In New York, Having a Job, or 2, Doesn’t Mean Having a Home

[yeats]

Comments

[executivehpfan]

Living in NYC is terrifying. The amount of money it takes to survive here is beyond extraordinary.

[sakuraberries]

This. When I graduate, I fully intend to move out. NYC is amazing in a lot of ways, but it's definitely not worth the money needed just to get by.

[roseofjuly]

This. My husband and I are holding on until we finish school, but after that we are getting the fuck out. It's so stressful and scary and honestly, the benefits do not outweigh the expense. Broadway shows travel and there are symphonies, ballets, museums, and jobs in other cities.

proud to have been born and raised in nyc

[__planitbremix]

But I can never live there again...
Its too expensive and I just don't understand how people can do it now that I'am older...
Most of my friends still live with their family first of all This could very well be by choice cause most of my friends and I are kids of immigrant parents and our cultures coincide with wanting to stay close to our family. And I'am not saying thats a bad thing cause I still live with mine too. I love living with my folks, however whenever I get a full time job, I would be able to afford living on my own if I chose to. As for my friends? I doubt it..and we always talked about moving to the village
One friend who does live on her own with her husband is worried cause the rent where she lives keeps going up every year due to gentrification.

I know Texas isn't the best place to live in. But NYC should be ashamed of itself, asking for so much money for shoe box apartments/town houses that can buy a house in a gated community down in houston!

Re: proud to have been born and raised in nyc

[roseofjuly]

My brother's mortgage on his 4-bedroom house in metro Atlanta is about $500-600 cheaper than me and my husband's rent on our small 1-bedroom apartment here. And he has central air and actual closet space. And our rent went up $50 this year. I cannot wait to get the fuck out of here.

[tsu_]

I really hate Bloomberg. He basically sold the city to real estate developers to make billion dollar luxury apartments, and ruined it all. (I'm exaggerating, but it's not far off the mark imho)

[yeats]

seriously, seriously. he and giuliani can go fuck off to hell. my parents both work in housing, so i grew up around this topic -- there is no reason for nyc to be prohibitively expensive except that the government has completely abdicated its responsibility to encourage affordable housing. it drives me crazy, too, because it's a political issue that has a natural advocacy base behind it, but none of the tens of thousands of college-educated 20 and 30-somethings who move to the city every year associate their impossibly high rents with the plight of poor residents. in reality, the whole system is fucked over and it screws everyone, but we're too obsessed with talking about gentrification to point our fingers at the real villains -- the real estate magnates who don't bother creating affordable housing because they can make more money with high-end developments, and the city officials who don't do anything to change that.

[shoujokakumei]

Agreed. I'm really sick of hearing about new small housing units being built, but they're "luxury units" so they rent for $3k a month. Like, what the fuck? Take down the chrome plating in the fucking lobby and build places real people can afford to fucking live in!

[roseofjuly]

It makes me wonder who these mythical people are who keep moving into the city and making these units profitable. I'm in my late 20s and very few of my friends can afford these units; a lot of us are talking about moving away.

[lied_ohne_worte]

That's depressing.

And this...

The average monthly cost for the government to shelter a family is more than $3,000; the cost for a single person is more than $2,300.

It would be cheaper if they paid the rent (or a part of it) for people to live in their own space, or created city-owned housing (both of which are done in my country)? That's so absurd and illogical I don't even know what to say.

[roseofjuly]

YES. I was thinking the same thing! For $3,000 you can get a 3-bedroom apartment in upper Manhattan or the South Bronx or Queens or Brooklyn and put a family in there. And they could literally house twice as many single people in those neighborhoods in a studio or a small 1-bedroom if they just paid their rent.

[left_on_red]

"But in an interview, Ms. Gibbs reiterated the Bloomberg administration’s long-held position that more benefits only attract more people to shelters."

This is such an absurd idea. No one wants to live in a shelter. No one wants to have no control over their lives. People who think that others want to live in shelters, or be unemployed, etc., are people who have never had any sort of personal relationship with someone experiencing homelessness or unemployment. (A photo op, for example, is not a personal relationship. It's not knowing someone.)

[dragonhawker]

This. The 'more people' that it attracts are people who are currently out on the streets. Nobody's going to leave a rented/owned home to go live in a shelter just because they added running water, how nice!

[peace_piper]

The amount of restriction and control over you if you are in a shelter... I'm better off "camping" out of doors when I was homeless. And still, given the option of shelter, I'll take the camping, please. And the choice between being employed and unemployed? Employed please.

[dramaturgy]

Seriously. I don't understand how the "benefits will encourage people to stay on them, FOREVER!" mentality takes root. Like. If you wouldn't want to live in a shelter/on unemployment/food stamps/etc. why in the blue blazes do you think I want to be?