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Departing Deputy Mayor Glen defends city's housing plan

Departing Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen published an op-ed in the Daily News 1/25/19 headlined Our housing plan is working: New York City is getting the affordable units it desperately needs,

Some excerpts from the opening part:
Our ambitious plan is to build or preserve 300,000 units of affordable housing over 12 years. That’s enough to house 750,000 people.
But preservation doesn't add units for those who need them.
This past year, we reached a landmark achievement, financing over 34,000 affordable homes, marking the highest year on record. A little over a decade ago, at the height of the market, the number was 16,000. And we are now reaching a greater proportion of low-income and vulnerable families than ever. In 2018 alone, we financed over 2,500 units for homeless New Yorkers.
That's a tiny fraction of the need.
It’s disturbing to me that despite all this, some still portray the de Blasio administration as cautious, or captive to big real estate, or as callous to New Yorkers who need the most help. Nonsense.
Our plan is built on a few key pillars. Discarding any one would be a grave mistake.
We build for everyone. We must focus on the lowest-income New Yorkers, families and seniors on fixed incomes, but we won’t apologize for also including the cops, nurses and teachers who keep this city running. Half our city is rent-burdened. Even families where both parents are working — say, one as an entry-level technician in a lab, the other in a hotel kitchen, together earning more $85,000 — have trouble finding an affordable home. We can’t turn our backs on them.
Glen's not wrong to push back on those who say the city should focus all its resources on the lowest-income households, but... that is where the need is greatest, as city Comptroller Scott Stringer has pointed out, while offering a way to raise more funds for such households, via new transaction taxes.

Moreover, households earning $85,000, as Glen cited, are by no means the upper limit of the plan, since four-person households, for example, applying to 535 Carlton (site of the photo) can make up to $172,095 (and get three months free as a concession).

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