( Mark Lennihan / AP Photo )
David Brand, housing reporter for WNYC and Gothamist, breaks down the latest in New York City housing news, including why NYC Council is joining a lawsuit against Mayor Eric Adams over housing vouchers and his reporting on the lack of 2-bedroom apartments in neighborhoods with the most concentration of families.
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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. We here at WNYC are lucky to have arguably the single best housing reporter in the city on our staff these days. David Brand who joined last year, some of his recent stories on the radio and on our local news website, Gothamist, include Landlord drops challenge to rent-stabilization at Manhattan’s biggest apartment complex. That's Stuy Town-Peter Cooper Village. Midtown leaders call for housing, not tennis courts, on-site of stalled PENN15 skyscraper.
That's the one being built or considered around Penn Station. SCOTUS, the Supreme Court Of The United States, rejects challenges to New York's rent stabilization rules. Looking for an affordable two-bedroom apartment for a family? The odds are against you. We'll touch on a few of these, but concentrate mostly on that last one about affordable housing for families right now. It turns out about 70% of the new apartments that the city is creating under Mayor Adams for the housing lottery system are studios or one bedrooms.
Many of those are in neighborhoods where many families with children live, that despite the mayor saying this when he announces housing policy in 2022.
Mayor Adams: We have a hemorrhaging of Black and Brown families leaving in New York-
Speaker 1: That's right.
Mayor Adams: -because it's no longer affordable. We've decimated the middle class and we need to refocus our attention on stabilizing these families.
Brian Lehrer: David Brand joins us now. Hi, David, welcome back to the show.
David Brand: Hey, Brian. Thank you for that very kind introduction.
Brian Lehrer: You're very, very welcome and well deserved. You used that Eric Adams quote at the beginning of this article. Why that one?
David Brand: Well, we did an analysis of city data on Mayor Adams' housing program. We looked at the roughly 24,000 units that have been built or financed since Adams took office in the start of 2022. Many of them were under construction before he took office, but a lot of the financing is all his administration. It's impressive. The last year, they've been touting a record number of new units of affordable housing financed in a single calendar year but we wanted to drill deeper on what those units were.
We were specifically, for this story, looking at family-sized housing, so two bedrooms or more to accommodate family with kids or multi-generational family versus studios and one bedrooms because like we heard in that clip and throughout his time in office, he's really talked about risks to middle-income families in New York City, especially Black, Latino, Asian families who are leaving because they just can't afford housing.
Brian Lehrer: 24,000 units created in these couple of years. It's not bad. Without a lot of help from the state, we talk so much on the show about how stuck the state is, where most of the money would come from or the zoning requirements would come from for much, much, much more, the hundreds of thousands of units of affordable housing that need to be created but 24,000 is something. Your data analysis finds 70% of them are studios or one bedrooms. Is that consistent with the demand?
David Brand: Well, yes, in that there is a lot of demand for studios and one bedrooms. A lot of people exiting homeless shelters, single adults. A lot of people who just can't afford to move out of the place that they're staying with their families or young professionals coming to the city and right now rooming with a number of other people of peers. They would prefer a one bed or a studio for themselves. Only 30% of those units are for families and that's who can have the hardest time finding an affordable place.
This is not new to current times. It's, as many New Yorkers can relate to, sharing a one bedroom with kids or partitioning the living room so that you can have children or a grandparent stay on the pullout couch. It's been a problem for a while, but it seems to be getting worse now with rents soaring. The city is doing what it can to create affordable housing, but not much of that is tailored for families.
Brian Lehrer: What's this mismatch that you found in the data analysis between where the two-bedroom apartments are being built and the neighborhoods where many families with children live?
David Brand: A lot of the single-person or couple housing like studios and one bedrooms are being built in some of the more suburban parts of New York City, Southeast Queens, the Northwest Bronx. There's a need for that type of housing, no doubt but these are also the areas with the highest concentrations of families and the largest average household sizes of approaching four, near five people per home. There is an argument that these are some of the places where we should be focusing more of the family-sized housing.
Brian Lehrer: There was a cynical take that some people who you talked to had on this, which is that they build mostly smaller apartments so they can tout a bigger number of apartments built on the available space. Some people speculate that they think that's because it's PR-focused rather than family needs in the city-focused. Obviously if you have x square feet to build on, you can build that many more one-bedrooms and studios than you can build two and three-bedroom apartments.
