Building for the Future:

New York's Affordable

Housing Challenge

November 2001

www.housingfirst.net
HOUSING FIRST! Building for the Future

Building for the Future:

New York's Affordable Housing Challenge*
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction 2

The Need for Affordable Housing

Housing Availability 5
Housing Affordability 7
Housing Adequacy 8
A Need for Action 9

Why Act Now? 10

Housing and the Future of New Yorks’s Economy 10

Housing and Families 12
Housing and Education 13
Housing and Health 13
Housing and Safe Neighborhoods 14

What Must Be Done 16

The Role of Public Investment 17

Meeting New York's Housing Needs 20

Table: Ten-Year Capital Investment Scenario 21

How to Pay for this Critical Investment 22

Call to Action 26

Appendices 27

Expanding Development of Affordable Housing: An Action Plan 27

The “Housing New York” Ten-Year Plan 31
Housing Programs in the Housing First! Plan 33
Affordable Housing: The National Perspective 37

Endnotes 38

*
This is a substantial revision of a paper originally issued by Housing First! in May 2001 under the title: "New York's
Affordable Housing Crisis: Context, Principles and Solutions."

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HOUSING FIRST! Building for the Future

INTRODUCTION

This Year in New York City

2001 will undoubtedly be remembered as one of the most extraordinary years in the
history of the City of New York. On the morning of September 11th – the primary election
day on which voters would begin to elect a new Mayor and an almost entirely new set of
government leaders – a terrorist attack destroyed the World Trade Center complex and
killed thousands of people. The unimaginable scope of the destruction horrified us all,
and was mitigated only by the heroism and resolve of New York's uniformed services
and citizens as they met the crisis head-on.

In the wake of this tragedy, New York's

new leaders now face unprecedented "… Michael R. Bloomberg said the city
challenges. They must rebuild downtown, should embark on a huge housing
construction project, to make it
meet critical security needs and restore a
attractive to corporations that might
sense of normalcy and well being without otherwise be tempted to leave. 'You can
undermining the City’s fiscal health and make the case that we need housing
economic competitiveness. At the same more than we need office space,' he
time, they must confront a number of said."
perennial issues, like education, that - New York Times, September 20, 2001
continue to elude consensus.

Before the events of September 11th, one issue had become so pressing that it affected
virtually all New Yorkers: the severe and growing shortage of affordable housing. This
shortage already impacted New York in myriad way increasing homelessness, forcing
middle class families to abandon the city and complicating the ability of employers –
corporations, nonprofits and public agencies -- to attract qualified employees. In the
face of the World Trade Center tragedy and the economic downturn it exacerbated, the
affordable housing shortage is a significant threat to New York City’s economic
recovery.

Rebuilding New York and the Challenge of Affordable Housing

Without question, the top priority for the next mayor will be to rebuild New York,
restoring what was physically and economically damaged or destroyed in the
September 11th attacks. Taken alone, the challenge of rebuilding on the World Trade
Center site and repairing the damaged infrastructure is daunting. But rebuilding must
go farther: it must fundamentally reaffirm the sense of security and confidence that all
New Yorkers have in the city they call home. Without that, we face an exodus of jobs
and workers that will devastate our economy and tear apart the social fabric.

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A sustained effort to address New York's housing needs is critical to keeping New York
a great place to live and work. . While the September 11th attacks destroyed millions of
square feet of office space, existing office vacancies and new buildings already in the
construction pipeline are quickly meeting this need. The housing shortage, however,
has been decades in the making and will require a more sustained effort to solve.
Unlike previous housing crises that have confronted the city, today’s shortage affects
not only low-income New Yorkers, but moderate and middle-income households as
well. The lack of affordable housing leaves tens of thousands homeless, hundreds of
thousands of poor households unable to meet their basic needs, and forces many
middle-class families to leave altogether, draining the city of the core of its workforce.

Though the enormous scale of the housing shortage is indeed daunting, it has also
produced a groundswell of public support for a substantial and creative investment of
resources to address the issue. Just as importantly, over the past two decades New
York City has created and nurtured an infrastructure of for-profit and nonprofit housing
developers and programs with a proven record of success, ready to implement a
substantial affordable housing initiative rapidly and effectively.

In short, the magnitude and longevity of New York’s housing shortage had already
created the necessary political consensus as well as the professional expertise to finally
end this crisis. These are now indispensable assets in any effort to rebuild New York,
and can help spark the adoption of an effective, successful plan more necessary than
ever. Indeed, the failure to act now – the “cost of doing nothing” – could have
devastating consequences for the city for decades to come.

Housing First!
Housing First! represents an extraordinarily broad coalition of nonprofit and for-profit
developers, community-based organizations, religious institutions, civic groups,
businesses, banks and labor unions. These leaders have joined together in the belief
that New York City must make a significant and sustained commitment to expand the
preservation and production of affordable housing.

The plan, developed by these concerned and knowledgeable citizens, combines

prudent public investment with a concerted effort to reduce the cost of development,
thus ensuring that public resources are used as efficiently and cost-effectively as
possible. This commitment must ultimately result in expanded investment to create a full
continuum of housing options for New Yorkers that includes:

• developing new opportunities for homeownership at nearly all income levels;

• creating decent affordable housing for working families;

• preserving, improving and expanding the city's multi-family housing stock; and

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• meeting the housing needs of our most vulnerable citizens, including seniors ,
homeless people, and those with special needs and disabilities.

Before the terrorist attacks of September 11th, Housing First! called for the City of New
York to invest $10 billion over a ten-year period in initiatives that would produce at least
100,000 new housing units and restore and preserve tens of thousands more. While we
must reassess the City’s investment capacity in light of the World Trade Center disaster,
these goals still reflect the level of effort required to make the necessary progress
towards solving New York’s affordable housing crisis.

New York City, already at the threshold of an economic downturn, now faces a
recession of uncertain dimension and duration. The most recent assessments by the
City Comptroller estimate that New York will lose as many as 115,000 jobs in the next
year as a direct result of the disaster. The cost to the city’s economy is likely to exceed
$100 billion in the next two fiscal years alone, reducing City tax receipts for that period
by approximately $1.3 billion. While cleanup and new construction will offset some of
the job losses, and insurance could cover as much as 40% of the economic costs, New
York City’s budget will undoubtedly be affected.1

At the same time, the housing crisis continues to worsen and jeopardize the prospects
for recovery. Regardless of the short-term challenges, Housing First! believes that it is
now more important than ever for the City of New York to make a long-term
commitment to sustained public investment in our city's housing infrastructure. The
Housing First! coalition stands ready to work with the new leadership of our city to
rebuild a home for all New Yorkers.

* * *

What follows is an examination of the nature of New York City’s affordable housing
crisis and identifies the essential elements of an effective solution. The first half of this
paper makes the case for a new public commitment to and investment in affordable
housing. The second half describes how such an investment could best be applied
toward creating a comprehensive array of housing models that will meet the needs of a
broad spectrum of New Yorkers, and outlines approaches to financing this investment.

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THE NEED FOR AFFORDABLE HOUSING

Analysts often look at housing markets in terms of the three “A’s” – availability,
affordability and adequacy. Most housing markets have problems only with one or two
of these factors; New York, however, “Rising population. Falling housing
experiences significant problems with all production. A widening affordable
three. The city’s housing market was in housing gap. Reduced government
critical condition, teetering on the brink of housing assistance. Persistent, and
intensive care, long before September increasing, mass homelessness.”
11th. Indeed, the number of homeless
New Yorkers staying in the city's – Coalition for the Homeless, Housing a
homeless shelters in recent months is at Growing City: New York’s Bust in Boom
an all time high -- more than 29,000 Times, July 2000
people, including 12,000 children on an
average night.

The reasons for this situation are complex, and in some instances, unique to New York.
Among many factors, the city’s density and finite space, its aging housing stock and
continued importance as a center for business, culture and immigration conspire to
keep New York’s housing market unhealthy. The titles of recent reports on the situation
paint a grim picture: “The Housing Crisis in New York,” “No Room for Growth,” “Housing
a Growing City: New York’s Bust in Boom Times.”

The findings of these reports provide a useful snapshot of the current state of New
York’s housing market.

Housing Availability in New York

Measuring Availability: The 2000 Census confirms what anyone living in New York
City knows: the city is getting more crowded. New York’s population now tops 8 million
– an historic high. This burgeoning populace crowds into a total of 3,201,000 housing
units in New York City, two-thirds of them rentals.2

Although the shortage of affordable housing is not New York’s problem alone, the
situation here is particularly acute. Housing experts generally agree that a housing
market must have at least a 5 percent vacancy rate in order to provide opportunities for
newcomers to find housing and to allow existing residents to move into larger units as
their families grow, move up as their earnings increase and downsize in their senior
years.

But in the three decades that the U.S. Census Bureau has conducted triennial surveys
of housing in New York City, vacancy rates have never exceeded 4.1 percent.3 In 2000,
the citywide vacancy rate for rentals was 3.2 percent, down from 4.1 percent in 1990
and the lowest rental vacancy rate of the last decade.4 Indeed the late 1990s witnessed
the sharpest decline in vacancies since 1968. And it is most severe for low rent units:

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the number of vacant apartments renting under $700 went down by almost 14 percent
in the last three years, while those renting under $400 were reduced by 66 percent.

