Who can afford New York City’s “affordable” apartments?

It’s no secret that rent prices in NYC are sky-high and only growing. But, one supposed area of relief from those escalating rents is the presence of “affordable” housing units. However, we wanted to answer a key question – just how affordable are those units? A comparison of median income data to “affordable” rent levels is insightful, showing that across the five boroughs, 30% of these units are out of reach of families making the median incomes in their respective districts.

Key Takeaways:

• New York City has some of the most expensive housing in the world – and the municipal authorities have taken steps to supposedly alleviate some of that burden.
• One major action they have taken has been the implementation of segments of “affordable” housing for residents with lower incomes.
• However, an analysis shows that, still, a full 30% of “affordable” units cannot be financially obtained by families making median incomes.

“Since HPD’s map does not clearly show whether units are affordable on a local level, we did our own data analysis to fill in the gaps.”

Read more: https://ny.curbed.com/2018/3/5/16923274/affordable-housing-new-york-median-income-map