City Plans to Attack Economic Segregation by Moving Poor into Middle-Class Neighborhoods, Richer into Poverty Spots

The City plans to attack economic segregation in its affordable housing plan–placing the poor in middle-class neighborhoods and the more affluent in high-poverty spots.

Housing Preservation and Development Commissioner Vicki Been said the plan to build 80,000 new affordable apartments and preserve 120,000 units would create a more diverse city.

“We really have to make economic diversity a cornerstone of that plan,” she said at a City Council budget hearing Wednesday.

“That means that in some neighborhoods that have mostly middle or upper-income housing, that we would need to put affordable housing at the very lowest income,” she said.

“But in some communities where we have a great deal of poverty . . . we would try to bring more moderate (-income housing) into those neighborhoods, to try to achieve the kind of diversity that we want,” Been said.

De Blasio’s executive budget boosted the housing department’s capital cash to $3.1 billion, up from $1.9 billion in his January preliminary budget, to help pay for the ambitious proposal.

{snip} The city will quadruple the number of apartments geared to the poorest New Yorkers, who make less than $25,000 for a family of four, and increase by 50% the number for those making $68,000 to 103,000.

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