Waiting lists for assisted, low-cost units provide another measure of the city's critical
shortage of affordable housing. The typical family will now spend eight years on the
waiting list for an apartment in the City's public housing developments. Currently
224,000 households are on the Section 8 rental voucher waiting list, and 141,000
households are on waiting lists for public housing.5

Addressing Availability: Efforts to address New York City’s housing shortage have
waxed and waned over the years. In the 1960s, private and public construction
combined to produce 36,000 new units per year, with a peak of 60,000 new units built in
1963. But in the 1970s the number of new units dropped to 17,000 annually, with an
even greater number of units lost to neglect and abandonment each year.6

The 1990s saw the number of units lost to disrepair level off, but the production of new
units fell to less than 8,500 per year.7 Overall, the 1990s saw New York City lose more
rental units than it produced. As a result, a city that had more affordable rental units
than extremely low-income families in the 1970s now has an estimated 390,000-unit
shortfall for extremely low-income households.8 The last decade saw New York City
add over 456,000 people, while constructing only 85,000 new housing units.9

The pressure for increased housing production, and for more affordable housing, comes
at a time when all three levels of government – local, state and federal – have
dramatically scaled back investment in housing construction. The budget of the federal
Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) plunged from more than $50
billion in 1980 ($104.5 billion in today’s dollars) to only $21.2 billion in 2000.10 This
year’s proposed HUD budget maintains current spending levels, representing an
effective reduction when adjusted for inflation.

New York State has a laudable record of investing in affordable housing over the past
two decades, but has not undertaken a large-scale housing production initiative since
the Mitchell-Lama program, inaugurated in 1955. A true success story, Mitchell-Lama
created 125,000 units of affordable housing for middle-income New Yorkers until the
program’s last building was constructed in the 1970s.11 Subsequent State development
programs have produced a significant number of new housing units, but fall far short of
the overwhelming need.

In the past, New York City has aggressively invested in housing production in an
attempt to make up for the shortfall in state and federal resources. The City’s own
capital expenditures on housing construction climbed to a robust $739 million in 1989
($1.06 billion in 2000 dollars when adjusted for inflation), but have since fallen more
than 72 percent, to $294 million in FY 2000.12 The dramatic reductions in City, State
and federal capital housing development mean that in recent years most of the new
housing units constructed in New York have been luxury rentals, co-ops, and
condominiums.

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Housing Affordability
Measuring Affordability: Housing Rents are up, “real” income is down:
affordability is a principal concern for all Between 1981 and 1999, according to
but the wealthiest New Yorkers. Census Bureau data, median rents have
Nationally, housing is widely accepted to increased at twice the rate of inflation,
be affordable when it costs 30 percent or while median renter household income
less of total household income. In New has stagnated for 25 years and low-
York City, over half a million renting income families have actually lost ground
households – one out of every four – pay in real terms. From 1981 to 1999, median
more than 50 percent of their incomes rents (adjusted for inflation) increased by
33 percent while real median renter
for rent.
income increased by only 3 percent.
While low-income households bear the The National Low Income Housing
greatest burden, a significant number of Coalition estimates a person needs to
middle-income households also struggle earn over $18.25 an hour working 40
with affordability, with one out of five hours per week to afford a two-bedroom
middle-income households spending unit at New York’s “fair market rent” –
more than 30 percent of their income on 354 percent more than the present
rent.13 As the housing shortage continues minimum wage of $5.15 per hour.
to cause rents to rise at a much higher rate
than New Yorkers’ incomes, affordability becomes an increasingly critical factor for
working families considering whether to leave the city.

While little data is available, past history suggests that the impacts of the new recession
and the ripples of September 11th are likely to exacerbate affordability problems for
many households that rely on the earnings of low wage and marginally employed
workers. These are the households that cannot afford fluctuations in income resulting
from job loss and reduced wages or hours. Without a concerted effort to preserve and
expand the supply of affordable housing, they will be in increased jeopardy of
displacement and homelessness.

Addressing Affordability: Targeted housing assistance has allowed hundreds of

thousands of moderate and middle-income renters to remain in New York, and
hundreds of thousands more low-income renters to remain housed. But at the same
time that public investment in housing construction has declined, many units built or
supported with public investments and incentives are also in jeopardy of being lost from
the affordable housing stock.

For example, federal project-based rental assistance provides operating support to

privately owned buildings that limit low-income residents’ rents to no more than 30
percent of their incomes. As these twenty-year contracts expire, owners are free to
convert these apartments to market-level rents.

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In New York, private owners of federally-assisted buildings containing 1,800 apartments

have already opted out of financing agreements since October 1996. By September
2004, contracts covering 81,000 more federally-assisted apartments will expire in the
city, endangering this valuable affordable housing resource.14

Similarly, rental restrictions will soon end on the first buildings financed with federal Low
Income Housing Tax Credits, a program that provides tax incentives to investors who
agree to maintain affordable rents for 15 years.

Also, the financing agreements and long-term tax-abatements that supported the
development and maintenance of Mitchell-Lama buildings are in the process of expiring.
Those incentives enabled rent levels to be based on income or ability to pay. While
various restrictions, interventions and timetables are being negotiated with respect to
specific building complexes, some number of affordable apartments will inevitably be
converted to market rents.

Housing Adequacy
The successful, publicly funded rehabilitation of thousands of deteriorated and
abandoned buildings in New York City’s neighborhoods over the past fifteen years has
created the widespread perception that urban blight is largely a concern of the past.
However, fully 63 percent of the City’s housing stock is more than 50 years old. A
significant portion of it will require sustained capital investment to remain viable.15

While the number of dilapidated buildings has declined in recent years, in 1999 more
than one-half of renter-occupied units had at least one serious maintenance deficiency.
Approximately one of every thirteen housing units (7.5 percent) had severe housing
quality problems (i.e., had five or more major maintenance deficiencies or was
dilapidated), compared to one of every fifty units (2 percent) nationwide.16 Housing
quality problems also affect the city’s stock of assisted housing. A recent report by the
State Comptroller's office estimated that more than $5 billion is needed to bring public
housing “up to a state of good repair.”

Due to the failure of housing production to keep pace with population growth, tens of
thousands of illegal housing units now exist, many with dangerous physical conditions
and severe overcrowding. According to the most recent Census Bureau housing survey
in New York City, there are at least 150,000 doubled-up renter households in the city,
and 11 percent of renters live in overcrowded apartments.17

As job losses mount in the current downturn, rent collection will decrease and
maintenance deficiencies will begin to rise, putting a growing number of vulnerable
residential buildings in danger of dilapidation and abandonment.

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A Need for Action

Today, New York City fails to meet threshold levels in all three measurements of
housing market health – adequacy, availability and affordability – confirming a crisis of
unprecedented proportions. Historically, “To foster real and lasting job growth,
homeless, low-income, minority and the next mayor will need to figure out
immigrant families and individuals have where to house future new companies
disproportionately suffered the most and their workers.”
severe housing problems in New York
City. The current housing crisis, however, – Steve Malanga, City Journal, Spring
increasingly burdens tens of thousands of 2001
moderate- and middle-income New
Yorkers who find themselves trapped in apartments too small for their growing families,
paying more for rent than they can afford, and working extra jobs to make ends meet.

By themselves, the direct consequences of the housing shortage outlined above justify
a substantial expansion of New York’s housing production. But the lack of affordable
housing causes increasingly detrimental indirect economic and social effects as well.
An extended recession will make these ongoing negative consequences even more
crippling. The next section examines how a continued housing shortage can slow the
city’s recovery and do long-term damage to our economic competitiveness and general
well being, elevating housing creation to an overarching priority for the City government.

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WHY ACT NOW?

If housing were a minor factor in the city’s economy and infrastructure, the facts outlined
below might be tolerated, or even ignored, in favor of concentrating rebuilding efforts on
reviving downtown and expanding office space.

But housing centrally impacts economic, social and cultural health in critical ways. The
City’s ability to provide even the most basic services and amenities is inextricably linked
to its ability to ensure safe, decent housing to its residents. As businesses reassess
where they will be most competitive, and citizens try to decide where they will be best
able to work and live, the quality and affordability of New York’s housing will be a
primary factor in their decisions.

New York will be able to provide decent education and health care, safe streets and
secure neighborhoods, and enhanced economic opportunities for all its citizens only if it
first addresses the housing needs of its populace:

• If the employees who make New York's businesses function can’t find decent,
affordable housing, the workforce will erode and the city’s future economic well-
being will be jeopardized.

• If whole neighborhoods are allowed to deteriorate, crime will again take root
and flourish as it has in the past.

• If schoolchildren live in overcrowded apartments where it is often impossible

to study, or sleep every night on shelter cots – as more than 10,000 do each
night – smaller class sizes and highly trained teachers will still not improve
math and reading scores.

• If prospective new teachers in the public school system can’t find affordable
apartments, the city will never attract desperately needed, well-trained
educators.

Public investment in affordable housing must be regarded as an essential investment in

the city’s social and economic success. And it is an investment – as much as mass
transit helps move people from their homes to work and education prepares them for
employment. Just as the Metropolitan Transit Authority must quickly reopen downtown
subway stations and businesses must secure new office space, the City must ensure
that New York does not suffer even more economic losses as a result of the severe
shortage of affordable housing.

