Public Housing Repairs Can’t Keep up

You're correct ... Section 8 is insufficiently reliable. But also, vouchers make little sense in a city with a severe and protracted housing shortage, leading only to upwardly spiraling housing costs and either increasing voucher allowances or increasing housing unaffordability.

At least Sec 8 puts the burden of property management on private landlords. I'd imagine that they're held to a higher standard than the city. Either way, affordable living is problematic enough if you make 100k in NYC, nevertheless minimum wage.

New York has a housing shortage because of rent control full stop

New York had a housing shortage before rent control (since at least the 1930s) ... which is why rent control was implemented.

...as a "temporary measure" they said back then. Cut to 70 years later, and the only new construction here or anywhere else with such laws in the US has been exempted from rent control OR has it with all sorts of tax credits to bribe the developers. Meanwhile, when its been eliminated or scaled back (see SF/Berkeley versus neighboring cities, Santa Monica versus west LA county, Boston versus Cambridge, etc) magically inventory levels increase and prices for de-regulated apts versus never regulated remain unchanged.

There is no quicker kiss of death to a building or development than "Section 8".

How many people know that helping the Needy is part of the New York State constitution?
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ARTICLE XVII

Social Welfare

[Public relief and care]

Section 1. The aid, care and support of the needy are public concerns and shall be provided by the state and by such of its subdivisions, and in such manner and by such means, as the legislature may from time to time determine. (New. Adopted by Constitutional Convention of 1938 and approved by vote of the people November 8, 1938.)

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There is also a section for public housing
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[Housing and nursing home accommodations for persons of low income; slum clearance]

Section 1. Subject to the provisions of this article, the legislature may provide in such manner, by such means and upon such terms and conditions as it may prescribe for low rent housing and nursing home accommodations for persons of low income as defined by law, or for the clearance, replanning, reconstruction and rehabilitation of substandard and insanitary areas, or for both such purposes, and for recreational and other facilities incidental or appurtenant thereto. (Amended by vote of the people November 2, 1965.)

http://www.dos.state.ny.us/info/constitution.htm

jason10006,

What are you talking about?

Excelsior!

We have real life examples of NYC style rent control ending, and in most cases inventory shot way up rather quickly, and prices were unchanged RELATIVE to neighboring comps. I.E. people who live alone in two bedrooms sudennly get roomates, landlords repair and then rent delapitaded units, etc. I lived in Berkeley when it happened and in SF right after. It was a million times easier to get an apartment sans broker than it had been previously.

So without rent control the prices stay the same but the product gets better, availability gets better, and you no longer have to fork over two months rent to someone to look up a listing for you?

It's very tricky.
Public housing, a significant component of our urban landscape, faces big changes as budget concerns reduce the likelihood of timely repair work. We listen to the complaints which fall upon the deaf ears of the already over taxed.
The ant works hard in the withering heat and the rain all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while he is cold and starving.

CBS, NBC , PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.

America is stunned by the sharp contrast.

How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper and everybody cries when they sing, 'It's Not Easy Being Green.'

ACORN stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the group singing, “We shall overcome.” Then Rev. Jeremiah Wright has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper's sake.

President Obama condemns the ant and blames President Bush, President Reagan, Christopher Co lu mbus, and the Pope for the grasshopper's plight.

Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid exclaim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.

Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer.

The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the Government Green Czar and given to the grasshopper.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper and his free-loading friends finishing up the last bits of the ant’s food while the government house he is in, which, as you recall, just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around them because the grasshopper doesn't maintain it.

The ant has disappeared in the snow, never to be seen again.

The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident, and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the ramshackle, once prosperous and once peaceful, neighborhood.

poverty is a notch more complicated than grasshoppers vs ants. this idea of condemnation of poverty by those that are not (of course till they are and say tacky things like: "now it even happens to good people like me, nowadays it can happen to anybody") just makes me wonder why did i think that RE brokers were the most self-serving people on earth.

in reality, it's not about effort and lack of it but about luck and opportunities..., i dare say poor people work harder tougher jobs too and society needs them too. even if they get paid like shit hence needing help with housing.