Affordable housing efforts dwarfed by gentrification, rent deregulation

The city’s supply of affordable housing is shrinking. Despite Mayor Bloomberg’s success in bringing 94,000 new public housing units — 72,000 of which are designated for low-income families — to the market, his efforts have been outweighed by the 200,000 affordable apartments lost to gentrification and rent deregulation during his term, the New York Times reported. In 2008, 42 percent of the city’s households were considered low-income, that is, making less than $37,000 per year. However, the supply of apartments they could afford at that time had shrunk to 991,592, or 17 percent less than the 2002 supply. Bloomberg has said he wants to invest an additional $965 million to expand his housing plan if re-elected, in order to stabilize apartment buildings where rents aren’t covering owners’ debt, and to preserve 10,000 more Mitchell-Lama housing units.

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