The Pros and Cons of Mixed-Income Housing

The theme of the readings we’ve had seems to be alternative solutions for affordable housing, in which the community takes it upon itself to find and utilize ways in which it can address the problems the government’s affordable housing plans may be ignoring. As discussed in the first reading, Bill de Blasio publicized his plan to preserve 200,000 units and create 80,000 units of affordable housing, which sounds great however, he means to do this through incentivizing developers to build bigger buildings, in which some housing units can be permanently affordable. To do this, de Blasio had to rezone areas so that the buildings could be big enough to appeal to the developers and to fit in enough housing units (Abello 2016). Now after reading this, I realized I wasn’t too sure about what affordable housing is exactly, and so I wanted to clear up the confusion by looking it up and what I found was a very neat book which explained affordable housing through infographics. A key statement I found was, “The government says housing is “affordable” if a family spends no more than 30% of their income to live there. This threshold is called “affordable rent burden” (Woo 2009). Now the book goes on to explain that income limits are based on the MFI, Median Family Income, meaning housing units will not be offered to those who are above the area’s MFI, which makes sense. However this doesn’t help with families who are qualified to live in affordable housing but can not afford to actually live in the unit.

Affordable housing units will be given to “households earning 40 percent of NYC’s area median income (AMI), yet 40 percent of New Yorkers fall below that threshold, equal to $34,500 a year” (Abello 2016). These people are the ones who need affordable housing the most, and yet unfortunately, they are the ones being left empty-handed. On a side note, I’m assuming that the author of the article meant to write “families” instead of housing because from what I gathered from the “What Is Affordable Housing?” book, AMI is determined by family income and not household income, the difference being households don’t need any familial relationship within them to be labeled as a household, whereas families need to be connected either through marriage, blood, or adoption.

How Affordable Housing Excludes Very Low-Income Families

DeVore, the president of the CVH, an organization which aims to advocate for the community of East Harlem said, “We can’t make the whole building 100 percent low-income, because they have to pay for maintenance and upkeep, but maybe 30 percent could be rich people and the rest on down, from people earning $50,000 down to $15,000″ (Abello 2016). This brings in the idea of a mixed-income neighborhood, which sounds good on paper, especially when you hear there is an “enhanced security, increased investment in neighborhoods, and higher expectations for management” (Vale 2015). However there have been some studies done which seem to also point out the negative consequences of mixed-income housing, with one focusing on the development of young boys in these mixed-income neighborhoods. It appears that low-income boys who lived in mixed-income communities “engaged in more antisocial behavior [and had higher rates of mental health problems] than their low-income peers who lived in concentrated poverty” (Odgers 2015). Also the problem of Very Low Income Families not being able to receive affordable housing would still harm several New Yorkers, because mixed-income housing would still be using the AMI aka MFI to designate which families can have which housing units (Vale 2015). So it seems to me that although mixed-income housing does have its benefits, there are also important drawbacks to consider.


Abello O P (2016) How East Harlem wrote it’s own development plan. https://nextcity.org/features/view/east-harlem-neighborhood-plan-upzoning-affordable-housing (last accessed 12 April 2018)

Odgers C (2015) Together but not equal.  http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2015/04/duke_university_poverty_study_when_rich_and_poor_live_side_by_side_poor.html (last accessed 12 April 2018)

Vale L (2015) In the US, mixed housing developments aren’t working for low-income families. https://www.citymetric.com/horizons/us-mixed-housing-developments-arent-working-low-income-families-698 (last accessed 12 April 2018)

Woo R (2009) What Is Affordable Housing? : NYC Edition. NYC: The Center for Urban Pedagogy  http://welcometocup.org/file_columns/0000/0011/cup-fullbook.pdf

 

4 comments

  1. joefernandez20 says:

    I felt that the addition of the graphics Kimberly provided helped me understand better the situation of “affordable” housing. The visual representation made the information easier to process rather than just reading the restrictions of affordable housing than the articles. When reading how some families cannot afford affordable housing I thought to myself this is a perfect reason why we should raise the minimum wage. But then it struck me, if we raise minimum wage, the MFI will also rise, putting us back in the same situation, but apparently this has not been the case. In cities where the minimum wage is $155 per hour (Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle), there is no data to show rising minimum wage levels having an effect on housing (Alan Greenblatt). Based of research done in Illinois using the American Community Survey and Public Use Micro Sample data, the National Low Income Housing Coalition found that a higher minimum wage would improve housing affordability, reduce enrollment in public assistance programs, and increase state and local tax revenues (National Low Income Housing Coalition). People may claim that raising minimum wage would increase unemployment because jobs may not be able to all employees the higher rate, but the study also stated that they project “that a $13 minimum wage would result in a 0.22% decline in employment in the Chicago area, while a $15 minimum wage would lead to a 0.67% gain.” (National Low Income Housing Coalition). So could the rise of minimum wage help low income families afford the unaffordable affordable housing they are eligible for?

