Who Can Still Afford Rent in Bed-Stuy?

 

Micheline Chassagne, 51, has been a local resident in Bedford-Stuyvesant for 24 years. She says she had a good relationship with her landlord, from whom she rented an apartment for 14 years. But eventually, he wanted to put the rent at market value and Chassagne had to leave. In three years, she moved three times in the same neighborhood.

 

“The majority of your income will go to a box,” said Chassagne. “Which is rent.” 

 

Chassagne’s situation is far from an exception in Bedford-Stuyvesant. Since the early 2000s, the neighborhood has undergone a demographic shift, primarily due to gentrification. In 2000, over 75 percent of people identified as black residents and 2.4 percent as white residents according to the Furman Center. In 2022, the percentage for black people fell to 42 percent and that for white people rose to almost 30 percent. New residents are drawn to Bed-Stuy’s brownstones, relatively affordable housing, and proximity to Manhattan. This arrival of new residents, often with higher incomes than the long-term residents, has driven up housing costs, forcing some lifelong residents to leave. Worse, it has drawn some scam artists into the real estate mix and the surge of privately developed housing has not helped dealing with the housing crisis either. “Affordable housing” seems to not correspond to the reality here.

 

And now Bed-Stuy’s housing crisis is accelerating, post Covid-19, as more residents are losing their homes. The median rent is $3,200 in the neighborhood and over the last three years, the cost of a studio has increased 23 percent. Political solutions are, so far, not addressing directly the issue that is affordability, although some residents and advocates are placing their bets on a stronger response from New York state. 

 

According to the 2022 Census, the median household income in Bed-Stuy is $71,123 (with 37 percent under $50,000). More than a quarter of the population lives below the poverty line.

 

“This is a neighborhood where there’s public housing on one block and then literally just across the street a multimillion-dollar brownstone,” said Eon Huntley, lifelong resident of Bed-Stuy who ran as an opponent to Assemblywoman Stefani Zinerman during the District 56 primary last June. 

 

Data in Bed-Stuy also show that the median value of owner-occupied housing units is $1,103,900, which is more than double the amount in New York state.

 

A 2017 comptroller’s report, meanwhile, highlights the growing disparities in median household income between new and long-term residents, with new residents earning a median income nearly double that of their neighbors.

 

“I wonder who the median area income applies to because it doesn’t apply to regular folks of the community,” said Mona Singlefary, a 10-year Bed-Stuy resident. “Gentrification is a two-edged sword for me. It brings an upgrade to the community, which is great. But once you gentrify the neighborhood, keep it affordable where the residents that already live here can stay,” she said. 

 

Bedford-Stuyvesant has long been a cultural center for the African American community in New York City. During the mid-twentieth century, it became a refuge for Black families migrating from the American South and the Caribbean. Despite facing disinvestment, poverty, and discrimination, Bed-Stuy evolved into a vibrant center for Black business, cultural expression, homeownership, and political influence.

 

The demographic shift that has occurred over the two past decades has changed the neighborhood’s composition. By 2021, even though the population had grown by 22.9 percent, the Black population had declined, indicating a net loss of more than 36,000 Black residents. 

 

Tyrone McDonald works as government and community relations manager at NHS Brooklyn, a non-profit housing organization that helps homeowners, first-time homebuyers and tenants. He explained that the organization was launched in 1982 because a lot of Black homeowners couldn’t get loans to repair their houses. McDonald is frustrated by the current housing crisis. “We educate people on how to buy a home but affordability is always a problem,” he said. 

 

“Some residents have been in the neighborhood for decades. Some people have been able to maintain their houses, others have not. In some cases, their house is in such a state of disrepair that we can’t help them,” said Paul Sobers, project manager at IMPACCT Brooklyn. The community development organization does what it can to help people stay in their homes.

 

Today, with three-quarters of residents renting in Bed-Stuy, over 45 percent are rent-burdened, according to the Bed-Stuy Housing Plan, meaning they spend more than 30 percent of their income on rent.

 

The Developers’ Phenomenon In Bed-Stuy

 

One of Bed-Stuy’s most criticized phenomena, which started in the 1990s, is “blockbusting.” Real estate agents and developers persuaded or, as some say, scammed residents in a specific area to sell their properties for less than their market value.

 

As McDonald explained it, “Let’s say somebody passed away and they didn’t have a will. They [the investors] are actually able to contact people who are the next of kin. If you have three people owning the property, they’ll probably have one person sell their stake. Then, they’ll go to the other ones to try to pressure them into selling.”

 

This method of “blockbusting” is not the only one, and McDonald also talked about investors who will buy rights from an heir for a third of the price. Subsequently, the tenant who was there might get evicted because tenants don’t know their rights. He said that the problem stems from the fact that the market is highly desirable – with homeowners actually competing against investors. 

 

“You’re not competing just against another family but against an investor who can actually buy all cash,” said McDonald. He added that this practice is “pretty much legal” and that “it is still happening.”  

 

Chassagne said many of these developers live in a different country. “There’s a little space, so they’re going to make an apartment. And they have no connection to the community,” she said. 

 

As the neighborhood transforms, lifelong residents and advocates like Huntley worry that housing is not treated as a human right but as a speculative asset for investors’ portfolios. 

