Shortchanging Working Families Queens

8/8/2019 Shortchanging Working Families Queens

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Issue Brief

Shortchanging Working Families in QueensBloomberg Administration Affordable Housing ProgramLeaves Low-Income Queens Households Out in the Cold

A new analysis by the New York City Independent Budget Office reveals that the BloombergAdministrations affordable housing development program, the New Housing Marketplace,consistently shortchanges low-income families and communities in the borough of Queens. While

Queens has 23.7 percent of the citys households who earn less than $50,000 per year,1 and arethus eligible for a range of affordable programs targeting low-income families, the borough hasreceived only 3.7 percent of the units affordable to these families under the BloombergAdministrations programs.

This vast gap effectively locks Queens residents out of affordable housing opportunities.Most New Housing Marketplace programs set aside 50 percent of units for residents of surroundingneighborhoods. By locating so little affordable housing in Queens, City policies are forgoing preciousopportunities to create affordable housing as New York City's geographically largest borough goesthrough a major growth spurt a boom promoted in part through the City's own actions.

The Pratt Center for Community Development and the Queens for Affordable Housing coalition urgethe Bloomberg Administration to invest its affordable housing resources to make sure that the fullrange of Queens residents have every opportunity to live in below-market-rate housing.

The Administration is currently missing two critical opportunities to improve affordable housingproduction in Queens. The Willets Point and Queens West (a.k.a. Hunters Point South)developments are projected to create more than 10,000 new units of housing. But the Administrationis refusing to provide desperately needed housing for working-class and low-income Queensfamilies on these sites.

At Queens West, on City-owned land, the Administration is proposing 2,000 units of market-rate housing and 3,000 units affordable to families earning from $50,000 to $145,000 a year,

1 The IBO, and the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development, follow the U.S.

Department of Housing and Urban Development in defining low-income households as those

earning up to 80 percent of the area median income. For New York City in 2007, this was

$56,700 for a family of four; it is lower for smaller families (and the average NYC

household is closer to 3 people). Because the United States Census reports income in

$10,000 increments, a $50,000 annual salary is the best Census proxy for estimating how

many households count as low-income for affordable housing purposes.


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but not one single unit affordable to the half of Queens residents who make less than$50,000.

At Willets Point, where the City is proposing to take the land via eminent domain, theAdministration has refused to make any specific commitment to housing affordability.Officials have suggested that the project might be a standard "80/20" development, with 80percent market-rate units and 20 percent of the units affordable at an unspecified level.

This Pratt Center Issue Brief explains the needs and opportunities for affordable housingdevelopment and preservation in Queens.

The Need for Affordable Housing in QueensBetween 1990 and 2000, Queens experienced the largest population growth of of any otherborough, with its total number of residents increasing 14.2 percent. Queens is the most diverseborough in New York City; over 43 percent of households are headed by immigrants. Queens now

has the second-highest population of the five boroughs(775,120 households, or 25.7 of the city's entire population),after Brooklyn, and the second-highest number of householdsearning less than $50,000 per year (377,645, or 23.7 percent).

In the most recent three-year period for which data isavailable, real incomes fell, while rents rose significantly.Median household incomes dropped more than 6 percent,from $48,162 in 2002 to $45,000 in 2005. Over the sameperiod, average rents rose more than 7 percent, from $886 in2002 to $950 in 2005. This trend has significantly increasedthe housing cost burden on Queens households, making itincreasingly difficult for essential public servants, such asfirefighters and police officers, as well as service workers inretail, health care, and social services, to reside in theborough.

Almost 9 percent of all occupied housing units in Queens areclassified as severely overcrowded, with the neighborhoods ofCorona, Elmhurst, and Jackson Heights suffering the highest

rates of severe overcrowding, at 17.5 percent. The Borough of Queens also has the highestconcentration of illegal units in the City. In 2005 Queens had the second lowest vacancy rate of allfive boroughs at 2.82 percent. Senior citizens, Hispanic, black, and Asian residents carry thehighest rent burdens in Queens.

Booming Housing Development, But Little AffordableOver the next 20 years, the borough of Queens is expected to absorb the largest share of growth inthe New York metropolitan region. The housing market has recently been booming in Queens. Morethan 16,000 new housing units were built between 1994 and 2003, and over 5,000 units receivedresidential building permits in 2004 alone. In 2005, Queens had the highest number of housing startsin any borough, at 5,371. The communities of Ridgewood and Maspeth experienced a quintupling inhousing starts from 2003 to 2005; Astoria's housing starts tripled, while Flushing, Woodside andJackson Heights doubled. Unfortunately, very few of these units have been affordable to low- ormoderate-income families.

Shortchanged in the New Housing Marketplace

The Borough of Queens:Median HouseholdIncome (2005)

$45,000

Median earnings for

workers (2005)

$30,651

Median Rent (2005) $950Percentage ofHouseholds Below theFederal Poverty Level(2005)

9.5%

Percentage ofHouseholds with RentGreater than 30% ofIncome (2005)

51.5%

Percentage ofImmigrant Households

(2005)

43.4%

Sources: 2005 American Community Survey,US Census & Furman Center 2005


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While the Bloomberg Administration has aggressively promoted its New Housing Marketplace planto create and preserve 165,000 units of affordable housing in New York City, very little of theaffordable housing and even fewer of the low-income units have been in Queens. TheBloomberg Administrations affordable housing program, the New Housing Marketplace, hasdramatically shortchanged working families, and especially low-income families, in Queens:

While Queens has 25.7% of the citys population, it has received only 6.7% of all affordable

housing units in the Bloomberg Administrations housing plan.

While Queens has 23.7% of all NYC households earning less than $50,000 per year, it hasreceived only 3.7% of the low-income units affordable to these families.

New Housing Marketplace UnitsBy Borough and Affordability, Compared to Population

Total

house-holds,2006

Share

ofhouse-holds

NewHousing

Market-placeUnits

Share ofafford-

ablehousingstarts

House-holds

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Shortchanging Working Families Queens