It is now certain that we need affordable housings more than ever. With the cost of the rent increasing ever steadily for a past decade while renters’ household income stagnating around $41,000, low income families are under rent burdens. Having to spend about 30% of their income just on rent alone, people just enough to spend for food and other expenses. Public housing began as a way for low income and working families to live free of financial burdens and to raise their children free from dangers of streets. As the children grow up from economically secure housings, they can achieve highest education they wish to achieve and leave. This way, their children may just return to visit their parents if they still live there. This springboard idea was the start of public housing as a way for families to move up in society. And with this idea, I support the building of new public housings. But in reality, especially in current state of economy, such notion is hard to achieve because, as mentioned before, rent prices are the only ones that are increasing.
This leads me to support rent controls. Rent control will allow low income families to afford public housings. The question then becomes how will public housing be paid for if all the other apartment market rents are higher and these affordable housings are rented out at rates suitable for low class? In 2012 it was discovered that NYCHA had been holding about one billion dollars of federal funds as maintenance services while its apartments turned unsanitary and dangerous. Such amount of money can be used as government subsidies for regulating public housings.
With more government funding for public housings and rent controls, it will also be necessary to build housings that appeal aesthetically to tenants. Co-founder of L&M, Ron Moelis, mentions that by making improvements with good designs of apartments, renters feel a stronger sense of community and thus take better care of their property. After the hurricane Sandy, L&M acquired housing projects in the Rockaways. By renovating the apartments and fixing up electrical and plumbing systems, the housings were back and running with renters.
Jonathan, you capture all the important points: wages are not high enough to pay market rents, so both rent controls and more public housing are needed. But subsidized housing should be aesthetically pleasing so low-income folks are not stigmatized. Now the only issue is: how to pay for subsidized housing? By raising taxes? By giving an incentive to private developers? This second strategy is the one that has been chosen so far.
Professor Zukin