While there’s been a surge of development of market-rate housing downtown, new housing for the city’s working class and low-wage earners hasn’t kept pace, And city officials want to take a fresh look at how they evaluate proposals for affordable housing.
Every year, the city issues Requests for Proposals asking developers to build affordable housing, but “affordability” can have different meanings. That’s because the formula for calculating affordable housing is outdated and doesn’t reflect the city’s high concentration of poverty, Mayor Lovely Warren’s chief of staff, Alex Yudelson, says.
The City Charter currently defines low- and moderate-income residents as those earning up to 120 percent of the median income for the Rochester metropolitan area. That median is based on the incomes of people living in Monroe, Livingston, Ontario, Orleans, Wayne, and Yates counties. But that gives an inaccurate picture of the incomes of most people living in the city and what they can afford to pay for housing, Yudelson says.
At 120 percent of median income, city housing is considered affordable for a family of four with an income of $88,800. That’s more than many city families earn. And more than one-third of city families are spending more than 50 percent of their income on rent, even though the federal government guidelines recommend not exceeding 30 percent. This creates instability for the family and the city, says Yudelson. Families are evicted and have to find new housing, and sometimes children have to enroll in a different school.
Warren wants the city to consider affordable housing proposals based on the number of units designed for people living in one of four income categories: moderate income, low income, very low income, and extremely low income. A family of four with an extremely low income, for example, is one that earns only 30 percent of the median for the area: or $22,000 annually. They can’t afford more than $550 per month in rent.
On Tuesday night, City Council will vote on Warren’s request to change the City Charter to include those categories and to revise the city’s Request for Proposals language for affordable housing proposals.
The new definition of affordability largely applies to developers of affordable housing. The legislation will apply to future developments. It won’t to existing projects or those recently approved, such as Cobbs Hill Village. Most receive some state funding, but often lack all the money they need, Yudelson says. The city may offer $300,000 to close the gap, he says.
But the new definition will also apply to any new market-rate housing project that needs city loans, he says. The city already requires that any project receiving city financing devotes at least 10 percent of its units to affordable housing.
It’s unlikely that a developer would propose apartments for only extremely low-income individuals, because it’s not profitable. Redefining affordability will allow developers to create a mix of housing units that better reflects the needs of city residents and that will still permit developers to make a profit, Yudelson says.
Increasing the availability of affordable housing is critically important, says Councilmember Mitch Gruber, and the definition used by city officials, developers, and residents has been too loose. Affordable housing is extremely complex, and if there isn’t a shared definition, “it’s impossible to be strategic,” he says.
“I want to see proposals that show a good diversity of income bands,” Gruber says. Affordable housing that has a mix of units at all levels of affordability would help break up the city’s concentration of poverty and economic segregation, he says.
There also has to be an emphasis on quality affordable housing, Gruber says, because some housing in the city that is considered affordable is in such poor condition that it’s not habitable, Gruber says.
This post has been updated to match the version that appears in the August 22, 2018 print edition.
This article appears in Aug 15-21, 2018.
Mayor Warren’s creation of distinct classes of affordability will enable the Administration to ask developers to include the lowest two categories: Extremely Low and Low Income. With the exception of the newly announced PathStone project in Eastman Business Park, not for profit developers have to date only served those with moderate income (at 60% of the regional AMI) PathStone and Christa deserve praise for creatively assembling the financing tools that made this possible. The just approved rebuild of Cobbs Hill Village meets this requirement also, but provides only a third of what the present complex offers, and could continue to offer permanently, as neighborhood groups have urged.
I love this approach since my Family’s yearly income barely meets $19,000 a year. But I have one sounding warning. Please do not allow Ibero American Development be one of the companies to manage anymore affordable housing. I currently reside in the El Camino development by Ibero and they have demonstrated to constants; they will make sure to move in Hispanic residents and they do not maintain properties correctly. I have lived in the El Camino house for eight years and at first IADC was the perfect and responsible landlords. But after 5 years they changed management and polices. They degraded and forced out most of the African- American tenents and if you complained they forced evicted you. With the help of the Conkey area community we are filing multiple discrimination suits and have asked the city and state to step in but finding out that there is no oversight for subsidized housing. They have moved in family and friends and have family working in positions they are not qualified. Fro example my upstairs toilet has a leak but instead of replacing the O ring the Maintenance person changed the ball cock. He has also caused m ore damages and IADC charges some residents $20 and hour for an unlicensed contractor to muddle around charge us and with my disabilities and pain I have to re repair. Not only are they not knowledgeable they are very unprofessional spreading rumors and divulging tenants personal information to other tenants. I have written almost all entities from the city to state level looking for assistance. Now next Friday my family and I will be officially homeless and on a fixed income we cannot afford a normal housing but will have to hopefully find a suitable house because now on our fixed income we are paying $688 a month where as the same size house not subsidized will start at $950 and up and that giving up A/C and 2 bathrooms. IADC is currently applying to construct new affordable housing on Sullivan Street in the city. It is so blatant that my 8 year old daughter asked me if black people are not good enough for the new houses and if they are only for Hispanic people. Now my children are half African- American and Half Puerto Rican but the identify with both sides. She was just depressed because IADC showed her that her skin color is not good enough for a new subsidized house.
So please Mayor Warren hear us in the city do not allow IADC to construct or manage anymore affordable housing until they resolve their issues. Partly being poor maintenance(I have black mold in my kitchen for 3 years and my house has bullet holes for over a year now.) Also does a management company have the right to tell you how to live in your house. IADC made it clear that being poor means you have no rights. For example they have outlawed all pools(even wading pools) , no gardens and if your car spills any fluids on the driveway you are evicted. Does being poor mean we have no rights. And does being black mean we have no rights to affordable housing. It is just funny because out of our whole block my family pays the highest rent but we are also the poorest and only black family on that block now when 3 years ago it was a healthy mixed. And out of the 75 houses already built and occupied less than 10% are African American families when 3 years ago it was close to a 40%-50% split. Yes I do love the idea of more affordable housing but please have the right people to maintain it. Someone with heart.