New York Mayor Unveils Plan for More Affordable Housing

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who earlier this year vowed to improve the city’s crumbling public schools, set his sights Tuesday on another perennial Big Apple headache -- affordable housing.

The businessman-turned-mayor announced at a gathering of housing developers, owners and managers that over the next five years, New York City would seek more than $3 billion to purchase 27,000 new homes and preserve 38,000 others.

Bloomberg said in a luncheon speech to the New York Housing Conference that new and existing money will preserve or create 65,000 units in all five boroughs of the city by 2008.

Housing activists and advocates for the city’s rapidly increasing number of homeless families praised Bloomberg for tackling the issue despite tough economic times and New York’s $6.4-billion budget deficit.

“In context of the terrible budget environment and of the recent past, for the mayor to stand up and say public investment in housing is critical and we understand that there is a big affordability gap is very significant,” said Joe Weisbord of the Housing First coalition. “We have an enormous housing problem in this city, and this is a major first step.”

Republican Bloomberg took office in January, succeeding Rudolph W. Giuliani, who critics say gutted many public services and did not have a viable housing policy.

A homeless advocacy group, the Coalition for the Homeless, said in mid-November that New York was suffering the worst homeless crisis in its history. It said that more than 37,300 people were spending the night in city-run shelters, including 9,000 families and more than 16,000 children.

“The city hasn’t had a real affordable housing policy for more than a decade, and I think this is a terrific step toward it,” said City Council member David Yassky, a Democrat.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the average median household income in New York City is $38,000. With that income, analysts say, a family can afford to spend up to $800 in monthly rent. But the average rent for an apartment in Manhattan is about $2,700, housing analysts said.

Bloomberg, founder of the news and information company Bloomberg LP, needs approval from the City Council to carry out the plan, which will cost hundreds of millions of dollars in public funding and private investment. Some development would depend on rezoning underused waterfront areas and reclaiming contaminated former industrial sites.