David Brand: That was really a big criticism of the Blasio administration's affordable housing program that you set a high number, 200,000, then 300,000, and so you're incentivized to get to that number by any means possible and that can mean cramming a lot of smaller places into buildings. That was something that Adams explicitly said he wasn't trying to do. If you remember when he announced his housing plan in 2022, he didn't assign a number to it and that was somewhat controversial.
He said, "No, we're not focused on a big number, we're focused on quality and meeting the needs of New Yorkers." Obviously, it makes it harder to judge it if there's no number attached to it. I hear what he's saying in that regard. Still, it's partly trying to get a bigger number. I'm sure that's part of it, but it's not that easy under current zoning and building restrictions to build these family-sized housing. That's another element of it. It's easier to build the one beds and the studios
Brian Lehrer: Listeners, help David Brand report this story. Are you in a family looking for affordable housing in New York City, what are you finding? Anyone in the city's housing lottery system right now, which we'll talk more about, what's your experience been? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. As we talk about David's recent story for WNYC and Gothamist, Looking for an affordable and affordable is in quotes, we'll get to the definition, Looking for an affordable two-bedroom apartment for a family? The odds are against you. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692 call or text. You tell the story of a family in Jackson Heights. I thought this was maybe the best part of the article where the dad works in a Deli. Can you tell us about them a little bit and their income and housing situation?
David Brand: Sure. This family, the Acosta family, they live in Jackson Heights. They've lived there for close to 20 years. They have an apartment where they're paying $1,250 a month. They earn as a household about $30,000. They're stuck because there's no way they can afford a two-bedroom-- I should step back. They're a five-person family. There's mom and dad, two kids, five and nine, and a grandmother. They have a decent rent for one bedroom, but they need much bigger, like at least two bedrooms because right now the mom and dad are sleeping with the two children in the living room with a partition.
The mom and one kid take a bed on one side the dad and another kid pull out couch, and the grandmother who's in her 80s sleeps in the bedroom. They need something bigger. There's no way they can afford anything bigger that they're able to find right now. I think to underscore that point, there was an affordable housing lottery for a new building down the street from them in Jackson Heights. There were two bedrooms there. The two bedrooms, the rent was more than they make in a year.
They wouldn't qualify because their incomes are too low and they wouldn't be able to afford the rent. That shows some of the "affordable" housing that is getting built in the city. They're pretty much stuck in place unless they somehow win an affordable housing lottery for a lower-income unit that they can actually afford.
Brian Lehrer: You wrote, did I read this right, that that family makes too little to qualify for many affordable apartments? Even if they were willing to somehow try to scrape together the money, they don't qualify for a subsidized apartment because they make too little money.
David Brand: Yes. Affordable housing has a specific definition and it's you would pay 30% or less of your income toward rent. The units that are created with city financing or city subsidy go to people in different income bands or reserved for people in different income bands. There's deeply affordable housing, what they call extremely low income or very low income, people making well below the median for New York City people like the Acosta family making $30,000. There's a lot of competition for those units, but then there's units reserved for people who are closer to middle income or middle income, and so you have to show that you're earning a certain amount of money to qualify for those units.
That could be a household of four or five making $100,000 a year. You have to prove you're making that much and that you can continue paying the rent moving forward, and then only then can you qualify for one of those apartments. That's the case [crosstalk]
Brian Lehrer: Which is why the first question that people often raise at town hall meetings that the mayor or anyone else holds on the question of affordable housing when officials will say, "Well, we're building x units of affordable housing in the city," then the first question is affordable for whom?
David Brand: Exactly. That's something we're going to be-- I've been working, I should say, with my colleague Jacqueline Jeffrey Wilensky, who's our great data reporter here. She's been really crunching the numbers, and that's what we're going to be looking at next. For listeners out there who want to talk about your experience, I would love to talk to you because we're going to be looking at what are the income bands for these affordable units that are being created and financed.
Brian Lehrer: Before we take some phone calls on this, and our lines are full, as always happens when we talk about housing in New York, but as an aside, almost, but central to how we should think about wages, it's quite a lesson in the minimum wage when we think about the Acosta family. We sometimes think New York is ahead of the curve with a $15 minimum wage, which was so hard fought for, but multiply it out by 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year, that's $30,000 in a year for a full-time worker at the New York State minimum wage.
You say that's what they make. I think that could start a whole other conversation about minimum wage versus living wage and what it should really be in New York State or anywhere else. $15 an hour, it wasn't that many years ago that we were talking about the fight for $15 as the moral crusade for a decent minimum wage, all you make is $30,000 a year if you're working full time.
David Brand: I think to put that in perspective, a rent of $2,400 a month, which I think to a lot of people, sounds pretty decent, that multiplied by 12 months is about $29,000. That would eat up almost your entire salary if you were making minimum wage working 40 hours a week.