Housing and the Future of

New York's Economy
The scarcity of affordable housing jeopardizes the city’s continued economic success.
A recent Wall Street Journal article identifies an unexpected, impending national

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housing shortage that is quickly spreading to the middle class, with the problem
“particularly acute…in some ‘gateway cities’ where immigrants first settle.” According to
the article, economists consider a housing market normal when it adds about one home
for every 1.5 new jobs in an area.18 By this standard, New York City’s economic growth
in the last decade required the addition of at least 300,000 new units. But since 1992,
New York gained almost 450,000 new jobs while adding only 57,500 housing units.19
Even if recent job losses are prolonged and surpass the direst predictions, New York
will still suffer a shortage of hundreds of thousands of housing units.

Growing companies are extremely reluctant to locate or expand in New York if their
employees cannot find affordable places to live. In a 1999 survey of the largest
employers in the New York area, the Office of the New York State Comptroller reported
that fully 86 percent of respondents cited housing costs as a serious deterrent to doing
business in New York.20

A study by the University of Massachusetts confirms that this is a pressing concern for
older urban areas, finding that “employers and businesses are starting to take a closer
look at [the housing availability] issue when making location and expansion choices.”21
A George Mason University study of the metropolitan Washington, DC area found that
its regional economy loses nearly $9 billion a year in lost income and reduced consumer
spending because of the extremely high cost of renting or owning a home there.
According to the study, people spend most of their money where they live. When
employees must reside far outside the communities in which they work, a considerably
smaller portion of their income enters into the economy (or tax coffers) of the center city.
Further, extended commutes raise air pollution levels, put undue burdens on regional
transportation systems (subsidized in part by the municipal government), reduce worker
productivity, and place greater stresses on families.22

New York’s expensive and antiquated housing infrastructure is also a serious

disadvantage in retaining homegrown members of the city’s middle-class and in
attracting middle-income people who can replenish its vitality. Another recent survey
found that 45 percent of New Yorkers
“There’s no question that the long-term
"seriously considered moving out of the
success of the city and this region would
city" because of high housing costs.23 And be seriously hampered if the [housing]
in the wake of September 11th, the need to shortage is not relieved.”
counter the myriad of forces pushing
people out of the city takes on new – Claude Shostal, President,
urgency. Regional Plan Association

An adequate housing supply is not only essential to attract employees to the city; the
creation of housing is also an important source of jobs in the local economy. The
residential construction industry creates thousands of jobs and substantial economic
activity. Nationwide, housing construction accounts for 5% of the total economy and
27% of investment spending.24

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But New York continues to lag behind national growth in the production of new housing.
Between 1985 and 1994, the city’s construction rate for new housing was lower than
that of every other large city with a growing population.25 (As noted above, in the 1990s
New York City produced only 85,000 new units of housing, compared to more than
170,000 new units in the 1970s.) While New York constructed a number of major
commercial and public works projects, the city failed to extend the boom to robust
housing development.

Similarly, preserving the existing housing stock is an equally effective and necessary
investment in the city’s infrastructure. In the 1970s when great swaths of New York City
were destroyed by arson and abandonment, thousands of units of the city’s housing
stock were lost. As a result, the City tax coffers suffered, losing an average of $209,000
in foregone taxes on each foreclosed property.26

Beginning in the late 1980s, sustained public investment rehabilitated this housing and
returned much of it to the tax rolls. In the most distressed areas of the city, nonprofit
community-based organizations used municipal funding to reclaim abandoned and
deteriorated buildings, laying the foundation for subsequent revitalization of these
neighborhoods by private developers. As a result, formerly desolate blocks in the South
Bronx, East New York and Central Harlem once again house tax-paying residents and
contribute to the City’s property tax base.

A recent study by New York University confirmed how public investment in some of the
city’s poorest neighborhoods not only leveraged private funds to increase the number of
affordable housing units developed in those communities, but also substantially
increased the value of privately-owned properties nearby. The higher values then
continue leveraging more private investment by motivating banks and other lenders to
begin making more and larger mortgage and home improvement loans in those areas.27

Housing and Families

More than a half million households at all income levels (one-quarter of all renters) now
pay more than half their income for rent, almost twice as high as the national standard
for housing affordability of 30 percent of household income. High New York City rents
undermine the ability of many working households to meet their day-to-day financial
obligations, imposing enormous pressures on mothers and fathers to provide life’s other
necessities to their children.

For the City’s homeless families and individuals, the situation is even grimmer. In the
early 1990s, the creation of more effective and humane transitional residences and
programs within the municipal shelter system helped prepare thousands of shelter
residents for stable lives in permanent housing. But the sharp decrease in permanent
housing development for homeless people over the past five years has left them no
where to go once stabilized. Consequently, shelter stays for homeless families have
doubled over the last decade, from an average of five months in 1990, to nearly eleven
months today, pushing the emergency shelter system to full capacity.28 More than

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29,000 New Yorkers sleep in municipal shelters each night, including over 12,000
children, the largest shelter population ever.

Housing and Education

The Impact on Students: The housing crisis undermines the quality of education in
New York. Decent, affordable housing is inextricably linked with success in the
classroom. The best efforts to improve the quality of education won’t matter if
schoolchildren don’t have a place to sleep, a quiet space to do their homework, or a
table for meals with their parents. Children simply cannot fulfill their potential in school
while living in overcrowded or substandard housing. In addition to the 10,000 children
sleeping in homeless shelters each night, at least 150,000 renter households live
doubled-up in the apartments of friends and extended family.

In March 2001 the New York Times chronicled the life of four young siblings bounced
around the City shelter system. The article describes the all-too-typical tribulations of
the children’s grandmother as she tries to keep the kids in school as the family moves
from one shelter to another every night. A social worker quoted in the article makes this
observation of eleven year-old Jamall, the oldest of the four. "Last week, Jamall fell
asleep several times during class and asked if he could sleep through recess….Jamall,
who normally shows a tough exterior, has cried through our last two sessions as he
described his nights in the shelter and his fears that his family would never have a
home."29

Jamall’s homeless circumstances are heartbreaking, but the long-term effects on his
education and personal development are truly frightening for the future of New York
City. Studies demonstrate a direct link between homelessness, overcrowding and the
lack of educational achievement among children. As Jamall and tens of thousands of
other homeless children are denied stable home lives in decent, safe housing, their
education and social development will suffer, forcing New York to pay many times over
in higher rates of crime, mental illness, drug addiction, ill health and social dysfunction.

Attracting Qualified Teachers: The affordable housing shortage causes a less tragic,
but equally damaging, effect on education as it hampers the ability of New York’s
education systems to attract and retain qualified teachers and other professionals. New
York City public schools will need to replace half of their teaching staffs over the next
ten years. According to the New York Times, urban school districts across the country
are finding it impossible to attract qualified teachers in certain critical subjects such as
math and science. Exacerbating the situation, New York must compete with suburban
school districts and other states that offer teachers higher salaries, expanded benefits
and, in many instances, generous housing assistance.30

Housing and Health

Substandard housing conditions are unequivocally linked to chronic health problems.
Analyzing the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and the Department of

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Housing and Urban Development, the recent Housing America study, “There’s No Place
Like Home,” shows how over 1 million children nationwide six years old or younger
suffer from lead poisoning from peeling paint in their substandard homes; 120,000
children nationwide suffer from anemia as a direct result of their families’ inability to
afford both rent and food; and 10,000 children between the ages of 4 and 9 are
hospitalized for asthma attacks each year because of environmental conditions directly
associated with poor housing.31

The childhood asthma epidemic is especially grave in New York. Homeless children in
New York City have the highest rate for asthma of any child population in the United
States. Thirty-eight percent of homeless children in the City's shelter system are likely
to have asthma, six times the asthma rate among children nationwide. Additionally, 61
percent of homeless children have not received the most basic protective measures
against childhood illnesses, are 50 percent more likely to suffer from middle ear
infections, and are susceptible to nutritionally-based health problems that have lifelong
implications.32

Just as lack of housing breeds health problems, the provision of housing has also been
proven to reduce the incidence of these problems significantly. The reduction in
healthcare costs attributed to the provision of supportive housing – housing with on-site
services – to medically frail, mentally ill and other vulnerable populations is especially
noteworthy. A recent study by the University of Pennsylvania found that the average
homeless mentally-ill person in New York City uses $40,449 in publicly funded services
per year, predominantly in acute care and psychiatric hospitals. Providing supportive
housing to the same individual reduces these costs so dramatically that the savings pay
for all but $995 of the annual cost of the housing. These extraordinary findings
demonstrate that housing people with special needs is not only the right thing to do, but
cost-effective as well.33

Slightly more modest, but still significant, public savings could likewise be obtained by
providing supportive housing to people living with AIDS. Recent news accounts have
documented how the City of New York pays more than $100 per night to provide
emergency housing for homeless persons living with AIDS, individuals who could be
housed more humanely in permanent supportive housing at a fraction of the cost.

Housing and Safe Neighborhoods

Decent, safe housing preserves and strengthens neighborhoods. When buildings fall
into disrepair, as they did in many of New York's communities in the 1970s, crime can
take root and flourish. The Koch Administration’s ten-year housing plan, Housing New
York, provides a striking example of the secondary benefits of housing development
and preservation. By investing in gut rehabilitation, devising a host of strategies for
transferring ownership to responsible owners, stabilizing vacant buildings and
preventing further abandonment, Housing New York contributed significantly to the drop
in crime over the past decade.

