Affordable housing programs throughout the city are facing trouble unloading units. The city has been lauded across the country for its efforts to provide affordable housing to lower- and middle-income households but, while the low-income rentals continue to thrive, the ownership program is struggling, which could be seen as good since it ultimately means less foreclosures.

Manhattan-based non-profit group the Actors Fund has pledged to build hundreds of low-income housing units in New York City and beyond, according to Crain’s, with the launch of the new Actors Fund Housing Development Corp. The Actors Fund, which provides assistance to those who work in the performing arts, is expected to announce its first project, a 160-unit Newark building, next month. The move is in line with the parent organization’s mission, according to Scott Weiner, chairman of the new development corporation. “Dancers, actors, and singers have median incomes that are well below $25,000, and only a small percentage of them work full time,” Weiner said, adding that the program “will extend our reach and effectiveness in a very vital area for our community — providing safe, affordable housing for those in need.”

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. [more]

Low-income housing initiatives that Mayor Michael Bloomberg introduced nearly five years ago have been less successful than the administration hoped, according to an analysis of city records by Gotham Gazette. Bloomberg’s so-called inclusionary zoning program, designed to incentivize developers to create permanent low-income housing, has come up short, creating far fewer low-income units than expected. In 2005, the Bloomberg administration reportedly said that the rezoned neighborhoods would allow for 6,000 units of affordable housing. But today, even with more than a dozen new neighborhoods rezoned since, fewer than half that number of units have been created or preserved, according to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development.

Residents in Westchester County are divided over a recent desegregation settlement, requiring the county to spend $50 million over the next seven years on low- to moderate-income housing and to market that housing to non-white families. According to the New York Times, many residents are in support of a more economically and racially diverse community, but some feel that the financial differences between the area’s richest and poorest will be difficult for some — particularly children and high schoolers — to handle. The settlement, which was made earlier this month, received high praise from Deputy Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ron Sims, who referred to the move as a “historic” step toward community integration.

A group of low-income community members living with HIV/AIDS gathered outside New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s Lower East Side home this morning. New York City AIDS Housing Network representative Charles Long told The Real Deal that the group had gathered outside Silver’s home at 550 Grand Street and has since moved on, marching outside 250 Broadway, where several New York City Housing Authority offices are located. Long said that the group plans to take over the lobby in a few minutes. TRD [more]

Labor unions and non-profit developers are on opposite sides of a bill now in the state legislature that would require developers to pay construction workers the prevailing wage, which would be much higher than non-union pay. Developers of low- and moderate-income housing say the bill would reduce production of housing and force rents up, but labor unions say that higher wages would improve construction workers’ standard of living. The bill will be debated in committee hearings in Albany today. [more]