The city has financed 77,651 units of affordable housing in the last three years, Mayor de Blasio announced Thursday.
“In just three years time, that much activity, that is enough housing to provide for the entire population of Salt Lake City,” de Blasio said, standing on the huge terrace of a two-bedroom Harlem unit renting for $836 a month.
But while de Blasio made his announcement in a brand-new affordable housing building, the majority of the units, 52,309, are already existing affordable units that the city has “preserved” — or spent money to keep affordable.
New construction makes up 33 percent, of 25,342 units, of the affordable housing financed so far under de Blasio’s plan to build or preserve 200,000 units in the city. Most of those are still being built — construction has been completed on 4,145, the city said, with a typical time frame of 24 to 36 months.
Diane and Matthew Crencher, who hosted de Blasio Thursday in Harlem, are among the lucky few to snag one of those new affordable units.
“We’re able to make ends meet, not struggle to pay the rent or make a choice between paying the light bill or having food,”Diane Crencher said. “Yeah, it’s come to that at times, trying to pay the rent.”
The couple — she a home health aide, he a building maintenance worker — were living in a NYCHA apartment when they won an online affordable housing lottery for a spot in Strivers Plaza, a 54-unit building with apartments set aside for tenants making as little as $27,000 an individual or $35,000 for a family of three. The Crenchers live in the apartment — which features a gorgeous view of the towers of City College — with Matthew’s uncle, who they care for and who was formerly homeless.
The program is income restricted, and critics have argued not enough apartments are reserved for those making the least. Most of the new units, 48.5%, have gone to those earning between $42,951 and $68,720 for a family of three.
“To make his housing plan look better, he counts as low-income people earning more than $68,000 a year. That’s insane,” Daisy Gonzalez, spokeswoman for Real Affordability for All, said. “Bottom line: today’s self-congratulatory victory lap from de Blasio is a slap in the face to countless working poor New Yorkers who have been left behind by this administration and are struggling to survive.”
Homes for the bottom two income groups, for New Yorkers making under $42,950, have made up 31.9% of new construction starts to date.