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A study of the Housing New York initiative published by the Fannie Mae Foundation
measures the relationship between housing rehabilitation and crime rates by examining
the effects of the initiative in the Bronx. The study found that from 1986, when housing
development began, to 1996, when the initiative ended, the six community boards
where the most housing starts occurred (39,506 over ten years) experienced a 28.6%
drop in property crimes and a 17.5% decrease in violent crime. Some of this sizeable
reduction can be attributed to other citywide factors unrelated to housing. But the direct
link between crime reductions and development shows through when the figures are
compared to the six Bronx community boards that experienced significantly less
housing development (14,632 starts over ten years). These districts saw property crime
rates drop by only 17.7%, while violent crime actually rose by 6.3%.34

The Housing New York initiative was driven by rising homelessness and falling property
tax rolls. But the measure of its success soon became the revitalized, safer
neighborhoods we now enjoy in place of once-desolate stretches of burned-out
buildings and empty lots. These new communities set the stage for the tremendous
burst of private investment that in recent years has benefited Harlem, the South Bronx,
Bedford-Stuyvesant and other low-income neighborhoods across the city.

With the advent of a recession all but official, New York City is once again in danger of
experiencing another cycle of neighborhood decay and housing abandonment. Owners
of distressed residential properties will be more likely to miss tax payments and defer
maintenance. New owners of formerly tax delinquent properties bought at City tax lien
sales may not be willing or able to maintain these buildings properly, now that the
continuing appreciation of the properties’ value is no longer assured. Without a
coordinated public investment to preserve these at-risk housing units, New York’s low-
income neighborhoods could once again suffer widespread abandonment and
associated increases in crime and social dysfunction.

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WHAT MUST BE DONE

New York requires a substantial publicly funded capital investment program to create
new housing, upgrade substandard apartments, preserve the existing housing stock
and stimulate private investment and development. The Housing First! plan provides
the outlines of such an initiative.

The new leadership of New York City must commit to a sustained 10-
year capital investment plan to preserve at least 85,000 affordable
housing units and produce 100,000 more.

Guiding Principles
New York's affordable housing challenges can be met through targeted public
investments in affordable housing, accompanied by a commitment to a set of principles
that will streamline the development process, reduce costs, ensure good planning, and
maximize efficiency and accountability. Housing First! is committed to:

• Enactment of a broad range of common-sense reforms in government regulations

and housing industry practices that will decrease construction costs, maintain high
quality standards and increase housing production.

• A public investment plan that maximizes private investment and resources,

including conventional debt and equity financing, tax credits, tax benefits, and public-
private partnerships.

• An open and inclusive, comprehensive planning process that analyzes the city’s
full range of housing needs, in order to provide guidance on development vehicles,
planning and design, decide the proper allocation of resources, and evaluate results.

• Programs that create housing for safe, sustainable, mixed-income neighborhoods.

• A combination of rental apartments, conventional homeownership, and cooperative

housing through both rehabilitation and new construction, with cost-effective use
of public and private investments.

• A balanced mix of programs to address all income groups and needs: very-low-,
low-, moderate-, and middle-income families as well as appropriate types of
supportive housing for individuals and families with special needs.

• Funding for acquisition and environmental remediation of “brownfield” sites to

encourage economically feasible new developments ranging from infill to large-scale
new construction

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THE ROLE OF PUBLIC INVESTMENT

There are many barriers to expanding the supply of affordable housing in New York
City, some shared with almost every municipality, others unique to the region. Some of
these barriers can be overcome with sound planning and common sense reforms of
zoning regulations, building codes and environmental remediation, helping to make
affordable housing easier and less expensive to site, construct and operate. Housing
First! advocates a set of specific proposals aimed at expediting housing development
and reducing costs. (See Appendix A -- Expanding Development of Affordable
Housing in New York City: An Action Plan for Reducing Costs and Stimulating
Development.) Such a plan is critical to accelerating development and making public
resources go as far as possible.

But even with these reforms, the finite amount and high cost of land and buildings in
New York City ensures that development of affordable housing will occur only with
some amount of public investment.

But unlike many other municipalities, New York City has a long and successful history of
public investment in the production of decent, affordable housing. Since the Great
Depression of the 1930s, New York has regularly intervened to promote affordability
during housing shortages. These periodic interventions have created much needed
housing and usually have leveraged additional funding from federal and state sources.

• Housing developed under the New York State Mitchell-Lama program created
over 125,000 middle-income rental apartments and co-ops throughout the city.
Tax benefits, low-cost land and tax-exempt bond financing provided incentives to
developers to create these residences from 1955 through the 1970s.

• In the late 1980s, the Koch Administration began the Housing New York ten-year
capital housing investment plan, one of the most recent and prominent examples
of how New York can respond aggressively and effectively to the affordable
housing crisis. This effort was instrumental in positioning the city for the
economic revitalization it has enjoyed the past decade. It also proved that the
city could spearhead a housing development effort despite limited support from
federal and state resources. (See Appendix B -- The Housing New York” Ten-
Year Plan.)

• The New York/New York Agreement to House Homeless Mentally Ill Individuals
of 1990 created the nation’s largest and most successful program to house
people with special needs. This partnership between the State and City
governments created over 3,000 units of supportive housing for people with
serious and persistent psychiatric disabilities, sharply reducing that population’s
presence in the municipal shelters and on the streets.

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• The New York City Housing Authority operates the largest and best-managed
public housing system in the country, serving over 600,000 people in 181,000
apartments.

New York’s commitment to public investment has also acted as a vital catalyst for
attracting private investment to affordable housing development. Through the use of tax
credits, property tax benefits, loans, direct assistance and a host of other measures,
housing developers and owners in New York City have pioneered many of the most
successful public/private housing partnerships in the United States.

Indeed, most housing development in New York City is the result of cooperative
relationships between for-profit and nonprofit developers and owners, private
intermediary organizations, banks and other financial institutions. As a result, every
public dollar invested in housing in New York City now drives roughly 50 cents to $5.00
in private investment, depending on the housing program.

Despite New York’s successful track record leveraging additional funding and
generating effective development partnerships, public investment in affordable housing
has declined precipitously in recent years. A decade ago, housing accounted for
approximately 10 percent of all New York City capital investments. Today, public
investment in housing consists of only 4 cents of each dollar in the New York City
capital budget. The City directs far larger capital expenditures to environmental
protection, education and transportation.35

New York City’s heritage of public investment in housing has nurtured a level of
development expertise unmatched in the United States, perhaps in the world.

• Through the city’s recent housing programs, New York City has developed a cadre
of experienced, influential and effective partners, ranging from major financial
institutions and intermediary organizations that now provide financing and technical
assistance to groups across the nation, to community-based nonprofit and for profit
housing developers, property managers and service organizations. The collective
experience and capacity of these groups helps ensure that investments from all
sources are employed effectively and efficiently to preserve and produce as much
housing as possible.

• The City has also encouraged and facilitated state-of-the-art partnerships between
the public and private sectors to tackle housing development issues together. It has
effectively maximized the use of tax-exempt financing, spawning a growing local
industry of effective for-profit and nonprofit developers.

• New York City has pioneered many of the most successful housing models and
programs in the United States, almost all of which have been replicated elsewhere in
the country. From the Mitchell-Lama program to the New York/New York
Agreement, New York City has been a leader in developing creative solutions that
address a wide range of housing needs.

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But in the past decade the city’s investment in housing production has declined
dramatically. New York City no longer has a large-scale, broad-based program to both
plan and produce affordable housing to meet its growing housing needs.

The absence of a coordinated government policy on affordable housing would not be so

critical if the private housing industry could develop an adequate supply of housing. But
even with measures to reduce the cost of building and operating new housing, public
investment will continue to be an essential element of New York’s housing
development.

Everyone knows that the costs of developing and operating housing – and therefore
purchase and rental prices – are higher in New York. A recent study analyzed why
those costs are so high and offered a far-reaching set of proposals to reduce
development costs that could decrease the cost of housing in the city by 18 percent to
25 percent. But even if all of these reforms were fully achievable, the study clearly
stated that “the city’s poor would, no doubt, still require assistance” to be adequately
housed.

Housing First! is committed to advancing workable proposals to reduce housing

development and operating costs (See Appendix A -- Expanding Development of
Affordable Housing in New York City: An Action Plan for Reducing Costs and
Stimulating Development.). But it remains clear that a substantial public investment is
still essential for the development of housing affordable to most New York households.36

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MEETING NEW YORK'S HOUSING NEEDS

Prior to September 11th, Housing First! outlined a ten-year, $10 billion capital investment
plan to create 100,000 new affordable housing units, and preserve some 85,700
additional units. These 185,700 units are considerably less than expert estimates of
New York City’s housing gap. While we face near term concerns about the City's fiscal
capacity for expanded investment in housing, this plan is a realistic picture of the level
of effort needed to make a meaningful impact on the city’s present housing needs, while
spurring new privately funded housing development for the city’s growing population.
Housing First! advocates realistic and practical strategies to achieve ambitious goals:

• Housing First! is committed to advancing a continuum of housing opportunities to

meet the needs of all New Yorkers, including:

• helping renters become homeowners;

• meeting the needs of growing families;
• helping homeless people find stability and permanence; and,
• enabling working people to live closer to their jobs and communities they serve.

