“In Re In Rem: Innovation and Expediency in New York’s Housing Policy” talks about the the huge amount of foreclosed housing that is owned and managed by the city. I find it very interesting that during a single year, New York City became the manager of nearly 40,000 occupied apartments, resulting in the second-largest public housing authority in the country. However, this expense became too much for the city to bear and contradicted what its progressive housing tradition tried to avoid.

I also find it interesting that many new public initiatives come about as a result of global tragedies, such as World War II in this case. Another example of such an event was the legislation passed after the Stock Market Crash in 1929. New York has and most likely will remain dependent on rental housing since it gives them less requirement to take care of the living space.

Another factor that I found important was that operating costs were increasing for maintaining apartments in the city since heating oil prices increase drastically and overall operating costs of apartment buildings in New York City rose which did not make home ownership attractive. This also influenced the city to play a bigger role in the housing market and have a control of the rentals and pricing since it had a responsibility of fair but profitable housing.

The city owned buildings were not able to be well taken care of because they were not funded enough since the city did not have the resources for it. They had to provide affordable housing for low-income families so they were not able to ask for rents to raise funds to maintain the housing buildings. The city also would quickly realize that it would not be able to auction off its buildings to housing investors. This would force the city to continue to hold the apartment buildings that it was not able to make repairs to and fix up to make them better for its residents to live in.

Finally, I was also very interested by the effect of policy-generated homelessness and the increasing deepening of the culture of dependency. This culture has even become prominent in today’s New York City since people have become dependent on public housing and even financial aid. Some people give false information to take advantage of the city’s programs for social welfare. Although these programs have good intentions, they can be abused by people.