Luxury apartment buildings have been popping up all over NYC in recent years, and soon they may have to offer some of that apartment space to the homeless.
City officials have been looking for housing solutions for the homeless population as it continues to skyrocket in NYC, and they seem to have found part of one in the new luxury apartment buildings that have been springing up around the city.
Most of these luxury building developers already made an agreement with the city to allocate a certain number of units in their buildings as “affordable housing” options (in exchange for certain tax breaks). According to a report from Bloomberg, if the building owners are unable to fill those units with tenants from the city’s affordable housing lottery (which you can enter and see examples of online here), they will have to open those apartments up to local homeless shelter residents.
Apparently about 200 apartments were still vacant this week…and could be filled as early as next week by those living in homeless shelters with help from the NYC Department of Housing Preservation & Development. The rent will be paid by the city, and they will be offered to people and families who can live independently and do not need extra social services.
These eligible apartments are in the middle-income range, with requirements like a single person who makes as much as $97,110 and families of three with a combined income of $124,930. Sometimes tenants who enter the lottery don’t realize how complex the process can be and how long the income-verification takes, so that’s how they wind up staying empty in the first place.
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