• Housing First! recognizes the need to replenish the city's capital housing stock
through both preservation of existing housing and production of new housing.

• Housing First! builds on the framework of existing, proven programs.

• Housing First! relies on the leadership of New York’s experienced nonprofit and
private developers, financial institutions, intermediaries, and government agencies to
implement its programs

• Housing First! maximizes leveraging of private debt and equity, tax-exempt bonds,
low-income housing tax credits, and other state and federal financing.

The Housing First! plan addresses the City’s many housing needs in a balanced way,
including homeownership opportunities for low, moderate and middle income families,
supportive and assisted living housing for seniors, individuals and families with special
needs, rental and cooperative apartments for families of different income levels, and the
preservation of private and City-owned housing stock.

While other allocation scenarios might plausibly achieve the same objectives, this plan
has been developed through a process of extensive discussion and debate among all of
the sub-sectors of the housing field. Given the new fiscal realities, the scope,
implementation schedule and financing strategies for any such program will, of course,
be subject to modification and refinement as the City's fiscal situation and larger
economic picture are better understood. However, the table that follows presents a
feasible set of strategies and targets for making meaningful progress toward meeting
New York's housing needs. (Detailed information on the initiatives listed below can be
found in Appendix C -- Housing Programs in the Housing First! Plan.)

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 A Ten-Year Capital Investment Scenario to
Create and Preserve 185,700 Units of Affordable Housing in New York City
Units by Household Income*
Total Total Est. Avg.
Initiatives to Create and Investment Units per unit
Low Moderate Middle
Preserve Affordable Housing Investment

Creating
Homeownership Home ownership programs $1,155 million 33,000 $35,000 8,000 20,000 5,000
Opportunities (one- to four-family homes)

Meeting Special Supportive housing $1,760 million 16,000 $110,000 16,000 – –

Needs
Senior housing/
assisted living $550 million 5,000 $110,000 2,500 2,500 –

Multi-family rental and

Expanding the cooperative development $3,325 million 35,000 $95,000 25,000 7,500 2,500
Multi-Family (HPD)
Housing Stock “New housing opportunities”
program (HDC) $550 million 11,000 $50,000 – 6,000 5,000

Preservation & In rem, third-party transfer, $2,262 million 70,700 $32,000 42,700 20,000 8,000
Rehabilitation of and rehabilitation loans.
Existing Housing
City-assisted public housing $400 million 15,000 $26,500 10,000 5,000 –
(NYCHA)

$10 billion 185,700 – 104,200 61,000 20,500

Totals:
*Note: For purposes of establishing affordability standards, The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) calculates the "area median
income" in FY 2000 for New York City as $56,200 for a four person household. For the purposes of this document “low income” is defined as those
households making less than 60% of the area median, “moderate income” as between 60% and 120%, and “middle income” as between 120% and 200% of
median. It should be noted that the actual median income for all New York City households in 1998 was $33,000.

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HOW TO PAY FOR THIS CRITICAL INVESTMENT

The Housing First! plan outlines an ambitious, but realistic, program to reverse the
continuing loss of New York’s supply of affordable housing. While the specific targets
and timeframes for this initiative will be shaped largely by the City's fiscal prospects, the
current Capital Budget and 10-year Capital Plan allocate roughly $5 billion in capital
funds to housing, and other sources can responsibly be tapped to make the necessary
investments in this critical element of the city's rebuilding effort.

One of the cruel ironies of the September 11th attacks was the loss of one of the few
significant new revenue sources that could be used to fund housing investments --
revenues generated by the long-term lease of the World Trade Center. We have no
doubt that the World Trade Center site will once again be a vital part of the downtown
economic engine later in this decade, but it is impractical and inappropriate to consider
it in terms of our current discussion. The City's budget deficit, compounded by lower
than projected tax revenues, will also limit the funding available for housing in the near-
term.

New York City, however, has a proven, successful record of making substantial public
investments in housing. Indeed, even during the recession and fiscal constraints of the
early 1990s, City capital investments in housing were more than twice the levels of
today, helping to set the stage for the economic boom years the city has recently
enjoyed. With this in mind, we remain confident that Housing First! can help the City's
new leadership to craft a solid fiscal foundation for a meaningful expansion of affordable
housing development. A financing strategy is outlined below.

Financing a Housing Investment Program

• Affirm the Commitment to the Adopted Capital Budget and 10 Year Capital
Plan: A sound and attainable financing plan builds on the existing commitment of
resources in the City's 10 Year Capital Plan, adopted with the budget in the
Spring of 2001. The plan commits approximately $5.1 billion in capital funds to
housing development and preservation over ten years, including allocations of
$4.4 billion in City capital and $597 million in federal funding. An additional $140
million would be spent on the preservation of 20,152 units of City-owned public
housing operated by the New York City Housing Authority.

These figures both understate the amount of federal resources available for
housing, which is probably close to $100 million annually, and don't include the
billions of dollars in private funds that are leveraged by this public spending
commitment. Depending upon the type of project, public investment is blended
with conventional debt, tax-exempt bonds or low income housing tax credits to
achieve affordability goals as efficiently as possible. To ensure New York’s

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continued economic growth, the City must reaffirm its commitment to the
investment levels of the current capital plan.37

• Invest Battery Park City Authority Surplus Revenues in Housing: Surplus

revenues paid to the City by the Battery Park City Authority (BPCA) should be
directed to housing preservation and production. It is time to fulfill the historic
commitment to use these funds for affordable housing. In the 1980s, under the
Housing New York Program, approximately $1 billion in surplus revenues
generated by the BPCA were promised to fund the citywide development of new
affordable housing. Ultimately, less than $150 million of BPCA revenues were
ever spent on housing development, and BPCA surplus revenues are currently
paid into the City’s general fund. In FY 2000, BPCA surplus revenues equaled
$65 million, and are expected to grow annually; BPCA has projected $3 billion in
surplus revenues over thirty years. This revenue stream could be used on a pay-
as-you-go basis or could capitalize debt.38

• Maximize Use of New York's Community Development Block Grant: The City
should make optimal use of federal Community Development Block Grant
(CDBG) funding. The Department of Housing Preservation and Development
(HPD) receives roughly $145 million in CDBG funding per year from the federal
government. More than $90 million of these funds are used to maintain and
rehabilitate in rem housing stock (tax delinquent properties now owned by the
City). As the City government moves toward its stated goal of divesting itself of
all in rem housing stock by 2007, these funds can be redirected to other
affordable housing development and preservation efforts. A growing portion of
CDBG funds can be freed up over time to development programs that expand
the number of available affordable housing units. Over ten years, redirecting
CDBG funds to new development and preservation initiatives will provide
approximately $500 million in federal funding for affordable housing.39

• Create a Revolving Loan Pool: Currently City housing loans are repaid into the
City’s general fund. These payments should be set aside in a revolving loan pool
that over time could become at least partially self-financing. It is estimated that
over the next ten years this source of funds could provide roughly $425 M.
However, given current fiscal uncertainties, we recommend that in the near-term
only repayment of new loans be directed to the pool, while repayment of existing
loans would continue to go into the general fund until such time as it is prudent to
direct them to the loan pool. 40

• Expand Property Tax Exemptions and Abatements: Expanding existing well-

targeted property tax benefit programs will create additional development
incentives and leverage more private investment for housing creation. The City's
Section 421a program provides tax incentives for new construction and the J-51
program provides tax incentives for rehabilitation. By extending the term of
property tax exemptions and/or enhancing the benefits in other ways, developers
can obtain more conventional financing and reduce upfront capital costs. In many
cases, the loss of tax revenue for the City would not occur for more than fifteen

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years and would be partly offset by the increased economic activity that resulted
from the development. Consideration should also be given to extending benefits
for projects with existing benefits in exchange for extended commitments to
maintaining affordable housing. Also, the 421g Lower Manhattan Economic
Revitalization Plan has provided an incentive for the conversion of obsolete
commercial properties in lower Manhattan to residential use. The program could
have even greater impact by lengthening the benefit period, making some
buildings built after 1977 eligible, and expanding it to certain areas in Brooklyn
and Queens.41

• Seek New Federal Funding and Tax Credits: Housing First! supports national
efforts to expand the federal government’s commitment to fund affordable
housing. (See Appendix D -- Affordable Housing: The National
Perspective.) Currently there are several proposals to create a federal housing
trust fund that would finance the development and preservation of affordable
multifamily rental housing. Housing First! also supports a larger effort to increase
appropriations for Section 8, HOME and other federal housing programs as part
of a national economic stimulus package.

• Seek New State Funding: While New York State will also face significant fiscal
challenges in the near term, there are several ways that New York State can
support expanded housing preservation and development with limited fiscal
impact. The City should work with the State to set aside a minimum fixed amount
of private activity bonds each year for affordable housing use. The City should
also support the permanent adoption of the New York State Housing Tax Credit,
and efforts to maximize the use of excess SONYMA reserves for investment in
affordable housing.42

• Target Additional Revenue Sources: While it may not be fiscally feasible in the
near-term, a multi-year investment program should include other housing-related
local revenue sources. Proceeds from sales of City-owned properties and tax
liens, property tax revenues resulting from disposition of City and State-owned
properties, and proceeds from the City mortgage recording tax will provide
billions more in financing.

