Opinion: Land-use policies lead to LI homelessness
The single greatest cause of homelessness on LI isn't poverty or drugs. Instead, it is a supply-and-demand problem, caused by land-use policies that sabotage the free market. Credit: iStock
Homelessness has become increasingly pervasive on Long Island. In Suffolk County, the number of homeless people in families has increased 53 percent -- from 1,439 in 2010 to 2,204 in 2013. The number of single adults is up 58 percent.
After more than 20 years as executive director of Long Island's largest nonprofit providing emergency housing, I now understand perhaps the single greatest cause of homelessness. It is not poverty, or drugs or even a lack of government subsidies -- all conditions that existed before this crisis. Instead, it is a supply-and-demand problem, caused by land-use policies that sabotage the free market.
Based on a report to Congress by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Harvard University found that the number of renters nationally with very low incomes -- less than 30 percent of the area median income or $19,000 a year nationally -- has increased by 3 million, while the number of apartments affordable to those households has remained steady. Jenny Reed, policy director at the Washington-based Fiscal Policy Institute, noted that the nation lost 50 percent of its low-cost units over the past 10 years, while the number of high-cost apartments tripled.
On Long Island, after peaking at an annual rate of 11,500 new units in 1986, only 1,500 permits for new units were issued in 2010, according to the Long Island Index. On Long Island today, more than 1 in 4 renters pays more than half of his or her income toward rent, putting each at risk of homelessness. For most of these Long Islanders, the lack of new units means higher rents and mortgage costs. For their adult children, it means living at home longer, or leaving the state. For the poor and vulnerable, the result is homelessness.
According to HUD, housing is affordable when it costs no more than 30 percent of household income. On Long Island, "low income," is defined by HUD as a family of four making up to about $85,000 per year. Developers are capable of meeting the local demand for multifamily apartments, the predominant method of providing affordable housing. But zoning rules often favor more expensive single-family houses. This restriction on free-market forces and consumer choice, known as exclusionary zoning, is accepted as legitimate home rule.
But the federal Fair Housing Act bans exclusionary zoning because it has a "disparate impact" on minorities and promotes segregation, reaffirmed recently in a decision against Garden City in U.S. District Court. It's illegal under state law as well because the state's highest court has ruled that each municipality through its zoning must provide the "full array" of housing to meet its need and a share of the regional need for affordable housing.
Suffolk defined its regional need for affordable housing with a 2008 report by the Rutgers Center for Urban Policy, called "The Suffolk County Workforce Housing Needs Assessment." It determined the need at 16,500 new units between 2005 and 2020, giving goals for each municipality. But no one is holding communities accountable for their fair share. Politicians lack the will to take on local opposition that effectively dictates housing policy based on prejudice and fear.
Studies show the fears are baseless. An examination of upscale Mount Laurel, N.J., for example, showed that 13 years after development of 140 affordable housing units, there was no increased crime or negative effect on the prices of surrounding homes; but there were improvements in the lives of the families who moved there.
It's time to hold communities responsible for meeting their fair share of affordable housing. Suffolk should assist developers and the free market by enforcing its Workforce Housing Needs Assessment and Nassau should follow suit.
Alexander Roberts is executive director of Community Housing Innovations, a nonprofit provider of housing for the homeless under contract with Westchester, Nassau and Suffolk Counties.
