Housing Starts: New de Blasio Appointees | NY’s Affordable Housing Shortage | Homelessness in U.S.

(credit:National Coalition for the Homeless)

1. De blasio signals shift on housing. With three appointments to his housing team over the weekend, Mayor Bill de Blasio signaled a renewed focus on the city’s sprawling public housing system. Shola Olatoye, a vice president at Enterprise Community Partners Inc., was named to lead the New York City Housing Authority, the largest public housing agency in the country with some 2,600 buildings. [The Wall Street Journal – 02/09/14]
2. New York’s affordable housing shortage. Over the last several decades, New York mayors have tried to combat this problem by renovating rundown buildings that otherwise would have been torn down, subsidizing rents and construction costs for affordable housing and giving developers incentives to include affordable units in new buildings. The efforts have created hundreds of thousands of apartments that are affordable to low- and moderate-income families. Even so, the affordable housing gap appears to be growing. [The New York Times – 02/07/14]
3. New York mayor says pre-K funded by wealthy tax still essential. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio on Monday drove home his plan to fund universal pre-Kindergarten by taxing the wealthy in his first State of the City address, saying early education as well as paid sick leave and affordable housing are ‘priceless’ to struggling New Yorkers. [Reuters – 02/10/14]
4. State attorney General Eric Schneiderman ready to raze hell about ‘zombie’ homes. State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is ready to take on zombies - properties, that is. Schneiderman will announce a plan on Monday to tackle thousands of what he calls ‘zombie properties’ in New York.” The vacant properties have been abandoned and go unmaintained often because banks don’t complete the foreclosure process. They then become vulnerable to crime, decay, vandalism and arson, “Schneiderman said. [New York Daily News – 02/09/14]
5. Why it’s so hard to figure out the sharing economy’s winners and losers.  So far, sharing economy companies have tentatively suggested that they often complement existing businesses. A new study from researchers at Boston University, though, challenges this idea. Georgios Zervas, Davide Proserpio, and John W. Byers specifically looked at the impact of Airbnb rentals on the hotel industry in Texas. Their main conclusion: a 1 percent increase in Airbnb listings in Texas results in a 0.05 percent drop in quarterly hotel revenues, most of that loss concentrated among budget hotels. A fraction of one percent sounds pretty small, but the authors told The New York Times this week that they believe hotels should be legitimately worried, given the rapid growth of Airbnb. [The Atlantic Cities – 02/10/14]
6. Mayor announces new leaders for major housing agencies. From doing more to protect tenants in troubled buildings,’ said de Blasio. ‘From innovating new partnerships with the private sector to forging a new relationship with our NYCHA communities, every decision we make will focus on maximizing the affordability of our neighborhoods.’ ‘These agencies are going to work together as a collective to lift up families and make this one city-where everyone rises together,’ he added. The administration set a goal to build and preserve 200,000 units of affordable housing over the next decade, and has plans to address health and safety repair issues that have been an ongoing concern for NYCHA residents. [DNAinfo – 02/09/14]
7. For Democrats, density could be the next key policy issue. How political parties decide to make an issue their own is a mystery to most of us. One day a party is peaceably protesting tax increases. The next, its guns are drawn, sometimes quite literally, in protest of abortion clinics. The reasons why are many. Sometimes a powerful coalition within a party will adopt a new position, and the party will change along with it. Such was the case with Democrats and trade. Organized labor groups were strong supporters of free trade until the early 1970s, when they became disillusioned with how few trade adjustment assistance requests were approved. When they flipped, Democratic elected officials flipped as well. [Next City – 02/10/14]
8. How cold does it have to be before cities are required to shelter the homeless? Depends on where you are. In Washington, D.C., the law is called the Frigid Temperature Protection Act and requires the city to make available space in District buildings or facilities to anyone without shelter when the temperature falls below 26 degrees, although it’s usually applied when the wind chill dips below 32. New York City institutes something called “cold blue” status at the same freezing benchmark. And Austin has a cold weather plan that kicks in then, too. [The Atlantic Cities – 02/07/14]
9. De blasio says some industries could gain favor under his watch. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio on Monday laid down down the gauntlet for a series of liberal initiatives that would increase wages for tens of thousands of workers and dramatically reform the city’s relationship with the real estate industry and small businesses. The city’s first Democratic mayor in 20 years said he would ask New York state lawmakers for permission to raise the city’s minimum wage, expand the law requiring a higher ‘living wage’ from companies receiving city assistance, and create a plan to build 200,000 new affordable housing units. [New York Business Journal – 02/10/14]
10. Citigroup’s move puts Park Avenue on Edge. More than 50 years ago, Citibank moved from 55 Wall St. to a gleaming new office tower at 399 Park Ave. in the first wave of a migration of banks and securities firms from downtown to Midtown. In that half-century, the bank morphed into Citigroup Inc.,and today, the financial services giant is pulling up stakes again. And Citigroup’s relocation from 399 Park is leaving some landlords along that corridor wondering about what the future holds for their office space. Late last year, Citigroup renewed its lease through 2035 for its existing offices at 388-390 Greenwich St. The bank hasn’t divulged specific plans and a spokesman declined to comment. [The Wall Street Journal – 02/10/14]