Building for the Future

The New York City affordable housing crisis will not be solved through quick fixes or
one-shot deals. Only a sustained long-term effort will yield meaningful progress. As the
city recovers financially, there will be new opportunities to increase revenues directed to
meeting our housing needs.

We must, however, start with the commitment to a long-term plan including specific
investment targets, timeframes and milestones. Further, the City must establish the
administrative mechanisms to ensure that committed funding is not diverted to other
purposes over time. One means of accomplishing this would be the establishment of a

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local housing trust fund to ensure that the resources are available to make the
necessary long-term effort. Housing trust funds have been used successfully to mount
housing investment programs in many parts of the country and enjoy wide support.
Whatever the mechanisms, the commitments must be made to provide a solid
foundation for a long-term sustained investment program that, in tandem with
administrative reforms and cost saving measures, can help New York create and
preserve hundreds of thousands of critically needed affordable homes.

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CALL TO ACTION
A coalition of concerned New Yorkers – Housing First! – calls on the leadership of
New York City government to put housing at the top of the public policy agenda.
Housing First! includes business and financial institutions; nonprofit and for-profit
developers of housing; civic associations and community-based organizations; labor
organizations and housing advocates; and religious congregations of all faiths. We
represent people of all backgrounds, from all boroughs. Housing First! is united by a
common recognition that New York City has a severe and growing housing crisis.

Housing First! is united by the belief that New York City's housing crisis can be solved.
The Housing First! plan, developed by these concerned and knowledgeable citizens,
combines prudent public investment with a concerted effort to reduce the cost of
development, thus maximizing private efforts and ensuring that all resources are used
as efficiently and cost-effectively as possible.

Housing First! calls for a program of major public capital investment to create and
preserve affordable housing.

New York City's new leadership must commit to a sustained ten year
capital investment plan to preserve at least 85,000 affordable
housing units and to produce 100,000 more.

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APPENDIX A
Expanding Development of Affordable Housing:
An Action Plan for Reducing Costs
and Stimulating Construction

Housing First! proposes a comprehensive program to preserve and produce tens of

thousands of affordable housing units for low, moderate and middle income New
Yorkers over the next ten years. A broad coalition of organizations has joined together
to support this challenging but achievable plan that would expand public investment in a
variety of successful, well-established housing preservation and production initiatives
built on strong public-private partnerships

Most experts agree that at least 250,000 new housing units need to be built to end the
current shortage. Without a doubt, New York’s housing crisis can only be solved if
increased public investment stimulates expanded private investment and development
activity. Public investment is critical, but it will not, by itself, end the city’s housing crisis.

Private investment can be further encouraged if the City adopts a program of reforms
that streamline planning reviews, restructure administrative processes and carefully
target incentives. This reform program will encourage preservation and production by
addressing factors that contribute to the high cost of housing development and
construction in New York City. Reforms would focus on reducing the time necessary
for pre-development work, minimizing the need for expensive professional services to
navigate complex codes and the agencies that administer them, and broadening the
availability of incentives for the development of affordable housing.

These reforms will both significantly reduce costs and increase subsidies, with the goal
of ensuring that public and private resources are used as efficiently as possible to
preserve and expand the supply of urgently needed affordable housing.

1. ADMINISTRATIVE REFORMS TO ENCOURAGE DEVELOPMENT

Housing development can be promoted by implementing administrative reforms.

Improve inter-agency coordination and accountability:

• Establish new tracking categories in the Mayor’s Management Report that
measure agency performance in administering Uniform Land Use Review
Procedure (ULURP), Urban Development Action Area Project (UDAAP) and City
Environmental Quality Review (CEQR), as well as Department of Buildings
permitting processes and inspections. Transfer approvals of limited-impact

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HOUSING FIRST! Building for the Future

zoning changes requested in connection with affordable housing projects from

the City Planning Commission to the Board of Standards and Appeals.
• Improve interagency coordination of the regulatory, planning, financing and
development functions of City government by giving clear responsibility for all
aspects of housing development to a high-ranking City Hall official.
• Establish a City-State team of agency liaisons to coordinate housing
development activities.

Reform the Department of Buildings to improve customer service and expedite

procedures while effectively protecting the public safety:
• Implement a comprehensive plan to fully computerize the Department of
Buildings (DOB) to allow permits and Certificates of Occupancy to be issued on-
line, and customers to electronically file plans and applications.
• Improve customer service by centralizing and combining permit procedures;
maintain a DOB customer service survey, and respond to findings; dedicate DOB
staff to expedite affordable housing development; ensure effective coordination
with technical reviews by other agencies.
• Ensure consistent interpretations of rules across boroughs; provide swift
resolution of interpretation inconsistencies; and publish primary reasons for
determinations.
• Develop state-of-the-art library and electronic storage facility.

Reform the Building Code: To speed construction, reduce costs and encourage
innovation, New York City’s complex building code must be simplified.
• Adopt a modified model Uniform Building Code based on accepted national
standards, as is the practice in other large cities.
• Adopt national standards for building materials and equipment to encourage
innovative cost-saving materials and construction techniques. Review the
Materials and Equipment Acceptance (MEA) procedure to accelerate approvals
based on analysis of technical merits.

2. PLANNING TO MEET NEW YORK'S LAND USE NEEDS

The City can expedite the development of affordable housing through more effective
comprehensive planning and by reforming land use regulations and procedures that will
accelerate the development process.

Comprehensive land use review: Housing First! supports a comprehensive review of

land use in New York City that focuses on how best to utilize increasingly scarce City-
owned real property to meet the city's essential land-use needs, including the
development of affordable housing. Such a process would utilize the City's recently
developed state-of-the-art geographic information systems (GIS) capacity and integrate
processes that ensure meaningful community participation. The goal of the review is an
updated land-use plan that recognizes the city's changing realities, new needs and
prospective opportunities. While such a review is underway, the City should give

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serious consideration to a moratorium on open auctions of City-owned vacant land, so

as to maximize opportunities for large-scale site assemblage.

Review of existing zoning regulations to encourage affordable housing development:

• The City’ s 1961 Zoning Resolution should be reviewed with the goal of
examining ways to increase housing production, including consideration of
recommendations made in the Department of City Planning’s 1996 report,
“Zoning to Facilitate Housing Production,” that would increase density limitations
and provide other incentives for affordable housing in underdeveloped areas of
the city.
• Special Mixed-Use Districts with inclusionary zoning incentives for affordable
housing should be created on an expedited basis to more accurately reflect
actual land use patterns.
• Zoning and regulatory barriers to the construction of quality single room
occupancy (SRO) housing units should be removed.

Streamline land use review processes to encourage housing development while

retaining public review safeguards:
• Simplify requirements for discretionary relief for affordable housing projects,
including those that require rezoning from industrial to residential use.
• Make a wider range of smaller scale affordable housing projects eligible for
review under the Urban Development Action Area Project (UDAAP) process, an
accelerated review procedure designed for limited impact projects that is less
burdensome than ULURP.
• Amend the UDAAP statute to allow projects not acted upon by the City Council
within 60 days of submission to be “deemed approved.”
• Allow self-certification of ULURP and UDAAP applications for affordable housing
development initiatives by lead agencies.

3. ENVIRONMENTAL POLICIES THAT ENCOURAGE DEVELOPMENT AND

PROTECT COMMUNITIES

Many private and City-owned properties are vacant or under-utilized because of

environmental contamination. All levels of government must develop clear, consistent
procedures and provide funding or other incentives to facilitate cleanup and return of
these properties to productive re-use. The environmental review process also needs to
be accelerated while ensuring the protection of public health and quality of life.

Brownfields remediation:
• Designate an office charged with facilitating and coordinating development of
brownfield sites.
• Support State legislation to establish a voluntary cleanup program with clear
standards for remediation, increased incentives, and appropriate liability
limitations.

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• Encourage federal legislation to reduce liability and increase available funding for
brownfield remediation.

Accelerate environmental reviews:

• Streamline the conduct of CEQR reviews by the Department of City Planning and
other agencies. Establish reasonable and predictable timeframes for agency
action.

* * *

Housing First! is committed to working with the new Mayor, City Council and other
public officials to make it easier and less expensive to develop affordable housing,
without compromising health, safety or quality. Combining targeted public and private
investments with key reforms can stimulate the kind of sustained large-scale housing
development effort that New York desperately needs.

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APPENDIX B
The “Housing New York” Ten-Year Plan
Faced with a chronically severe shortage of affordable housing, mounting homelessness,
diminished federal assistance, and a growing accumulation of tax-foreclosed (in rem) housing,
Mayor Edward I. Koch unveiled Housing New York, his ambitious ten-year capital housing
plan, in April 1986.43 Previously, New York City had relied almost exclusively on federal funds
for the production and rehabilitation of low- and moderate-income housing: public housing and
Section 8 New Construction and Substantial Rehabilitation for new housing, and Community
Development Block Grants (CDBG) and Section 8 Moderate Rehabilitation funds for renovation
of occupied buildings.

