Announcement: "How do I apply for affordable and low-income housing?" (which means those aren't quite the same)

Maybe this formulation's been used regularly, but this affordable housing forum tomorrow--information shared by Council Majority Leader Laurie Cumbo--points to a distinction:

• "How do I apply for affordable and low-income housing?"
• "What are the income limits for affordable and low-income housing?"

The forum, to be held tomorrow at 6 pm at The Church of God of East Flatbush, will answer those questions.

The language points to a distinction between low-income housing, typically accessible to the poor (though income limits often exclude very low-income households) and "affordable housing," which means "income-linked" housing or housing that participates in a government subsidy or tax-exemption program.

The latter housing is usually below market-rate, though sometimes not by much. So middle-income "affordable housing" may not be, to many advocates, "real affordable housing."

I wrote in January 2015 about evolving Atlantic Yards rhetoric: the project, once described as "affordable *and* middle-income housing," had, in two "100% affordable" towers, become significantly "affordable middle-income housing."

So it's a useful distinction to use terms beyond simply "affordable housing."