A Tale of One City and Two Affordable Housing Markets?

Image Credit: Jason Andrew for the Wall Street Journal 

Nearly nine years have passed since Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I- New York City) enacted the ambitious New Housing Marketplace program in 2004. Now, with the plan's projected end date approaching, the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development and The Atlantic Cities' Eric Jaffe take a closer look at how the U.S.'s largest municipal affordable housing platform, widely lauded as successfully achieving 85% of its initial goal, has actually addressed the city's lack of affordable options. The ANHD report and subsequent article note that, while the program has incorporated moderately-priced units in middle-income neighborhoods (termed "upper low-income housing" by Jaffe), anywhere from two-thirds to 80% of "affordable" units established by the plan in the city's poorest neighborhoods were affordable to neighborhood residents. The data shows that only 8 percent of the plan's units developed in the past three fiscal years were priced to target residents making 40% of the local median income, creating an imbalanced availability of affordable housing units that falls neatly along socioeconomic faults. Though many keys have been typed in previous posts (and, among other places, The New York Times) in lament of the dearth of NYC's middle-income real estate options, affordable housing activists reasonably assert that preservation of a viable urban middle class should come at the expense of a city's poorest, affordable housing-starved neighborhoods.

Note: For a more detailed analysis of the ANHD report that includes more information about the study's statistical findings and methodology (as well as a fascinating map that breaks down the percentage of unaffordable "affordable" housing by neighborhoods across the five boroughs), read Mr. Jaffe's piece New York's 'Affordable Housing' Isn't Always Affordable in The Atlantic Cities blog.