In the 1980s, New York City experienced an acute shortage of affordable housing. In 1987,
around the start of the ten-year plan, the Census Bureau’s Housing and Vacancy Survey found
that the overall rental vacancy rate in New York City was 2.46 percent, and for units renting for
less than $300, it was 0.96 percent – down from 1.78 percent in 1981. It also showed that 47.5
percent of all renter households in New York city paid more than 30 percent of their income for
rent, up from 45.6 percent in 1981; 32.9 percent paid at least 40 percent of their income for rent,
up from 30.5 percent in 1991.44

The issue became more urgent as homelessness seemed to spiral out of control and federal
housing funds began to dry up. Adding to the pressure to do something about the homeless in
particular, and housing in general, were court actions and political pressure to provide
permanent and appropriate housing for the homeless, instead of barracks-style shelters, welfare
hotels and the basements of churches and synagogues.

While homelessness and federal budgetary cutbacks affected many cities in the 1980s, New
York City was the only one to become a major landlord as a result of tax foreclosures. In 1976,
the city started foreclosing on properties that were one year in tax arrears; previously, it gave
owners of tax-delinquent property a grace period of three years. Intended to discourage
landlords from abandoning their building, the policy instead triggered a surge of tax
foreclosures. The number of in rem buildings jumped from 2,500 in September 1976 to 9,500 in
September 1978. Whereas other cities almost always immediately sold or demolished tax-
delinquent housing, New York City chose instead to acquire and operate thousands of buildings
in order to ensure their preservation. By 1986, the city owned more than 53,000 units of
occupied in rem housing, and an additional 49,000 vacant units.

The Housing New York capital investment plan developed by the Koch Administration was not
a single plan, but rather a shifting assemblage of individual programs, several of which had
already been operating for years by 1986. Individual programs have come and gone since the
plan’s inception, and virtually all programs have seen significant changes, including substantial
increases in the extent of rehabilitation they support.

The impact of the ten-year plan was enormous. From 1986 through 1996, government-assisted
housing starts in New York City accounted for nearly one in four building permits for new
construction; in the Bronx and Brooklyn, these starts accounted for more than one-half of
building permits for new construction. The city’s investment accounted for 150,000 housing
units, and about 40 percent of New York City’s total net increase of housing units in the period
between 1986 and 1996.

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For the sake of New York City neighborhoods, much of the city’s investment supported the gut
rehabilitation of old and deteriorating existing buildings, rather than new construction. Even if
new construction had kept pace with demand for decent, affordable units, without the City’s
intervention those existing buildings would have remained a major blight on neighborhoods.

The programs grew and evolved in their targeting as well, benefiting low-income, moderate-
income and middle-income households in varying percentages, depending on the year and the
program. All in all, Housing New York was responsible for substantial increases in new
housing production, the rehabilitation of tens of thousands of apartments, and the revitalization
of dozens of New York City neighborhoods.

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APPENDIX C
Housing Programs in the Housing First! Plan

Creating Homeownership Opportunities

Homeownership Programs

A cornerstone of the Housing First! plan is the creation of 33,000 new homeownership
opportunities for working families. Public subsidies to encourage home ownership have been a
central feature of the city’s housing program for nearly two decades. Home ownership is crucial
for many obvious reasons: it gives residents a tangible stake in their communities, it helps
citizens build equity and economic independence, and maintains the city’s base of taxable
property.

The New York City Partnership’s New Homes Program and the Nehemiah Program of the
Industrial Areas Foundation produce the majority of new homeownership opportunities. The
homes produced by these programs can be large-scale developments encompassing
contiguous blocks, or may provide “infill” buildings on previously empty lots between existing
buildings. The city’s primary subsidy comes in the form of site acquisition and assemblage,
below-market land sales, and improvements to the site and supporting infrastructure. The New
York State Affordable Housing Corporation provides an additional grant of $25,000 per unit to
ensure affordability.

The city’s current investment of $30,000 to $35,000 per unit, for an annual
total of $47 million, should be raised to $115 million per year. This will
boost annual production levels to approximately 3,300 units per year.

Meeting Special Needs

Supportive Housing

Over the past two decades, nonprofit organizations providing services to homeless individuals
have developed a permanent housing model that has been enormously successful at helping
people with special needs live rewarding, productive lives in housing. Supportive housing –
residences of permanent, affordable rooms and efficiency apartments linked to on-site support
services – has provided an appropriate housing model for mentally ill individuals, people living
with AIDS, individuals in recovery from addictions, the medically frail and others with a history of
housing problems. Residences range in size from small 24-unit converted tenements to former
midtown hotels, such as the 652-unit Times Square. Services provided are comprehensive and
include case management, crisis and substance abuse counseling, mental health services,
limited medical care and job training.

The results have been impressive. Supportive housing has provided safe, decent places to live
to people who often have cycled through shelters, prisons and hospitals, while addressing their
special needs with innovative service programs that stress independence and personal growth.

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The supportive housing programs of New York City boast a stunning 80 percent housing
retention rate among a population previously defined by instability. Indeed, as a result of the
first investments in supportive housing more than a decade ago, the shelter census of homeless
single adults fell by 35 percent between 1989 and 1994. The supportive housing developed
under the Housing First! plan would allow most remaining individual shelter residents with
special needs to become permanently housed, further reducing the single adult shelter
population.

New York City’s current inventory of supportive housing is approximately 15,000 units,
developed with a mix of city, state and federal funds. These development efforts were part of a
concerted effort to preserve or replace 100,000 units of privately-owned, mostly dilapidated
single-room occupancy (SRO) housing in New York that was lost to gentrification and demolition
in the period between 1960 and 1990. Approximately 5,000 units, or 40 percent of all
supportive housing units in New York City, are targeted for homeless persons living with chronic
and persistent mental illness.

Developed and managed by nonprofit organizations, supportive housing is both sensible and
cost-effective. As previously stated, a homeless mentally ill individual uses over $40,000 a year
in publicly-funded services, primarily on acute-care hospitals, psychiatric care and homeless
shelters. The reductions in service use associated with placement into supportive housing are
so substantial that they pay for all but $995 of the annual cost of building, operating and serving
the housing. An additional 8,500 units over five years are needed to address the identifiable
need among mentally ill individuals.

One significant gap has been permanent supportive housing for families. The majority of
homeless families leave the shelter system for permanent housing in NYCHA, HPD or federally
subsidized Section 8 apartments. But approximately 20 percent of homeless families have
difficulty maintaining housing on their own because one or both parents struggles with mental
illness, AIDS, or other special needs. These families would benefit from supportive housing.
But despite the demonstrated need, at present, permanent supportive housing for families is
virtually non-existent in New York. Appropriate permanent housing with supportive services for
homeless youth ages 18 to 24 is also in extremely short supply, especially for youth who need
assistance as they age out of the foster-care system.

The development of 16,000 units of supportive housing will address a significant share of the
permanent housing needs of various homeless populations in New York, allocated as follows:

• 9,500 units for homeless individuals with special needs;

• 3,000 units for homeless families;
• 1,000 units for homeless youth;
• 2,000 units of “low-service” supportive housing; and
• 500 units of congregate care housing for persons unable to live independently in
their own apartment.

An annual City investment of $176 million in supportive housing would

help create some 1,600 apartments annually.

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Senior Housing/Assisted Living

Like supportive housing, senior and assisted living housing residences can provide a limited
amount of support for seniors no longer able to live on their own, but still too active to warrant
nursing home placement. The city’s rapidly growing population of senior citizens are aging-in-
place: they require additional care and attention, but are unable to afford to move to smaller,
more appropriate housing. Nursing home care costs exceed $200 per day on average, yet
often provides a less rewarding quality of life. Assisted living residences can offer activities and
services to allow this population to live out their golden years more comfortably. In some
instances, larger apartments vacated by this population will become available for families in
need of more living space.

An annual investment of $55 million in assisted living and housing for

seniors would help create some 500 apartments annually.

Expanding Multi-Family Housing

Multi-Family Rental and Cooperative Housing

Multi-family rental and cooperative housing is the backbone of the city’s housing stock,
providing quality housing for working and middle-income families in neighborhoods throughout
the city. By building on the experience of City development programs in operation since the
1980s, a mix of tenants of varying incomes can ensure that buildings receive the rental and
maintenance income required to support the cost of competent management, regular
maintenance and adequate operational upkeep.

To be successful, housing models must allow flexible rent and tenant income guidelines. City
funded programs have shown that permitting housing providers to establish variable rent
structures within a building assures the building’s long-term financial viability. At the same time,
flexible guidelines allow a tenancy of different levels of income that closely resembles the
demographic patterns of settlement that historically have been the strength of New York’s
neighborhoods.

For example, in many existing city-funded rental and cooperative housing programs, a mix of
families with low and moderate incomes provides a building income sufficient to maintain the
residence’s habitability. Families pay up to 30 percent of their incomes toward rent. Often, ten
percent of the units are set aside for formerly homeless families provided with federal Section 8
vouchers, ensuring that the housing serves those who need it most without jeopardizing the
buildings’ financial viability.

Use of flexible capital subsidies from the city in conjunction with other federal, state and private
subsidies will support the development of mixed-income, multi-family housing. These programs
will meet the needs of a wide range of income levels, while at the same time ensuring that
projects remain solvent and habitable over the long haul.

