Published: August 1st 2017, 12:00:01 am
The best way to make New York better is to make it more affordable to live here. As a performing artist working in New York for the past 17 years, I’ve been pushed from borough to borough by steadily rising rents and watched more and more talented artists leave the city because they simply couldn’t live here anymore. As affordable neighborhoods are pushed farther and farther away, it feels like only a matter of time before I have to leave myself. That may not seem ominous to you, but if you want your city to stay as awesome as it is, it should.
For a city to thrive, it needs people of all income levels. What makes a city great? Its art, its restaurants, its shops, its theatre, its music venues; not big name chains but the small, unique, establishments that you can’t find anywhere else. Those establishments are run and funded by the middle and upper class people of New York, but they’re staffed by low income people. Artists, Chefs, Actors, Dancers, Drag Queens, Street Performers, Burlesque Performers, Sex Workers, Musicians, Immigrants, Food Cart Operators, Bodega Owners; We ware what makes New York great. But we can’t afford to keep doing it if we have to move to New Jersey. You probably know people who live in New Jersey, how often do they go into the city? How late do they stay? Would you commute over an hour to work in a bodega? I didn’t think so.
According to Gothamist A third of the city's households have an annual income of less than $35,000 a year but only 8 percent of New York’s Affordable housing is for people making less than 25,000 a year. De Blasio has done some work to change that but it’s far too little, too late. We can’t rely on government housing and we can hardly expect landlords and developers to keep their prices down out of the goodness of their hearts. What’s maddening about this is that, as middle and low income New Yorkers are being squeezed out of the city, luxury apartments are standing empty.
It seems ludicrous, doesn’t it? That anyone would buy or build an apartment in New York and then just leave it empty? There’s a number of reasons people do it; tax shelters, money laundering, pied a terres, company investments that are cheaper than getting a hotel for traveling employees. None of these reasons seem like anything I should feel particularly sympathetic towards. But I honestly would not care if New York apartments didn’t feel like such a limited commodity.
Here’s the thing, I’m a New Yorker, I mind my own business. And I don’t really care how douchey, privileged, or felonious your reasons are for owning an apartment that you don’t live in. Be a dick, commit your crimes, it’s none of my business. But when your douchey, privileged, and felonious actions threaten the well being of my city, it becomes my fucking business. It becomes the business of ALL of New York City. And so it is time for New York City to rectify the problem.
Vancouver, suffering from a similar problem, has implemented a 1% tax on the value of all properties that are vacant more than 6 months out of the year. This seems extremely fair to anyone with enough money to own more than one home, and far more than fair to anyone using NYC’s housing to launder money. Owners of empty apartments will either rent them out (making apartments less scarce and, thus, more affordable) or increase NYC’s tax revenue (which can be used to fund affordable housing or our sorely overtaxed public transportation system.) This is a reasonable and actionable solution to one of New York’s biggest problems and I, for one, will be writing to my council member to ask them to introduce a bill that would do just that. I hope you will join me.
Creativity and diversity is being priced out of our fair city. How long can Sleep No More last if all the dancers have to move to Detroit? How are all night bodegas going to fulfill all your late night snacking needs if their employees can’t afford to live here anymore? How will New York remain the inspiring hotbed of diversity its always been if immigrants can’t afford to live here? The birthplace of hip hop is currently being gentrified into the nausea inducing “sobro.” Do you want the next new music wave to come out of New York City or Piscataway? If your answer was ‘New York,’ it’s time to bring the rent down.