How NYCHA Preserves Diversity in New York’s Changing Neighborhoods
This fact brief outlines the critical role that the public housing plays in preserving racial, ethnic, and economic diversity in the city’s gentrifying and higher-income neighborhoods. The brief builds on earlier research by the NYU Furman Center outlining NYCHA’s outsized role in housing the lowest-income New Yorkers.
As New York City’s neighborhoods continue to undergo shifts in racial and economic makeup, the developments that once segregated residents and concentrated poverty are now helping maintain neighborhood diversity and providing their residents with access to opportunity. Research findings have pointed to the importance of creating subsidized housing in rapidly gentrifying areas to mitigate against re-segregation of neighborhoods.
The fact brief details how the loss of public housing would yield a loss of access in gentrifying and higher-income neighborhoods for low-income New Yorkers. In 2017, the median household income for all public housing residents was $18,473 whereas the median household income for residents of all other housing was $61,297. Amid rising rents, low-income households have significant barriers to accessing affordable housing.