 

“They seem not to have any regard for anything other than the color green,” said Huntley. “They don’t want to contribute to the community, they just want to take and extract.” 

 

Meanwhile Bed-Stuy has New York City’s highest concentration of active Airbnb listings. An analysis from Gothamist revealed that 30 percent of properties in the neighborhood were acquired by limited liability companies, most within the past decade. This demonstrates how investors contribute to displacement by purchasing homes from long-time owners—some facing financial difficulties—and reselling them at significant profits to new residents.

 

 

Affordable Housing: A False Promise? 

 

New affordable housing projects have emerged but residents are skeptical about whether they are actually affordable. 

 

“Who are they going to help? They say they build affordable housing, but who can afford the rent?” asked Singlefary.

 

Two projects under construction on Fulton Street and Saratoga Avenue promise 238 affordable apartments in the next few years. Many feel their rents and also the lotteries on Housing Connect, the city’s portal for affordable housing, are not reasonably priced for the majority of residents.

 

Housing is deemed affordable when a household allocates no more than one-third of its pre-tax income to housing expenses. Eligibility is determined by grouping households into categories based on their total income and size, in relation to the Area Median Income (AMI). These categories define the maximum income limits for households.

 

A source working for HPD (Housing Development and Preservation) explained that these developments on Housing Connect have a variation of AMI level, based on the income and household size. 

 

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) defines the Area Median Income (AMI) for cities nationwide each year. In 2023, the AMI for the New York City area was set at $127,100 for a three-person household (corresponding to 100% AMI).

 

The Housing Connect website offers various rental lottery proposals that have “eligible income” brackets. Many of these apartments in privately-owned buildings have a maximum eligibility that goes above $100,000, with a minimum that varies. 

 

Last year, Assemblywoman Zinerman co-sponsored Assembly Bill A3342A, which calls for New York City area median incomes to be calculated according to zip code or region of residence. While McDonald says this bill is a step in the right direction, he explained that the legislation may still not account for income gaps between residents, including among those who live in the same neighborhood.

 

“If you look at the Housing Connect, the prices in different areas vary. And that depends on the level of subsidy they get,” said McDonald. He pointed out that even if these apartments are affordable, it depends on the AMI, which does not  represent the reality for the majority of residents. “If in the neighborhood, this AMI increased because of gentrification or other things, it’s not affordable in the end.”

 

In Bed-Stuy, half of all households earn extremely low or very low-incomes: 0-50 percent of what HUD defines as New York City’s Area Median Income (AMI), or less than $48,050 per year for a family of three.

 

In McDonald’s view, the majority of people are forgotten because “thousands of applications” are received for a single development. “Only a really small number of applications are being selected and a lot of people are being left out,” he  said.

 

“I don’t know how helpful it is to the masses,” Chassagne said.

 

Many feel the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) publicly-owned and operated housing could be the solution. But according to the Bedford-Stuyvesant Housing Plan, many NYCHA developments were established in the neighborhood over 50 years ago and have since experienced neglected maintenance due to ongoing federal underfunding. The plan found that NYCHA homes make up 13 percent of homes in Bed-Stuy and 23 percent of NYCHA apartments have three or more maintenance deficiencies. 

 

“They need to reinvest in NYCHA because relying on just strictly the private market to do this is not enough,” said McDonald.

 

 

 

The Role of Politics

 

Assemblywoman Zinerman of District 56 has passed numerous measures related to the housing crisis in Bed-Stuy, some more disputed than others. 

 

Zinerman supports, for instance, the establishment of the House New Yorkers First Act (A.9744), which would impose a moratorium on the purchase of residential property by non-New Yorkers and foreign entities. 

 

On the other hand, Zinerman does not sponsor “good cause” eviction legislation stating that New Yorkers are entitled to remain in their homes without the fear of unjust eviction or excessive rent hikes. In Bed-Stuy, more than 80 percent of residents are renters. 

 

The Assemblywoman declined an interview, but answered a housing questionnaire for The Tenant in May. The Tenant shares news and stories of the tenant movement, as a project from the nonprofit organization MET Council on Housing. It is a renters’ rights organization made up of New York City tenants. 

 

When asked by The Tenant if her campaign accepted “contributions from real estate developers (including related individuals), corporate lobbyists, organizations that participate in the carceral system, and/or landlords,” Zinerman answered “yes.” 

 

For instance, among her campaign’s top contributors is Leonard Stern, an American billionaire businessman who is the CEO of the privately owned Hartz Group based in New York City.  

 

Other representatives are proposing a bill to establish the Social Housing Development Authority as an alternative to the 485-x affordable housing tax incentive backed by Gov. Kathy Hochul. This 485-x offers a 35-year tax break to developers who build housing that meets certain affordability standards set by the legislature. 

 

This Social Housing Development Authority would advocate for the state to take a more active role in funding and developing “social housing,” which would include publicly-owned rentals. 

 

A Social Housing Development Authority seems promising to Huntley. “This Social Housing will revolutionize things. We’re only going to get a handle on things by actually getting active and thinking about things in a modern way,” he said.

 

“Politics is the only real answer,” said McDonald. “I don’t know if politicians don’t have the will or if investors have a big influence on what’s going on. But they have to do something because you have a lot of people leaving.”