'Affordable' Rentals Requiring $100K Salary Spur Outrage In BK

BROOKLYN HEIGHTS, BROOKLYN — A Brooklyn Heights building where apartments designated as "affordable" require a $101,040 salary is a slap in the face for homeless New Yorkers who have spent years trying to find a place to live, advocates said Friday.

Protesters swarmed the lobby Friday morning at 15 Bridge Park Drive — where 40 units of affordable housing cost upwards of $3,000 a month — to demand the city provide affordable housing its 61,000 homeless residents can actually afford instead of "subsidized luxury housing" like the Brooklyn Heights high-rise.

The building is just one example of high-cost apartments Mayor Bill de Blasio includes when he touts the 50,000 affordable units he's built that infuriates those still living in shelters, VOCAL-NY advocate Joe Loonam said.

"They are looking around going, 'How is it possible the city has released hundreds of thousands of units and nothing has improved about our situation,'" Loonam said. "The city is inflating the number by including buildings like 15 Bridge Park Drive. This is a really egregious example of a fairly common practice of subsidizing buildings that don’t need subsidies."

(Provided by VOCAL-NY)

Friday's rally, which ended when a security guard called police who then asked the protesters to leave, is the latest in a push from advocates to have the mayor build 24,000 new apartments set aside for the homeless and preserve 6,000 more.

De Blasio's current housing intiative aims to build or preserve 300,000 affordable homes by 2026. The city is about halfway toward that goal — 43,930 homes had been built and 91,507 had been preserved through the end of the last fiscal year for a total of 135,437 units, the mayor's office said last month.

But activists claim that, like 15 Bridge Park Drive, many of those units aren't actually affordable to those who need it most.

More than half the new apartments built through the de Blasio's plan rent for $750 to $1,500, according to an Indpendent Budget Office report. But about 20 percent of the units built or preserved by the plan have monthly rents higher than $1,700 — quadruple the 15,000 currently set aside for homeless households, a Coalition for the Homeless report says.

At 15 Bridge Park Drive, the 20 affordable studio apartments will go for $2,947 a month and require a $101,040 salary. Nine one-bedroom spots require a $108,240 salary and cost $3,157 a month, while $3797 two-bedroom units require a $130,183 combined salary and $4,380 three-bedroom spots require a $150,171 salary.

Loonam said that finding out about high-priced rentals like these can be demoralizing for homeless New Yorkers who already spend a long time "wrestling with the bureaucracy" to get a housing voucher.

"They think, 'The city gave this to me so of course I should be eligible for any housing the city is building' — to then find out the city has intentionally built housing you can't afford even with the voucher," he said.

(Provided by VOCAL-NY)

Advocates have also contended that vacancy rates prove that there is more of a need for low-cost spots than those like 15 Bridge Park Drive.

Just 1.15 percent of homes renting for less than $800 were vacant last year, well below the citywide vacancy rate of 3.63 percent, but more than 7 percent of homes going for more than $2,000 were vacant, according to the coalition's report. A rate above 5 percent is considered a housing emergency by the state.

The Bridge Park Drive building still has empty units, though it is unclear how many. The building is still on the affordable housing list, which notes that it will stay on the application list until all apartments are leased.

The city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development did not immediately respond to a request for comment.