Brian Lehrer: I think we have somebody with a story like that. Oh, it's Rebecca in Manhattan. You're on WNYC. Hi, Rebecca.
Rebecca: Hi. Good morning. I'm calling on behalf of my niece because she's been a part of the lottery program for years, looking for affordable housing. She has four kids, her husband's a school teacher and she also does substitute teaching and they always make too much money to get into the lottery and because it's like they would be putting most of their income for their rent and trying to have a decent life with four kids in the city. They're overqualified as a public school teacher, if you can believe that.
Brian Lehrer: David, sound right?
David Brand: Yes. Well, that's tricky too because a lot of the units that are the affordable housing lottery units for middle income, maybe slightly higher than middle income people, the prices are probably more expensive than you could find on the open market in a lot of cases so that's definitely an issue as well. It's supposed to be 30% of your income. 30% of your income when you have four children or even one child, that costs a lot, childcare and all the associated expenses. I have two kids, so I can attest to that. 30% of your income is a lot in those instances.
Brian Lehrer: Well, with the number you gave us before, and Rebecca, thanks for your call, $2,400 a month, which sounds relatively reasonable these days, that that would come to $29,000 a year, so you'd have to make $100,000, exactly $100,000 within a few of that, $100,000 for 30% of your income to go to rent at only $2,400 a month.
David Brand: That's correct.
Brian Lehrer: Listener texts, "It's worth mentioning how teeny, teeny, tiny the affordable housing units typically are. They are always smaller than the market rate units with the same number of bedrooms in the same buildings." True?
David Brand: I think that is true. I think that's-- Units are getting smaller, there's no doubt about it across the market I think. I remember looking at apartments in Ridgewood, Queens about eight years ago or so, and so many are very similar. Many of the newly constructed apartment buildings with little tiny bedroom, very limited living space, and you could tell that those are designed not for families, but probably for roommates.
Brian Lehrer: Another listener texts, "I've heard that building even single bedroom and studio units can improve the price of family units because it gives the people who are currently living with roommates more options so families don't have to compete with such multi income households. Is there any truth to that?" Asks this listener?
David Brand: I think so. I've heard that a lot and I think that makes a lot of sense. If three yuppies are living in a three bedroom apartment and everyone wants their own apartment, but they just can't afford it right now, if you build more studios or one bedrooms, then that would be opportunities for those three people to move into those.
Ideally, a family in need of a larger space would move into the three bedroom. I don't think it works. It often doesn't work that easily. I guess that it doesn't guarantee that a family would, but if you do flood the market with more studios and one bedrooms, then that definitely could be the case that more families will have options when those units open up.
Brian Lehrer: That concept is in your article too. Serene in Brooklyn has a story I think. Serene, you're on WNYC. Thank you so much for calling in.
Serene: Hey, thank you for taking me. Actually, I want to share my experience. I moved from Palestine to Brooklyn to Midwood 1990. Beautiful, huge bedroom, living room, dining room for 750, was like a dream now I'm thinking about it. My daughter just graduated NYU and you know how tuition is expensive.
Now since August, she got a nice job in a company as a software engineer, but she cannot afford an apartment in New York City, not even one bedroom with her salary. One bedroom is like 3,000, 3,500. Plus she cannot, like you just saying one third of the salary, plus these kids, they graduate from college with a lot of financial aid. The rent,-
Brian Lehrer: A lot of debt.
Serene: -the financial aid payment. A lot of debt. Then since August 1st until now, she work in the city and I feel bad for her. She's living out of her suitcase every few weeks. One of her friend will host her in her sofa. When she apply and she found many apartment in each village or around Chinatown she'll oblige. She doesn't even get it. It's a war. The apartment will be like 3,200 and somebody come in desperate and they take it for 3,500, 3,800.
Studios, the same that she cannot be qualified for a rent by herself. That you go to school, you get this much money, you work so hard, and then you are crushed with the New York City rent and it's getting more expensive. When we go visit, I think most of them is a studio and they changed them and made them one bedroom. The room does not even have a light or a window and it just basically fit a dresser and a bed. You can't even put the desk in those bedroom.
Brian Lehrer: Serene, what do you think your daughter is going to do? Is she going to look elsewhere, meaning not New York or what do you think she's going to do?
