3403 - The (Rent) Burden of Living in NYC: Housing Programs and Evictions

Session Submission Type: Regional Spotlight Sessions

Description

Recent scholarship has drawn attention to the prevalence of evictions and their consequences for low-income households, particularly families and children. This panel focuses on eviction in New York City, with its unique housing stock and institutional and legal contexts.

Two out of every three New Yorkers rent their home, roughly the inverse of the rest of the country (though homeownership rates are declining). Half of these renters benefit from tenant rights and price controls through rent regulation. New York also contains a large and diverse subsidized housing stock, retaining our public housing stock while also issuing vouchers, funding local rental assistance programs, and investing billions in affordable housing. Nevertheless, more than half of New York City renters are rent burdened, paying more than a third of income toward housing; one half are severely burdened or paying more than half of their income toward rent. The City has been in a legally-defined housing emergency for decades; demand continues to outpace housing production even as supply has increased.

The panelists will discuss different facets of eviction within this urban context. Elyzabeth Gaumer (NYC Dept of Housing) and Jeanne Brook-Gunn (Columbia University) will present findings on evictions and delay of rental payments among applicants to affordable housing, part of a randomized control trial that evaluates the impact of affordable housing on low-income New Yorkers. Vicki Been (NYU School of Law and former Commissioner of the NYC Dept of Housing) will present her qualitative work following respondents through their housing court experience in New York City, which evaluates the provision of free legal services. Louis Donnelly (Princeton University) will present on the predictors and consequences of evictions on children’s first fifteen years of life. We have also invited Matt Desmond (Princeton University) to present. Ingrid Gould Ellen (NYU Wagner School of Public Policy) will moderate.

Sub Unit

• Regional Spotlight Session

Session Organizer

• Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, Teachers College

Presider

• Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, Teachers College

Panelists

• Elyzabeth Gaumer, NYC Dept of Housing Preservation & Development

• Louis Donnelly, Princeton University

• Nicole Summers, Harvard

• Gillian Slee, Princeton University

Discussant

• Ingrid Ellen, New York University