As many as 3.5 million Americans suffer from homelessness every year. Homelessness can be caused by lack of affordable housing, increased unemployment, minimized minimum wage, deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill, housing and social service cuts, as well as many other reasons. Specifically in the 1980s, the quality of life of New Yorkers decreased as more people lacked affordable housing and remained homeless. Koch (Mayor 1978-1989) initially did not internalize the depths of the homelessness crisis because he thought of it as only temporary. However, as time passed throughout his time in office, he noticed that this issue was serious relevant enough for him to address. He developed transitional shelters that provided private rooms for families as well as support services to help residents develop professional skills, apply for benefits, and find permanent housing. Koch also built many of these permanent housing projects and for the next decade, 4,000 apartments per year are built for shelter residents.
Rather than providing a temporary fix towards a large problem, a community in Boston attempted a more permanent solution. In the Affordable Housing Forever’s Solution article, it mentioned a woman named Correa as a success story because she was able to afford to buy a house with only $940 in mortgage payments per month. She was able to buy her house through a land trust initiative, Dudley Neighbors Incorporated, that removed vacant properties from the private market. This gave Correa and many other families the ability to purchase a house and be able to pass that same house onto their children. It’s remarkable how the trust was able to function and maintain affordable housing. Many problems arise from lack of affordable housing such as homelessness, sex trafficking, and educational issues for children brought up in unstable environments. Hopefully, programs like this one will flourish, despite the gentrification complications in the current housing environment.
Along with the gentrification of Brooklyn neighborhoods such as Bushwick, Bedford-Stuyvesant and Crown Heights, came the fear from residents of other neighborhoods, like Brownsville, that their neighborhood would experience similar gentrification. Following the Trash Riots in 1970 in Brownsville, many protests sprouted from the unequal cutting of funds and resources to Brownsville. 25 percent of Brownsville’s residents in 1977 relied on public assistance, however, after 1980, things started to look better for the residents of Brownsville. Many groups provided aid in the reconstruction of the neighborhood. Affordable housing was made an importance, by building more homes and obtaining subsidies from the government to lower the prices of homes. One of the most successful parts of this project was the Nehemiah Plan, which provided housing for low income families, and provided an outlet for families to live in and contribute to making a better life for themselves. However, had Brownsville residents not protested in the 1970s, would the Nehemiah housing exist? Wealthy people could have gentrified Brownsville like other neighborhoods in Brooklyn. Because the severe trash situation in the early 70s in Brownsville, I don’t think affluent people saw any value in gentrifying Brownsville, leaving the neighborhood open to rehabilitation for its current residents. By investing in middle class families, the government will prevent many of the would be families from falling into poverty by not being able to afford a home. Attempting to go to the root cause of so many harmful side effects of the lack of affordable housing will hopefully lead the housing crisis to be no longer an issue.
References:
http://www.nytimes.com/1989/04/16/realestate/perspectives-the-nehemiah-plan-a-high-volume-builder-yearns-for-land.html?pagewanted=all
http://www.nytimes.com/1985/11/14/nyregion/homeless-in-city-facing-koch-edict.
htmlhttps://nextcity.org/features/view/affordable-housings-forever-solution
https://nextcity.org/features/view/east-harlem-neighborhood-plan-upzoning-affordable-housing
Rachel, you referred to the Nehemiah Plan as one of the most successful parts of the affordable housing projects that took place in Brooklyn. In PERSPECTIVES: The Nehemiah Plan; A High-Volume Builder Yearns for Land, Alan Oser associates the success of the plan’s performance with its low cost. However, the author also mentions that the consequence of lower costs were smaller sized homes. It’s concerning that the developer of Nehemiah houses considers a typical house size a privilege for low-income residents. If the goal of the Nehemiah Houses were to increase lower-incomes families’ accessibility to housing, why then create competition between those families’ ability to attain adequate housing? Obviously larger families have a higher need for the “big houses” that were built. If they could only afford the smaller Nehemiah houses, leaving them no option but to live there, then is the issue of affordable housing actually resolved?
The article also calls into question the role of city agencies in the development of plans like these that have to potential to aid low-income city residents. Though there were some setbacks due to these agencies, ultimately they were needed to fund community development initiatives. As mentioned in Affordable Housing’s Forever Solution, city aid needs to be coupled with community involvement-such as East Brooklyn Churches Inc.’s sponsorship- in order to ensure that issues like affordable housing are addressed/tackled. Which in turn, hinders further progression into larger societal problems like homelessness.
Levitt strategically begins the article by mentioning that the Nehemiah Plan is running out of land. Though it may have been successful, he makes us ponder during the entire article how this-and other- plans could possible sustain their attained success. If the city can no longer donate unused land to these initiatives due to a lack thereof, then we should begin questioning what alternate roles they should play in these circumstances. Maybe they need to ensure that there is a greater ratio between affordable housing units and standard priced units, which was mentioned in How East Harlem Wrote Its Own Development Plan. Or like the article effectively depicted, city officials may need to do a better job with outreach- ensuring that community members have a clear understanding of the current and potential issues affecting their neighborhoods. With a clear picture of the challenges their communities are facing, and knowing they have they have power and influence in the processes that determine their own futures, communities may take more initiative in implementing their own development plans.
Growing shortages of affordable housing may continue unless we start to consider alternatives in our transportation networks. There is only so much land available in a city or metropolitan area, and only so much housing density within this area that a parcel of property can handle.
Perhaps it’s time to consider constructing express transportation networks that make lower-cost housing in distant exurban areas a viable option. For example, land cost and home prices 60 miles from the center city are much, much lower and more affordable, but there are few viable ways to live in these places and still have access to the city for jobs and social events with any reasonable commuting option. Multiple point-to-point express trains, for example, on the border of Pennsylvania and perhaps as far away as Dutchess County with single point of access at either end might be something to consider. Population and traffic would concentrate to these areas, away from the city, providing both access to more affordable housing choices and lessening the demand on existing roads, bridges and tunnels.