Intended Publication: City Limits

To Make Progress on Affordable Housing, New York Needs a Communicator-in-Chief

New York City needs a mayor who can make housing policy sexy.
 
For decades the city has been known for its hotdogs and high rents. But housing affordability
isn't an unsolvable problem — and New York politicians and policy wonks know it. The bigger
problem is that for the solutions known by the more politically-savvy to become a reality,
politicians need to be held accountable to enacting them, to be tasked with accomplishing
specific goals or being kicked out of office. This can only happen if the public knows what to
demand and applies the appropriate amount of pressure.
 
That’s where New York City’s next mayor can (and should) step in. They should be not just an
advocate for affordable housing, but an explainer of it. Not just a dreamer, but a communicator.
And a good place to start communicating would be about Area Median Income: a term few New
Yorkers have likely heard of and fewer understand, but one that is key to solving the affordable
housing crisis.
 
Area Median Income (AMI) is calculated at the federal level by the U.S. Department of Housing
and Urban Development and is used to determine what is affordable housing in a given area. In
New York City, an apartment building with rent equal to one-third of AMI is generally
considered affordable1. The minimum and maximum income requirements for someone who
wants to live in these affordable apartment buildings is also often some percentage of AMI.
 
Why does this matter? Because a lot of subsidized “affordable” housing in this city isn’t really
affordable — especially for those who live in the immediate area2. This is because the “area” for
New York City’s AMI is the entire city plus Westchester, Rockland and Putnam counties. This
results in an AMI which is inflated. For example in 2019, the city’s median income was $68,4863
while its AMI was $96,100 for a family of three4.
 
The AMI is also overly general, as income varies widely from neighborhood to neighborhood. In
New York State Assembly District 73, which covers much of the Upper East Side, the median
income is about $150,0005, while that figure is less than $30,000 for the South Bronx’s 84 th

Assembly District6. For a more nuanced picture of housing affordability in New York, we need
to ditch citywide generalizations in favor of neighborhood-level figures.

1
https://www1.nyc.gov/site/hpd/services-and-information/area-median-income.page
2
“Comparing Affordability Levels of the Mayor’s Housing New York Plan With Neighborhood Incomes,” New
York City Independent Budget Office. https://ibo.nyc.ny.us/iboreports/affordable-for-whom-comparing-
affordability-levels-of-the-mayors-housing-new-york-plan-with-neighborhood-incomes-february-2019.html
3
U.S. Census Bureau data. https://data.census.gov/cedsci/table?
g=0400000US36_1600000US3651000&tid=ACSDP5Y2019.DP03
4
Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development “AMI Cheat Sheet.” https://anhd.org/blog/summertime-
gladness-your-ami-cheat-sheet-here
5
https://censusreporter.org/profiles/62000US36073-assembly-district-73-ny/
6
https://censusreporter.org/profiles/62000US36084-assembly-district-84-ny/
As a result of AMI’s over-estimation, residents of low-income neighborhoods in the city (which
is where the vast majority of affordable housing is built) may not meet the minimum income
requirements they need to rent an affordable housing unit7, resulting in wealthier tenants from
other areas of the city reaping the benefits and gentrifying the area. In short, these affordable
housing initiatives can serve to price out the very residents they are built to house.

Now, I probably did not explain that in the most entertaining way (although, believe me, I tried).
But someone has to, and I’d argue New York City’s next mayor would be the right person for the
job.
 
This is because although AMI is a largely federal issue that would require action from Congress,
the mayor can be one of the few unifying voices of the city. They are more visible than both the
City Council and individual Congress members to every day New Yorkers. And they speak for
the city as a whole. 

It would also be in line with an existing trend in New York, as ever since Rep. Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez’s victory, more and more insurgent, activist-minded candidates have won election
to state- and nationwide office in both 2018 and 20208. These legislators believe in organizing
around and drawing attention to issues to lobby their fellow policymakers for change, using their
office and political sway in a similar way to the current Public Advocate Jumaane Williams.

And so, a Public Advocate-esque approach to the mayor’s office is not only possible but
essential, as it is the only way to educate and mobilize the public around in-the-weeds policy
ideas like AMI. Policy ideas which may not be sexy but are key to solving some of the most
deep-rooted issues we face as a city.

Credit Statement: From the sixth borough (New Jersey), Victor Porcelli is a student at New
York University who plays online chess in his free time, almost exclusively because of Netflix’s
The Queens Gambit.

7
“$75K Minimum Salary Required For 'Affordable' Flatbush Apartments,” by Kathleen Culliton.
https://patch.com/new-york/ditmaspark/75k-minimum-salary-required-affordable-flatbush-apartments
8
“Wins Pile Up for the New York Left,” https://www.gothamgazette.com/state/9620-wins-pile-up-for-the-new-york-
left-primaries-wfp-dsa-assembly-senate