be lots of affordable housing. As soon as we can knock down the hundreds of square kilometers filled with low-density housing and erect 100 story highrises, housing will be affordable.
Lastly, rent ceilings have to be eliminated. The 500,000 elderly single females who live in Manhattan MUST move someplace else. They have no reason to live in the city, and the young already support them through endless public subsidies like social security and medicare. We should at lease be able to live in the one city where you can make some real money.
Bx2Bklyn,
I don’t think anyone desperately needs to live in Manhattan. All of the RS/RC people I know are no more “deserving” than you and I.
And, if you think about it, the RS/RC apt has a very tangible economic value. Wouldn’t it be better to auction of RS/RC “certificates” and send the money to kids with cancer or something like that?
Ok, it’s “Glaeser”.
I think his analysis is intuitively right. It’s very hard to get past the problem. If we have a limited supply of housing, throwing more money at it will just make it more expensive.
But, Sper, you don’t have to go to Detroit for more affordable housing. Most of the country is pretty affordable where supply is not constrained.
You are right that the new construction targets the luxury crowd more, but when supply (zoning rights) are scarce, you have to max it out and pick off the lowest hanging fruit. The people with more money will win in this situation. But even then, more quantity at the high end helps even the low end, but not very much unless there’s some serious new supply, which there’s not.
And yes, I think we shouldn’t have zoning at all. It’s just a bunch of commies sitting together in a room somewhere “fighting the man”. All of the cool, beautiful construction was built before zoning. Compare downtown Manhattan and midtown.
JoshK,
You are probably thinking of Edward Glaeser. Ironically, the Mises blog brought up this point today here: http://www.mises.org/story/2471
“Harvard economist Edward Glaeser, commenting on the controversy surrounding 980 Madison, sensibly noted that blocking the construction of new Manhattan residential space will result in housing costs being higher than they would be if the apartments were built. Wolfe’s response demonstrates his ignorance of the fact that his pet cause entails very real costs: “[The proposed 980 Madison Avenue project] certainly isn’t going to help the housing situation. Just more people who have the money will be able to move in” (Gillette, 2007, p. 21).
Wolfe apparently has never considered the fact that, when very rich people move into those new apartments, that will ease the demand for the residences they would have occupied otherwise, allowing the slightly less wealthy to acquire those spots. That, in turn, will free up the housing those people would otherwise have chosen, making them available to yet others, and so on. An increase in the housing stock at any price level will tend to lower housing costs in general, although, of course, that effect might always be offset or even swamped by some other factor working in the opposite direction.
Wolfe, not content with this first display of economic naïveté, continues, “To take [Glaeser’s] theory to its logical conclusion would be to develop Central Park.” Here, he confuses the recognition that action X would act towards lowering the cost of good Y to imply that, therefore, X must be done! Without a doubt, filling Central Park with apartment buildings would lower New York City rents. Similarly, butchering all of the dogs and cats in the United States for food would lower meat prices. But that in no way implies that either course of action is indisputably recommended. People quite sensibly prefer not to eat their pets, even though doing so would reduce their meal expenditures, just as New York City residents might prefer a bucolic respite in the midst of their urban environment, even given the higher housing costs that entails.
Glaeser is doing nothing more than noting that the elementary principles of supply and demand apply even to virtuous causes, while Wolfe, by refusing to concede such a basic truth, raises the suspicion that his campaign may have more to do with his public image than with concern for the greater good.”
SPer- very very right. the only thing I would say though is that while it is easy for the control/stabilization program to be abused, the majority of people on it are the ones who desperately need it. I don’t see how it discourages construction because rent control and stabilization don’t apply to new construction.
Sorry, the post at 1:01 was mine — didn’t mean to make it anonymously.