A rise in rents and housing prices in New York City and across the state is increasingly driving demand for the state to act with greater urgency to tackle declining affordability and homelessness.
In New York City, where a pandemic revival has pushed rents up in recent months, about a third of renters are “severely burdened,” meaning they spend more than 50 percent of their income on rent.
Between 2017 and 2021, New York City lost nearly 100,000 units rented for less than $1,500 a month, while adding 107,000 units rented for at least $2,300 a month, according to a recent survey of the city’s housing stock.
According to the Coalition for the Homeless, more than 48,000 people slept in shelters in New York City every night in March, with the number of single people in shelters steadily increasing in recent years.
The pandemic has left thousands of New Yorkers out of work, making it even more difficult to afford a home, and the state has received more than 337,000 applications for housing benefit since the summer of 2021. It has paid out more than $2 billion in emergency rent alleviating about half of the applications, according to state data.
And, as in other parts of the country, the crisis is partly caused by not nearly enough homes built in recent years to keep up with New York’s growth and attractiveness as a job center. Between 2000 and 2017, New York City added 643,000 new jobs, but allowed only about 390,000 new homes, according to city figures.
Under the leadership of the next governor, a lot could change at the state level.
A major tax incentive to boost housing development in New York City, measures to encourage suburbs to build more homes, and a bill that would have made it easier to legalize basement and garage apartments — all proposed by Gov Kathy Hochul — died in the state legislature this year.
So did a bill pushed by left-wing Democrats that would have effectively curtailed steep rent increases in most homes, known as “good reason” eviction.