City back into housing…kind of
Bloomberg announced that the city would get involved in sustaining the city’s housing market by financing rehabilitation of foreclosed homes for resale to families making $80–90,000 a year.
“What we’re trying to do is to not acquire a lot of land and properties and have it just sit there,” Mr. Bloomberg said. “What we’re trying to do is get it in, fix it up and get it back off our books into the private sector. It doesn’t do us any good if we’re holding it. You can’t house anybody. And it doesn’t generate tax revenues. We don’t want to make the mistakes that we had in the past.”
The question, of course, is why can’t we house anyone? Why not use them as middle income affordable housing? or rent-to-own? Just because the city mismanaged its properties in the past does not mean that the lesson is that the city can’t manage housing. Heck, bundle the units into the well managed NYCHA housing stock. Expand its mandate a little.
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