Beyond "affordable housing": social housing means "permanent affordability, democratic resident control, and social equality" (and where does AY fit?)

Two articles published by the Community Service Society 2/18/20, by Oksana Mironova and Thomas J. Waters, offer a broader perspective on what is too broadly classified as "affordable housing"--a term that proved seductive with Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park, but has often been frustrating, given the high cost of some units.

In Social Housing in the U.S., they write:

The term social housing is commonly used to describe a range of housing ownership, subsidy, and regulation models in Europe, South America and elsewhere around the globe. These models often go far beyond what’s known as “affordable housing” in the U.S. to promote permanent affordability, democratic resident control, and social equality. First popularized in the U.S. by the People’s Policy Project, the term is gaining currency thanks to the Homes Guarantee campaign, a grassroots effort aiming to provide every person in the U.S. with safe, accessible, sustainable, and permanently affordable housing.

(Emphasis added)

How does it work? The authors write:

Based on our interviews with housing advocates and a review of existing typologies, we define social housing models as those that strive to achieve permanent affordability, social equality, and democratic resident control. These goals are reflected, to varying degrees, in existing U.S. affordable housing programs, including public housing, nonprofit-managed rentals, and privately-run, limited-equity cooperatives on land stewarded by community land trusts. But these existing programs don’t all live up to the three main social housing goals equally. Just how “social” each model is depends less on ownership structures than on how well it shields the housing from market pressures, promotes racial and economic integration, and allows for robust resident governance.

The pressures on existing programs include the contract expiration of certain affordable housing programs, or the the lack of ongoing operating subsidies to reach the poorest in perpetuity—"not just an initial capital subsidy like those provided under the federal Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program, the main tool used in de Blasio’s housing plan." (Also see coverage in Next City.)

What about mixed-income programs?

They touch on programs that would include Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park:

Some present-day affordable housing programs do promote a degree of social integration though “mixed-income” development. These programs have attracted criticism because they often work by adding higher-income people to low-income places rather than the other way around, and thus threaten to displace people and because they do not necessarily confer the same status on all residents. New York City’s “poor door” controversy is one example of this problem.
Affordable housing programs generally produce traditional rental buildings, without a strong commitment to democratic residential control. While public and subsidized housing residents often have well-defined rights and access to technical support, the above-described stigmatization and systematic underfunding limit their ability to exercise real control over their housing. The best example of resident control in affordable housing is to be found in limited-equity cooperatives, such as New York’s Mitchell-Lama coops, where residents elect the boards of directors that hire the management companies that run their properties.

Note that Prospect Heights is a higher-income place, so those lower-income people moving in gain access to the location's advantages. There's no "poor door."

One question is whether there's a different vibe, different treatment, different amenity pricing packages, and/or different operating standards in buildings that include market-rate units (such as 461 Dean, with 50% "affordable") or one that's 100% income-restricted (like 535 Carlton or 38 Sixth), albeit with 50% of the latter units aimed at middle-income households. I don't think there's much residential control in any of them.

What policies needed?

The authors suggest federal policies such as "adequate funding for the National Housing Trust Fund (a tool for deep affordability), supported by the majority of Democratic presidential candidates, or direct funding for community land trust development," plus New York State policies like "targeted funding for permanent affordability" or local policy innovations like "tax lien sale reform, better-targeted public land and land bank disposition."

Radical? Remember, as they note, homeownership "is generously subsidized through the mortgage interest deduction on income taxes." Given the emerging popularity of plans like Medicare for All and the Green New Deal, "bold proposals for the housing sector" are not impossible.

Drilling down to grade the housing

In How Social Is That Housing?, the authors assess existing programs in terms of those "three primary goals of social housing: insulating housing from market forces, promoting social equality, and enabling residents to exercise democratic control over their housing."

A highly decommodified unit (vertical graph) is more likely to be permanently affordable, while a unit exhibiting social equality (horizontal graph) is more likely to promote "equal status among its residents and between its residents and non-residents, including racial and economic integration."

Note that the size of the circle--largest for privately owned, owner-occupied homes--represents the level of resident control.

The ideal may be a community land trust (CLT), but they are rare: "There are two CLTs in New York City: one in Cooper Square and one in East Harlem, both developed using city-owned property and sustained with long term rental assistance, and about a dozen nascent CLTs in formation across the five boroughs."

Where does Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park fit?

Their matrix, however, doesn't explicitly include mixed-income developments like those at Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park, which include low-income (LIHTC) units as part of a for-profit building.

It seems to me that the (temporarily, for some) rent-regulated units at Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park would fall in the center, given that low-income units there are subsumed under LIHTC for-profit units.

Along with the low-income units at the three (so far) Atlantic Yards buildings are moderate- and middle-income units, which cost more per month--much more, in some cases--but have the features of rent regulation, including tenure of occupancy and limited annual increases.

But that's limited. For the apartments at 461 Dean, those properties exist through the 35 year term of the bonds, after which moderate- and middle-income units that become vacant leave rent stabilization. For 535 Carlton, it may just be 30 years.

I queried Waters, one of the authors, who noted that "moderate and middle income rental units that receive some sort of subsidy are a hard one to figure," since some units don't better the market.

(With Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park, the middle-income units are not necessarily cheaper than older market-rate units in the general area, but they are cheaper than similarly situated new construction, given the neighborhood.)

A positive thing, he suggested, "is that they blur the distinction between subsidized and unsubsidized housing, which would weaken the status difference between people living in those types of housing."

That indeed was one of the goals of the project, given its location. And certainly buildings with a larger percentage of affordable units, compared to buildings with just 20% affordable, make that goal easier.

So he suggested 5.5 on social equality, 5 on decommodification, and the same as rent regulation on resident control. I think those are reasonable, but could change over time. For example, in a few decades, some units will see their horizon of decommodification ending.

As to social equality, that's something to keep watch on going forward. If amenity packages, for example, stay inexpensive, that allows all to participate.

Regarding resident control, the affordable tenants in all the Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park buildings will, over time, become a much larger group. If and when they can act in concert, even for small things, they could have more power.