More Subsidized Rentals Found in Less Desirable Neighborhoods

While the de Blasio administration is advancing on its ambitious goal of creating or preserving 200,000 units of affordable housing in a decade, subsidized housing is increasingly situated in neighborhoods with higher rates of poverty and violent crime, and poorer performing public schools, according to a new study from the Moelis Institute for Affordable Housing Policy at New York University.

"City policy makers need to pay attention not only to the number or quality of subsidized units produced, but also to the characteristics of the neighborhoods where those units are built," said Max Weselcouch, director of the institute at New York University's Furman Center where the study was produced.

The study found that since 2000, just six percent of new subsidized affordable rental units have been located in Manhattan below 96th Street, compared to 17 percent of subsidized rental units built in the 1970s. And given the chance, owners in higher cost, higher amenity neighborhoods converted subsidized properties to market rate units more than owners of similar properties located in less desirable neighborhoods. Over the next ten years, the report finds that 58,288 additional subsidized rental units could move to market rate as affordability requirements expire.

To create or preserve subsidized units in areas with better schools and lower crime rates, Weselcouch said it will cost the city more money. She added, the administration will have to weigh whether it's worth it to do so.

Researchers did find that areas with higher concentrations of subsidized housing did have access to better transit, parks, child care and senior centers, than the share of all housing units in the city.