Finding an affordable place to live in New York City is hard. Lines wrap around the block for open houses featuring apartments with rent less than $2,000 a month; Brokers’ fees can be tens of thousands of dollars for rent-stabilized apartments, and rental prices are at a record high.
Unsurprisingly, a recent Siena poll found housing a top issue for New Yorkers in the 2024 elections. While Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have mentioned housing in their campaigns, many are still unclear how their promises would impact the five boroughs.
A new mom’s search for affordable housing
Valarie Gelin shares her life with her 54K TikTok followers: Everything from experiences being a new mom to frustrations around housing costs. “This is why everybody is moving below the Mason-Dixon line. Because supposedly the rent is cheap down there,” she says in a recent video.
Gelin shares an East New York apartment with a roommate but is looking for a new place now that she is a parent. “I can’t just breastfeed on my couch because he might walk in, or he might come out of his room,” she tells us.
Gelin grew up in what she calls “old Flatbush, Brooklyn.” When asked the difference between old Flatbush and new Flatbush, she says the rent.
In 2016, the median rent in Flatbush was $1,283 a month; today it’s $2,800.
“It’s so insane to see a one-bedroom in the same neighborhood I grew up in for over $2,000…and amenities that they’re giving you is a dog bath,” she says. “People have been washing their dogs in bathtubs for years, and now you want me to pay $4,000 to have a dog bath,” she continues with a laugh.
Jokes aside, Census data shows that nearly 52% of New Yorkers are “rent burdened,” meaning 30% of their income or more goes towards rent.
What are the candidate’s plans?
Harris’ campaign released a housing plan. Trump has not released a plan that specifies housing solutions, but he and his running mate have mentioned the topic.
Harris’ plan includes expanding tax incentives to build affordable rentals and offering first-time buyers a $25,000 mortgage credit. She’s also pushing Congress to prevent corporate landlords from using price-setting tools to initiate rent hikes.
Trump wants to repurpose federal land for housing and deport undocumented immigrants, the latter of which he believes would reduce housing demand. The Republican platform also supports tax incentives for home buyers.
Economists have criticized both plans. They argue that Trump’s plan would reduce housing supply and that Harris’s plan would increase home prices.
Tenant rights attorney Leah Goodridge is on the city’s planning commission and was previously on the Rent Guidelines Board. She says there’s no single approach to housing.
“I think a lot of governments, both locally and nationally, feel that the way to deal with the housing crisis is to hand it over to developers and private actors because they’re the ones who are going to spend their own money to build housing. And I don’t think that’s where the onus should be,” she says.
Goodridge believes that if housing is going to be in the hands of private developers, they should at least build affordable co-ops.
If affordable housing matters to you: What to look for in a candidate
Goodridge says if affordable housing is important to you as a voter, look at the candidates’ stance on rent control. “You want someone who is going to defend rent stabilization and put people in place who will defend it if there are lawsuits and protect it,” she says. Rent regulation can be impacted by those nominated to the Supreme Court.
“Landlords have sued multiple times to challenge rent stabilization,” she says. “The last fight that we had, it was a petition at the Supreme Court, and they denied it. But Justice Thomas also threw them a bone and said, ‘here’s how you bring the case back again, and we’ll accept it.’”
Goodridge says to also look for someone who supports tenant protections. “In many ways, you can’t even begin your homeowner journey unless as a tenant, you have some protections in place as well. How much can you save for a home if you’re paying astronomical amounts for rent, or if you’re dealing with harassment and you have to leave and find new housing and disrupt your life,” she says.
Harassment and housing
For 81-year-old Bill Meehan, it wasn’t harassment that pushed him out of his Jackson Heights apartment, but the cost of rent.
Once he retired, he could no longer afford his $1,900 rent on his fixed income, so he started looking for roommates. Recent data found almost one million people nationwide over the age of 65 are living with roommates to help them survive. They’re called “boommates.”
Having roommates helped Meehan cover costs, but every time someone moved out, the fear of eviction would take over. “That was a constant thing: Who is going to help pay the rent?” he says. “It was really just tension and unbelievable tension,” he continues.
Meehan eventually heard of a lottery for Stonewall House, an affordable LGBTQ-affirming apartment for elders in Fort Greene, Brooklyn.
Epicenter NYC’s previous reporting highlights the housing challenges LGBTQ elders face. Discrimination during their careers can impact financial security later in life, and homophobia or transphobia at retirement homes forces some LGBTQ elders back into the closet.
Stonewall House solved all of this for Meehan. He applied to the lottery and won. His rent dropped 71% to $540 dollars a month.
How housing insecurity affects voting
Older adults like Meehan are some of the most consistent at the polls. Cea Weaver, the coalition director at Housing Justice for All, says housing can impact the ability to vote.
“When people are housing insecure, they’re often moving from place to place…and that means that maybe you move in between elections and you maybe don’t get to register to vote at the next location,” Weaver says.
She points to a recent Princeton study that found a 1% decrease in evictions would have led to a nearly 3% increase in voter turnout during the 2016 presidential election. Weaver says this shows the need for federal, state and local support for housing policies, like rent stabilization.
Is government the solution to the rent crisis?
Some critics of rent stabilization say eliminating it would bring down housing prices. But neither Weaver nor Goodridge believe that to be true.
Goodridge has litigated cases involving harassment of families in rent-stabilized apartments. “These are all kinds of issues that happen even with regulation and protections, and so I can’t even imagine what it would be like without,” she says.
“Over the years, the government has intervened in moments of economic crisis and moments where inflation is quite high, for example, to regulate the price of gasoline and make sure that consumers are not paying more at the pump for gas. They’ve done the same thing when it comes to things that are needed for perceived health reasons. They’ve done that for milk,” she says. “Housing is a necessity the same way those other consumer goods are. And that means that when necessary, and it is necessary here in New York, that government is well within their rights to step in and regulate what cost increases are going to be in rent,” Weaver continues.
As we get closer to the election, Meehan hopes to see candidates support policies to help seniors age in place. While Gelin hopes she gets the chance to raise her daughter in the community that raised her, she may end up casting her ballot in another state because she’s been looking at moving to a more affordable place.
“I’d rather leave and get more for my money than stay here just because I’m from here,” she says. “It’s not even the same neighborhood anymore…For instance, my mom lives in the Flatbush area where she lived growing up; to see her now be the only Black woman in her building: crazy,” she says.
While gentrification is one of the many reasons for the overall increase in housing prices across the five boroughs, it is the primary reason why housing prices in Black and Latino neighborhoods have increased so dramatically. For New Yorkers facing displacement and the newer people moving into these areas, this election could impact their ability to build or continue their lives here. Housing advocates say the choices made this November won’t be just about policy but the future of our communities.
This story was created in partnership with Thirteen WNET as part of its “Your Voice Matters” election series. You can stream new episodes each week on YouTube.
Read more of our housing stories here.