An annual investment of $332 million in multi-family rental programs would

help create some 3,500 rental and cooperative apartments annually.

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New Housing Opportunities Program

For the past several decades, New York’s private housing market has been unable to produce
sufficient quantities of new rental and cooperative housing development affordable to moderate
and middle-income tenants. The New York City Housing Development Corporation’s New
Housing Opportunities Program, or “New HOP,” has attempted to meet this rising demand by
funding the renovation or new construction of over 2,000 moderate and middle-income rental
apartments since 1997.

Using HDC’s authority to issue taxable bonds, New HOP issues below-rate mortgages to both
private and nonprofit housing developers to build or substantially rehabilitate residential
developments of 20 apartments or more. These residences are usually new construction, or
have been converted from vacant, non-residential buildings, adding to the city’s overall housing
stock. Buildings pay property taxes after an initial abatement in the first few years.

An annual investment of $55 million targeted to production of some 1,100

apartments annually for moderate-income families built by private developers.

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APPENDIX D

Affordable Housing: The National Perspective

A shortage of affordable housing is not unique to New York City, or even just to large urban
areas. Across the country from rural hamlet to bustling metropolis, there is a growing shortage
of low and middle-income housing.

Consider some data from the U.S. Conference of Mayors:45

• A record 5.4 million households pay more than 50 percent of their income for housing or live
in substandard housing.

• An estimated 600,000 people in the United States are homeless on any given night.

• Demand for emergency shelter in many U.S. cities increased by 15 percent last year – the
highest one-year increase of the last decade.

On a national level, housing advocacy groups are working to create a National Affordable
Housing Trust Fund to serve as a continuing source of revenue for the production of new
housing and the preservation or rehabilitation of existing housing for low-income people. The
initial goal is to produce, rehabilitate, and preserve 1,500,000 units of housing by 2010. Funds
to create the trust would come from excess Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and
GinnieMae revenues, and may require additional appropriations.

The trust fund would primarily finance rental units for low- and extremely-low-income people.
Unlike some programs that have time-limited subsidies, these units would be required to remain
affordable for the life of the property.

Another national effort, The Coalition for Affordable Rental Housing, was launched in March
2001 at a conference of The Mortgage Bankers Association of America. The goal: creating
more affordable housing for America’s working families. The Coalition has found that the
construction of federally-insured affordable rental housing has all but disappeared in several
large cities. The figures show that in New York City, Boston and San Francisco there were no
new units of FHA-insured multifamily housing produced in 2000.

Housing for moderate-income families is often overlooked by housing policy that focuses on
populations perceived to be more vulnerable, such as the extremely-low-income or elderly.
However, a June 2000 report, ”Housing America’s Working Families” by the Center for Housing
Policy, finds that more than three million working families nationally have critical housing needs
and a full 2.4 million of those families spend more than half their income on rent.

The Coalition is urging Congress to take steps to increase the production of federally-insured
affordable rental housing. The Coalition is calling for an increase of 25 percent in the base
amount for which FHA can insure multifamily housing so as to stimulate the production of new
rental housing affordable to low- and moderate-income working families.

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ENDNOTES

1
New York City Office of the Comptroller, “The Impact of the September 11 WTC Attack on NYC's
Economy and City Revenues,” October 4, 2001.
2
U.S. Census Bureau, 2000 census data for New York City.
3
Rebecca Weber, “Housing: Internet Resources for What You Need to Know on NYC Housing,” Gotham
Gazette; available from http://www.gothamgazette.com/housing.
4
U.S. Census Bureau, 2000 census data for New York City. Patrick Markee, Coalition for the Homeless,
Housing a Growing City: New York’s Bust in Boom Times. p. 38.
5
Preliminary FY 2001 Mayor’s Management Report (released February 2001).
6
Patrick Markee, Coalition for the Homeless, Housing a Growing City: New York’s Bust in Boom Times,
p. 30.
7
Ibid.
8
Patrick Markee, Coalition for the Homeless, Housing a Growing City: New York’s Bust in Boom Times,
p. 15.
9
Susan Sachs, “City Population Tops 8 Million in Census Count for First Time,” The New York Times, 16
March 2001. Also, US Census Bureau, 2000 census data for New York City.
10
Martha Stark and Doug Turetsky, “Homeward Bound: A 21st Century Housing Agenda for New York,” in
Rethinking the Urban Agenda: Reinvigorating the Liberal Tradition in New York City and Urban America,
eds., John Mollenkopf and Ken Emerson (New York: Century Foundation Press, 2001), p. 2.
11
Patrick Markee, Coalition for the Homeless, Housing a Growing City: New York’s Bust in Boom Times,
p. 199.
12
Martha Stark and Doug Turetsky, “Homeward Bound: A 21st Century Housing Agenda for New York,” in
Rethinking the Urban Agenda: Reinvigorating the Liberal Tradition in New York City and Urban America,
eds., John Mollenkopf and Ken Emerson (New York: Century Foundation Press, 2001), p. 2.
13
Housing America’s Working Families, National Housing Conference, Vol. 1, Issue 1 of New Century
Housing, June 2000. Also, Martha Stark and Doug Turetsky, “Homeward Bound: A 21st Century Housing
Agenda for New York,” in Rethinking the Urban Agenda: Reinvigorating the Liberal Tradition in New York
City and Urban America, eds., John Mollenkopf and Ken Emerson (New York: Century Foundation Press,
2001), p. 2.
14
Martha Stark and Doug Turetsky, “Homeward Bound: A 21st Century Housing Agenda for New York,” in
Rethinking the Urban Agenda: Reinvigorating the Liberal Tradition in New York City and Urban America,
eds., John Mollenkopf and Ken Emerson (New York: Century Foundation Press, 2001), p. 3.
15
Ibid.
16
1996 Housing Vacancy Survey, 1997 HUD study, “Rental Housing Assistance – the Crisis Continues”
17
Patrick Markee, Coalition for the Homeless, Housing a Growing City: New York’s Bust in Boom Times,
p. 40.
18
The Wall Street Journal, May 15, 2001.
19
Bureau of Labor Statistics, available at http://146.142.4.24/cgi-bin/surveymost; Patrick Markee,
Coalition for the Homeless, Housing a Growing City: New York’s Bust in Boom Times, p. 33.
20
Office of the State Comptroller, No Room for Growth: Affordable Housing and Economic Development
in New York City, October 1999 p. 2.
21
Zenia Kotval and John Mullin, “The Economic Impact of Housing,” University of Massachusetts, 1998.
22
Stephen Fuller, “Affordable Housing Costs,” Washington Area Housing Partnership and the
Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, March 2001.
23
Douglas Muzzio & Gregg Van Ryzin, Baruch School of Public Affairs, Survey Research Unit,
“Satisfaction with New York City Services,” December 2000, p. 17.
24
NYU Stern School of Business, Housing Starts Web Page.
25
Office of the State Comptroller, No Room for Growth: Affordable Housing and Economic Development
in New York City, October 1999, p. 23-24.
26
New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development, Breaking the Cycle of
Abandonment 2000, p.3.

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27
New York Times, “City Homeownership Plans Lift Neighborhoods, Study Says,” Dennis Hevesi, July
30, 2001.
28
New York City Department of Homeless Services, shelter census reports.
29
New York Times, Waiting to Sleep: A special report, Nina Bernstein, March 25, 2001.
30
New York Times, The Public School Emergency, Editorial, November 14, 2000.
31
Randy Shaw, et.al., “There’s No Place Like Home: How America’s Housing Crisis Threatens Our
Children,” Housing America, 2000.
32
Children’s Health Fund, The Crisis Continues: The Health Status of New York's Homeless Children,
May 2000.
33
Dennis P. Culhane, Stephen Metraux and Trevor Hadley, “The Impact of Supportive Housing for
Homeless People with Severe Mental Illness on the Utilization of the Public Health, Corrections and
Emergency Shelter Systems: The New York-New York Initiative,” Fannie Mae Foundation, May 2001.
34
Alex Schwartz, “New York City and Subsidized Housing: Impacts and Lessons of the City's $5 Billion
Capital Budget Housing Plan,” Housing Policy Debate Vol. 10, Issue 4 (1999), p. 841.
35
City of New York, Office of Management and Budget, capital budget plans.
36
Michael Schill, et.al, Reducing the Cost of Housing Construction in New York City, Center for Real
Estate and Urban Policy, NYU School of Law, July 1999.
37
City of New York, Office of Management and Budget, Ten-Year Capital Strategy, FY 2002-2011, April
2001.
38
BPCA financial reports; City Project, “The Failed Promise of Battery Park City,” September 2000.
39
NYC Independent Budget Office analysis, 2001.
40
Revenue data from New York City Independent Budget Office, and analysis by Coalition for the
Homeless.
41
New York City Council, Speaker’s Housing Task Force, “The Housing Crisis in New York,” February
2001.
42
Citizens Housing and Planning Council of New York, "A Proposal to Enhance New York State's Support
of Affordable Housing," January 2001.
43
Alex Schwartz, “New York City and Subsidized Housing: Impacts and Lessons of the City’s $5 Billion
Capital Budget Housing Plan,” Housing Policy Debate Vol. 10, Issue 4 (1999)
44
Ibid.
45
United States Conference of Mayors, A Status Report on Hunger and Homelessness in America’s
Cities 2000 (2001).

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