    References

    Greenblatt, Alan (2015) Governing. http://www.governing.com/topics/mgmt/gov-higher-
    wages-housing.html (Last accessed 15 April 2018)

    National Low Income Housing Coalition (2017) http://nlihc.org/article/minimum-wage- increases-would-improve-housing-affordability-and-increase-tax-revenue (Last accessed
    15 April 2018)

  2. jpark186 says:

    Great post, Kimberly! Just like someone else mentioned, I also think that adding images definitely helped me to understand your context more easily. While I was reading your post I couldn’t help but think, “Okay, rezoning is great, but what about the families who are currently living in areas where rezoning will take place? How do they think about rezoning? For example, let’s talk about the residents of Inwood, whose houses in danger of rezoning. They are constantly fighting against it by handing out papers with information, encouraging a no vote, and even attending a Manhattan Community Board 12 public hearing. Although the government is trying to persuade the residents about the benefits of rezoning that will result in mixed income housings, residents firmly hold their ground. The supposed benefits of rezoning include increased property values, increased tolerance for diversity of residents, better housing quality and services. However, residents actually believe that rezoning will “rip apart the neighborhood that has a large Dominican population” (Johnson, 2018). This could puzzle someone, because aren’t we living in a world where racism doesn’t exist? This is 2018! Okay, so if racism supposedly doesn’t exist, why do we hear news about this issue almost every day? The truth is, racism does exist, and this is what terrifies the residents. They know that if you put different diversities together, problems will most surely arise. And these issues can vary, such as mental health and peer relationships that you’ve mentioned in your post. I think the government should also focus more on the relationship between different races to prevent tensions among residents instead of shoving people into spaces without even considering their emotions, desires and backgrounds.

    Johnson, Stephon. “Inwood Residents to City and Rezoning Plan: Slow Down.” Amsterdam News, 1 Mar. 2018, amsterdamnews.com/news/2018/mar/01/inwood-rezoning-plan/.

    http://amsterdamnews.com/news/2018/mar/01/inwood-rezoning-plan/
     

  3. danielacollado says:

    Affordable rent has been an ongoing problem for decades in New York City. Kim makes great points, especially in how affordable income really only serves a certain percent of low-income families. Before the readings and the post, I was unaware of the idea that only 30% of your income should be directed towards housing. Also, that it is one of the bases for affordable housing units. This fact is completely ridiculous considering the guidelines are based on income before taxes so the families could lose up to 40% of that income to taxes alone. In addition to losing a good portion of your income to taxes, according to their arbitrary guidelines, you also don’t qualify to the programs that your tax money goes to (PSA this also includes social security benefits which will be obsolete by the time were 65, happy retirement!). Your outside research inspired me to do some digging myself and what I found was alarming. Aside from how difficult it is to be accepted into these programs, there is a growing problem in staying in them. Many of these recipients get the “undesirable” units and tenants have to prove their low-income status every year and sign legal documents stating so. God forbid a family gets a raise and no longer qualify for their affordable housing, they can be subject to an increase in their rent, which in my opinion defeats the entire purpose.

    Blumgart, Jake(2015). Next City https://nextcity.org/features/view/affordable-housings-forever-solution

    Schulz, Dana (2017). 6SQFT https://www.6sqft.com/everything-you-need-to-know-about-affordable-housing-qualifying-getting-in-and-staying-put/

  4. destany says:

    I love the graphic, Kim! It really makes your post stand out, and I agree with the points you made. It’s ridiculous to say that this new affordable housing is, well, affordable. The term “affordable housing” sounds quite endearing and actually casts hope into the real estate market, but it’s really just housing that doesn’t entirely cater to the elite of New York City. This is actually quite common in a lot of “progressive” policies in New York City- they seem to be catered to those who are socioeconomically disadvantaged but instead continue to advantage the rich and white. Bill de Blasio’s “Mandatory Inclusionary Housing” is deemed to be progressive but mostly aids people who are well above the poverty line in New York City.

    Too many New Yorkers face rent burden, and policy makers have to take this into greater consideration when creating policies that are supposed to aid the economically disadvantaged residents of New York City. New Yorkers of lower income levels need homes, and pseudo progressive policies and programs are only making life more difficult for them by providing homes to people of higher income levels.

    Stein, Samuel. “Progress for Whom, toward What? Progressive Politics and New York City’s Mandatory Inclusionary Housing.” Journal of Urban Affairs, 2017, 1-12. doi:10.1080/07352166.2017.1403854.

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