City Staff Ideas Challenge

Absolutely agreed. It is absolutely discouraging browsing through housing connect for affordable housing. As a city worker, I would like to rent a place that is ACTUALLY affordable. Who finalized the gross income metrics for affordable housing anyway? It is obviously clear that it's geared towards those who are low income and those making 80k and up. Those who are in between are left behind on purpose and left with predatory landlords asking for more than half of one's net monthly paycheck. Then the city wonders why their employees are leaving the city in droves, WE CANNOT AFFORD THE RENT. The 5% of units set aside for municipal employees are a joke! How you expect a single adult making 55k to afford a studio listed for $1200 a month?! Something has got to give!

Excellent idea. Many city workers only have one income and cannot afford to pay rent. One of the benefits as a city worker should be to be able to get a rent reduction on affordable housing sites.

Thank you for your input Bee Gee and Alba. I echo your sentiments and I have been saying these a while ago. There is no way City employees can afford these rents out here. I applied to Housing Lottery, got picked, only for the management to change their mind and say that's not how it's supposed to go. I asked HPD and other housing units for help with the case and they said no. There is no way an employee is using both checks to pay rent and they encourage us to ride the trains as well. We have to eat, wear clothes, insurance, and other bills. NYC employees are running on negative every paycheck because they either borrow against their next paycheck or spend to keep up with bills. There is no way we get called to service the clients if we are not okay ourselves and like the clients tell us all the time "we are one paycheck away from being homeless."

Teacher salary here, with a (pre-pandemic) combined household income of nearly $115K for 2 people. However, the monthly rent costs listed on NYC Housing Connect for a 2-bedroom apartment are simply unreasonable. From luxury high-rises to remodeled or newly-constructed apartment buildings, I have yet to find an affordable option mainly because rent prices are tiered by AMI percentile calculated by total gross income. When selected to apply, the application for consideration is also quite tedious and requires excessive financial documentation.

Great ideas across the board. Ceiling Rent need to be restored at this date as well.

Absolutely, when the Govt calculates income for affordability, it is only taking in to account single family income. The affordable housing is for middle class, not for us lower middle class bordering on poverty. We should ask for housing, food stamps if they cannot raise our salaries that would help. We cannot afford nothing in this market, if we try to buy, we hardly can afford mortgage and mgmt fee. This is ridiculous that city workers have to go through this. Especially women cannot find housing with our salaries.

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