Housing Starts: City Hall Turns to Private Sector | Housing Trust Fund | Calls for Homeless Housing

December 12th 2014

Photo Credit: Councilmember Levin’s office

  1. For Public Housing Needs, City Hall Turns to the Private Sector In a new twist in his affordable housing plan, Mayor Bill de Blasio intends to ask the private sector for significant help in funding the upkeep of the city’s public housing. With New York City’s public housing authority facing a $13 billion capital funding gap, the administration is going to create a nonprofit to solicit tax-deductible help from the private sector. [Capital New York – 12/11/14]
  2. Fannie, Freddie to Pay Into Low-Income Housing Fund Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (FMCC) will start making payments that could total hundreds of millions of dollars annually into a fund for affordable housing. Melvin L. Watt, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, today instructed the companies to start setting aside a portion of their revenues for the National Affordable Housing Trust Fund, the only source of federal housing money earmarked for the lowest-income families. The fund has been empty since Congress created it in 2008 because previous regulators said Fannie Mae (FNMA) and Freddie Mac’s precarious financial condition prevented them from making the payments. [Bloomberg – 12/11/14]
  3. Resolution Calls for Urgently Needed Housing for Record Homeless Population New York City Council members stood with homeless and housing advocates at the steps of City Hall Monday afternoon in support of a resolution calling on Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio to quickly negotiate and sign the fourth in a series of agreements that create permanent supportive housing as record homelessness continues to grow. ‘To address the record homelessness crisis in New York, we need to utilize proven solutions that work,” said Councilmember Stephen Levin (D-Brooklyn), who serves as chair of the Committee on General Welfare. “We need urgent action on NY/NY IV and we need a commitment that matches the growing needs of homeless families and individuals in New York.’” Permanent supportive housing combines affordable housing with support services to help people with disabilities such as serious mental illness live with stability. [Brooklyn Daily Eagle – 12/11/14]
  4. Mismatch for Many: Good Jobs and Affordable Housing Often Aren’t Available in the Same Area It’s the new career trade-off: Around the country, areas with the strongest job markets increasingly have some of the costliest homes. And areas with the most affordable homes lack a solid base of middle class jobs that attract workers. College graduates and younger families have been clustering in coastal cities such as New York, San Francisco and Seattle, where incomes are generally ample and solid middle-class jobs plentiful. Yet studies and government data show that homes in these areas have become prohibitively expensive. [Star Tribune – 12/09/14]
  5. Mayor de Blasio Likely to Nix Pied-à-Terre Tax Mayor Bill de Blasio is expected to reject proposed legislation to levy a tax on pieds-à-terre. ‘My understanding is a luxury tax for absentee landlords is not going forward,’ an unnamed source told the New York Post. ‘The absentee-landlord tax is a nonstarter.’ The mayor’s office is reviewing the proposal as it prepares its legislative agenda for the state. [The Real Deal – 12/10/14]
  6. AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust Invests $8.26 Million Towards Hunter’s Point South In New York, NY The AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust (HIT) announced today an investment of $8.26 million towards construction of Hunter’s Point South Building A, a 37-story, multifamily development in Queens, NY that will offer 619 housing units, 13,500 square feet of retail space and 250 parking spaces. The HIT investment will create approximately 195 union construction jobs. Apartments in the $233 million development will be permanently affordable to low, moderate and middle-income residents. Twenty percent of the units will be affordable to residents earning 50 percent of area median income (AMI), 20 percent affordable to those at 130 percent of AMI, 27 percent affordable to those at 165 percent of AMI and 33 percent affordable to those at 230 percent of AMI. [PR Newswire – 12/10/14]
  7. Cuomo Grants $7.2 Million for Supportive Housing in the Bronx and Buffalo Gov. Cuomo has allotted $5.5 million for a supportive housing site in the Bronx — part of a larger pot made available for a pair of projects in the Bronx and Buffalo. The project, to be operated by the Postgraduate Center for Mental Health, calls for a 100-unit residence that will include affordable and supportive housing to be built on Marion Ave. in Bedford Park. The site will include 50 units for single homeless adults with serious mental illnesses and 15 two-bedroom units for chronically homeless families, in which the head of household is chemically addicted or suffering from mental illness. [New York Daily News – 12/10/14]
  8. Can NYC Create a New Neighborhood Without Displacing an Old One? With a nod to Mayor Bill de Blasio’s affordable housing plans, New York City’s Department of City Planning is inventing a “new neighborhood” to take what it thinks is a promising section of the Bronx from parking lots to high-rises. While the city has promised to make community outreach a cornerstone of its plans, the idea of a ‘new neighborhood’ has left many who live there seeing Brooklyn-infused foreshadowing. [Next City – 12/11/14]
  9. New Affordable, Veterans Housing Buildings Slated for Melrose by 2017 A supportive housing building for homeless veterans with mental health issues and a new affordable housing building for families is slated for the South Bronx by the summer of 2017. The buildings would be located adjacent to each other at 161st Street and Elton Avenue on a largely vacant site known as the Melrose Commons. The Bridge, a supportive housing group, would run the building for veterans, which would be nine stories tall and consist of 58 studio apartments. Planned on-site amenities include a peer counselor, job training services, a computer lab and some type of rooftop gardening program that will provide tenants with access to free vegetables, according to Carole Gordon, senior vice president for housing development at The Bridge. [DNAinfo – 12/11/14]
  10. Nearly 100K NYC Households Pass Up Millions in Rent Subsidies Nearly 100,000 eligible households in New York City aren’t taking advantage of two rent subsidy programs, according to a new report from the city’s Department of Finance. About 61 percent of the city’s residents who could be benefiting from the Senior Citizen Rental Increase Exemption (SCRIE) and the Disability Rent Increase Exemption (DRIE) have not signed up. The report shows that 61,000 households do rely on the rent subsidies, while 94,000 do not. Senior citizens who reside in rent-regulated apartments and spent more than one-third of their income on rent are eligible, for example. [The Real Deal – 12/11/14]
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