NYC added a record-breaking 34,160 affordable homes in 2018
Via CC
The city created and preserved 34,160 affordable homes in 2018 alone, 40 percent more than the record set last year, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Wednesday. And, according to the mayor, 10,099 new homes were financed last year, another record for new construction in the city. The additional homes fall under de Blasio’s Housing New York 2.0, which aims to create and preserve 300,000 affordable homes by 2026. To date, the housing plan has helped finance nearly 122,000 affordable apartments since 2014.
Via Mayor de Blasio’s office
“Family by family, building by building, we’re giving people the security of knowing they can stay in the city they love,” de Blasio said in a press release. “Last year, we created and preserved affordable housing that will reach 85,000 New Yorkers – enough to fill an entire neighborhood the size of Flushing. And we’re just warming up.”
About 60 percent of homes financed last year were set aside for extremely- and very-low-income New Yorkers. And 40 percent will serve families earning less than $46,950 annually.
Over the past five years, the city also secured more than half of the city’s affordable Mitchell-Lama stock, or about 14,850 co-ops and apartments. “We can build permanent affordable housing for New Yorkers and we’re going to continue to do it,” Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen said on Wednesday. “We can build and preserve at the same time.”
Via Mayor de Blasio’s office
De Blasio also touted his new tenant protection office as helping preserve affordable housing. The mayor created last week the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants to lead the city’s anti-harassment initiatives. A similar office was created by the City Council last year, called the Office of the Tenant Advocate, but the de Blasio administration has not yet funded it, as the Daily News reported.
Critics of the mayor’s affordable housing plan argue it does not do enough to support homeless New Yorkers. According to Giselle Routhier, the policy director at Coalition of the Homeless, just five percent of the planned 300,000 housing units will be set aside for homeless households.
“Mayor de Blasio has proven time and again that he fails to see the reality every New Yorker sees: Our city is not providing enough affordable housing for our most needy,” Routhier said in December in a statement “New York is grappling with a homelessness crisis that is hitting new records, and little is being done to meet the depth of this crisis.”
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