Serene: I feel bad because her job was giving her in Seattle and she preferred to stay in New York to be close to me. Now, I think the only option is that she has to move and I have to move because New York City, it's really expensive. Nobody can afford it. Everything is doubling and nothing is changing. Transportation is-- When I said move outside and commute from New Jersey, you're talking about the train and time and it's 50 minutes. The prices of the train is the most expensive I ever seen. It's like the ticket, you live somewhere in New Jersey, it's another hour, hour and a half commute.
Brian Lehrer: I think-
Serene: Those young people want to be close to home.
Brian Lehrer: -that just went up 15% too, those NJ transit tickets.
Serene: It's true. If they want to drive to the city, there is no parking. From 1990 when I moved to New York City to now, I see it's getting worse. That's the sad thing. It's getting worse.
Brian Lehrer: Serene, thank you so much for checking in with us. Please call us again. There it is. We could just replay Serene's call over and over again, and that's so much the story of New York right now. Right, David?
David Brand: Yes. She says it's getting worse. I think definitely getting more expensive and I think her experience, her daughter's experience is something that so many New Yorkers, so many listeners can relate to. Someone who's a lifelong New Yorker it sounds like from Midwood. Great education at NYU and is struggling to find an apartment for $3,200, that's a lot. Maybe places that she's looking, East Village she can't find that, decides to go a little further east into neighborhoods of Brooklyn, neighborhood of Queens, or the Bronx where apartments are less expensive. Those apartments, the prices go up there. People who are living in those neighborhoods all their lives are suddenly facing higher rents and it goes on and on. That's what we've seen now for many, many years as we deal with this housing crisis and too few available affordable units.
Brian Lehrer: I don't expect you to solve New York City's housing woes, but you do report on city council members talking about trying to do something in addition to what's already been done. What's the latest on the table?
David Brand: Well, last year, the city council passed legislation introduced by speaker Adrian Adams that would create a more comprehensive housing needs assessment for all of New York City. That could be a way to target housing or to first examine like, "Okay, here's Northeast Queens. You're producing very little new affordable housing. What do residents there need? What is being produced right now?" and try to tailor new development to meet those needs in every neighborhood in the city and try to fuel more housing construction in every neighborhood.
Another thing on the table right now is Mayor Adams' City of Yes for housing proposals that would change zoning codes to allow for more housing and allow for more housing in lower density communities. Not talking about huge skyscrapers or anything, but if there's a commercial lot with a single story being able to add a couple stories of housing on top of that. We talked to a lot of housing experts and they say that it's going to take a lot of those smaller incremental changes around the city to create more housing stock and get rents under control and create more affordable housing.
Brian Lehrer: Hey, David, before you go, can I graze through a couple of your other recent articles for some quickies like a lightning round of housing reporting by WNYC's David Brand?
David Brand: Let's go for it.
Brian Lehrer: Landlord drops challenge to rent stabilization at Stuy Town and Peter Cooper Village. They were trying to remove it again?
David Brand: The private equity firm, Blackstone, one of the country's largest landlords bought Stuy Town-Peter Cooper Village in 2015. It was a preservation deal for about half the apartments that would stay rent-stabilized and then eventually they wanted to lift more than half of the unit's out of rent stabilization so that they'd be able to charge whatever they want. In the meantime, state laws changed and said that if a unit is rent-stabilized, it has to stay rent-stabilized. There was a lawsuit based on that ruling where the tenants wanted to keep their apartments rent-stabilized, the judge sided with them. Last year Blackstone appealed, but then this weekend dropped that appeal in the wake of a Supreme Court decision not to take up a challenge to New York's rent stabilization laws.
Brian Lehrer: That's the next one and that's huge. A lot of people haven't even heard about this with all the huge national implication things that the Supreme Court has been dealing with, presidential immunity and abortion rights and everything else. Your headline, SCOTUS rejects challenge to New York's rent-stabilization rules. Who tried to kill them? How?
David Brand: Well, so there were four total challenges that the Supreme Court was considering or have the choice whether to consider or not. Two were brought by landlord groups in New York and then over the fall, the Supreme Court decided not to hear those challenges. Then these other two that they decided last week not to consider were brought by individual landlords in Manhattan and Long Island City, Queens who said that the current rent stabilization rules prevented them from basically from evicting tenants after their lease expired and so that that constituted what they call an "Illegal taking" under the constitution, that they couldn't control their own property, that the government was controlling it. The Supreme Court said that, "No, we're not going to hear that case."
Brian Lehrer: WNYC Housing Reporter, David Brand. You can also read the print edition of his very deep dive articles in some cases as well as the quickies on housing at our local news website gothamist.com. David, always great to have you on the show.
David Brand: Thanks a lot, Brian.
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