Public Housing - Why the 40 Is Half Full

A Supreme Court justice grew up in NYCHA. As did half the important hip-hop artists of our time, and poets, and teachers and city workers and any number of people who now make enormous contributions to our culture, City and society. Why would we give up on the idea, and the very buildings themselves? No one is seriously contemplating tearing them down. As you can read for yourself, an effort is being made to add much needed housing on City land, particularly by adding apartments to the projects themselves where land is available, often in the form of parking lots that are often not at capacity, for obvious reasons.

Most people probably don't know that the vast majority of people in NYCHA pay rent - up to 1/3 of income. Now, I know that sounds like a sweet deal these days. But isn't affordable housing supposed to be just that? It used to be 1/4 was considered affordable. 1/3 seems to be the new normal to describe someone who isn't overburdened by rent.

The below is a glossy version of reality. But imagine, if you will, that the real NYCHA lived up to the standards here...and all we had to do was invest more money, money that we and the state and feds HAVE, if we actually admit the money we SAVE from public housing, good, decent public housing. Would any NIMBYist even consider supporting public housing in their neighborhood? Probably not. Because we don't really think big anymore, and frankly, the community boards and local gentry don't care much for big thinking.

When FORCED to deal with the reality of poverty in the City, though, people do. Ask the good folks of Boerum Hill or Red Hook whether their investment in a house was a bad one, and whether a lot of their initial fear was unjustified. It is still, at least for now, New York Fucking City.