Housing Starts: Crown Heights Tenants Align | Council Pushes de Blasio on 50-50 | Airbnb’s Dark Side

1. Council members urge mayor to overhaul affordable housing formula ahead of speech. Nearly two dozen City Council members are calling on Mayor Bill de Blasio to dramatically shift the city’s current affordable housing model ahead of a major speech he’s expected to deliver later this week outlining his plan to create and preserve 200,000 units of affordable housing over the next decade. [New York Observer – 04/29/14]
2. Disparate forces align over affordable rents. Founded by a handful of young Occupy Wall Street veterans last summer, the Crown Heights Tenant Union is one of the most effective groups at dealing with issues raised by the rapid gentrification of the neighborhood, just east of Prospect Park. It has organized tenants in some 20 buildings, to combat what the group says are patterns of abuse directed at residents like Toussaint Wortham, who live in the area’s many rent-regulated apartments. Struggles between tenants and landlords are nothing new, but this one has a twist: Fueled by the influx of a new generation of socially conscious recent college graduates, most of whom, unlike Mr. Wortham, have only lived in the neighborhood for a couple of years, the group is challenging stereotypes that pit long-term residents against newer ones, which are often drawn along race and class lines, in the struggle over gentrification. [New York Times – 04/30/14]
3. ‘Denser city’: Glen previews de Blasio’s affordable housing plan. Evoking Jacob Riis, the muckraking journalist whose How the Other Half Lives helped inspire the New York State Tenement House Act of 1901, and Fiorello La Guardia, who created the New York CityHousing Authority, the nation’s first, Glen said, ‘If Jacob Riis, La Guardia and Koch taught us anything, it is this, that crisis can lead to opportunity.’ Glen promised that the plan to be unveiled is ‘exhaustive and comprehensive,’ and outlined the principles guiding the effort. [Capital New York – 04/30/14]
4. The dark side of the sharing economy. Proponents of the ‘sharing economy’ say websites like Airbnb that make it easy for people to rent a spare bedroom or an apartment on a short-term basis are a boon to cities like New York and San Francisco because they generate income for residents while giving visitors a cheap place to stay. But advocates often ignore or casually dismiss big problems with these short term rentals, including the fact that they are making housing less affordable in big cities by restricting supply. And in some cases, the rentals may be illegal, which is one reason why New York state attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, has begun an investigation. [New York Times – 05/01/14]
5. What to look for in de Blasio’s affordable housing plan. The delivery of de Blasio’s affordable housing plan comes against a backdrop of alarming statistics and high expectations. Given the enormity of the goal the mayor set during the campaign - to build or preserve nearly 200,000 units of housing - and the centrality of housing costs to the dynamics of inequality in the city, the talk will be a defining moment of his mayoralty. People probably have been worried about housing in New York since Wall Street was the city’s northern border. It was certainly a concern even early in the Bloomberg years when the former expanded his affordable housing plan not once but twice. But lately there have been signs that the crisis is more severe than previously thought. [City Limits – 04/29/14]
6. Unions may hire low-wage workers for mayor’s affordable housing plan. The city’s construction unions are in talks to provide discounted labor for Mayor Bill de Blasio’s soon-to-be annouced plan for 200,000 units of affordable housing, DNAinfo New York has learned. The Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York - the union umbrella that oversees 15 separate unions - is currently in talks with the mayor’s office over a possible plan to give them access to the booming affordable housing market. [DNAinfo – 04/29/14]
7. Nearly half New Yorkers are struggling to get by. New York City’s share of poor people appears to have plateaued since the recession, at 21.4 percent, with more people working in 2012 than the year before, but at lower wages, according a new city study. Contributing to the city’s economic problems were increases in the number of Asian-Americans, immigrants, and residents of Queens slipping into poverty. But under a broader definition of poverty that the city applies, the picture remains grim for a number of New Yorkers. [New York Times – 04/30/14]
8. What the mayor’s housing plan should include and why. The word ‘affordable housing’ is virtually meaningless to the vast majority of New Yorkers. in the past 10 years, rent has increased at twice the rate of household incomes citywide. The number of rent-regulated apartments continues to vanish, while most new housing construction has been geared towards wealthier New Yorkers. On the forgotten end are those who are considered ‘low’ and ‘moderate’ income, and New York City’s homeless population, which has soared to the highest levels since the Great Depression. [Huffington Post – 04/30/14]
9. Up in years, and all but priced out of New York. Finding adequate housing has become an all-consuming preoccupation for many older New Yorkers, a group whose explosive growth and changing housing needs pose new challenges for the city. As serious as New York’s affordable housing shortage has become, the squeeze has been perhaps harshest on older adults. At a certain age, substandard living conditions become less tolerable, walk-ups are no longer viable, even stabilized rents become to high, and the need for housing with special services grows. [New York Times – 04/28/14]
10. Brooklyn tenants battle gentrification on many fronts. Gentrification has become a tired subject in New York City and other hot spots around the country and around the globe - and recent pieces on National Public Radio and in New York Magazine have questioned how bad it actually is - but many long-term tenants say market pressures have made their lives miserable. [Brooklyn Bureau – 04/29/14]