Periodical: Design Observer

Thesis: While mixed-income housing is a solution for the low-income housing problems originating in our cities, it should offer an ethical solution for its users.

Summary:

The public housing system has developed many problems dating back to Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1933, he declared, “One-third of the nation is ill-housed”. He addressed the importance of housing and the failure to adequately house the American population. At one point in time affordable housing held hope and promise for cities’ poor communities, but now it has become centers for crime, violence, and gang activity. Therefore the upper-class community usually rejects affordable housing projects.  However, a better way to give affordable housing to our cities without concentrating crime and poverty, and preventing low-income housing from overcrowding the ghetto started to develop.

Most cities are trying the method of spreading out public housing into small low-density units throughout the city. Private sector housing developers are producing mixed-income housing to create a solution to the issue of affordable housing concentrating in the poor sectors of the cities. Mixed-income housing provides affordable, and market-rated housing, where tenants with different economic status live. It will give parents and their children access to better schools, and employment opportunities since these developments’ location are in better parts of the city. This is a great initiative and could better the housing community. However, mixed-income housing is creating a new problem to low-income city residents. Those tenants renting units at affordable rates are experiencing stigmas that inheres segregation.

A development tower rising on the Upper West Side of Manhattan’s waterfront in NYC known as “One Riverside Park” is a prime example of the problem previously mentioned. The building will offer luxury condos and affordable apartments in the same building, making it a mixed-income building. The future owners of the condos will have access to all the amenities of the building, while those who will be living in the affordable housing part of the building won’t, and to enter through another door facing another street is a requirement. This situation the building’s developers have created became known as the controversial “poor door.” It caught international attention due to what the “poor door” creates, which is a problem of segregation: a topic that is not taken lightly in our current time period and society.

This “poor door” situation clearly goes against human rights to housing, which is recognized by the United Nations (U.N.). According to the U.N., human right to adequate housing requires “governments in all counties to respect, protect their residents” by giving them the ability to live with dignity in their community.  The Georgetown Journal states, “The poor door design concept is at odds with the fundamental precept underlying the human right to housing.” To address the issue, according to The Post, Councilman Robert Jackson has proposed a bill that would require city buildings receiving affordable-housing subsidies to provide the same services, amenities and entrances to all tenants of a particular building regardless of rent price.  Sadly, this is not the first time mixed-income housing residents experience segregation. According to the New York Times, a handful of other developments have similar arrangements to the “poor door”, such as a condo tower on the Brooklyn waterfront in Williamsburg. The Times reports, “Only one entrance offers a doorman, concierge and valet, but some renters said what they resented was not being able to use some of the condo tower’s amenities.”

On the other hand, some have spoken in defense of the “poor door” such as Josh Barro Building Insider editor. In his article he states, “Getting mad about the “poor door” is absurd. The only real outrage is that the developer had to build affordable units at all” (Barro). The Times reported, “Over 88,000 applications were collected for the Riverside South’s 55 affordable units” This just makes the problem even harder to resolve since the community itself has no other choice but to accept the inequalities they’ll encounter as tenants of the building. “I guess people like it,” said Gary Barnett, founder and president of Extell, told the Times. “It shows that there’s a tremendous demand for high-quality affordable housing in beautiful neighborhoods.”  Extell also defends the two doors by saying “it complied with zoning laws by essentially creating two separate buildings”. Extell is the developer company behind the riverside south towers. Additionally, The Crain’s New York Business expressed “ the point was to usher poor families into neighborhoods with good schools, transit, jobs and safety so they could escape the cycle of poverty. It was not to give them subsidized Central Park views, fancy lobbies, spas and rooftop swimming pools.” The article also mentions how banning separate entrances would also hurt project’s profit. On his article “Behind the poor door” Michael Sorkin states that mixed income-housing developers “are offered subsidies in the form of additional bulk, a substantial tax break and cheap financing” This makes me question whether the reason these projects are created is to help our city residents live in a better environment, or for the private sector hosing developers’ economical benefit.

Although some people think mixed-income segregation is an irrelevant problem, they should recognize that this problem creates psychological damage, and hurtful experiences in our low-income city residents. According to studies conducted in several parts of the world, residents of mixed-income public housing are “widely stigmatized and associated with negative characteristics such as a propensity for criminal behavior and a weak work ethic” (Levy). Also, 35 mixed‐income residents in Chicago reported being “singled-out and differentially treated by both the Housing Authority’s administrative procedures for resident relocation and by their new, higher-income neighbors” (McCormick).

These discriminatory practices are denying all people the equality that being human demands, therefore, discrimination on mixed-income housing should not exist. According to a Cityscape Journal “mixed-income strategies can succeed in spatially desegregating households by income and improving lives through environmental changes, but so far they have proven insufficient for overcoming social barriers and alleviating poverty” (Levy). If a mixed-income building is the answer to our affordable housing problems, then all the occupants of that building should share the same amenities of their wealthier counterparts, including the fitness center, pool and entertainment room, and receive the same level of courtesy and prompt service from the staff.

Sources:

• SORKIN, MICHAEL. “Behind The “Poor Door.” Nation 298.16 (2014): 35-37. Academic Search Complete. Web. 24 Oct. 2015.
• “The ‘Poor Door’ Contradiction.” Crain’s New York Business 30.35 (2014): 10. ProQuest. Web. 23 Oct. 2015.
• Bratt, Rachel G. A Right to Housing: Foundation for a New Social Agenda. Philadelphia, PA: Temple UP, 2006. Print.
• Georgetown University. Law Center. “Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law & Policy.” Georgetown journal on poverty law & policy. Web. 3 Oct. 2015
• Navarro, Mireya. “‘Poor Door’ in a New York Tower Opens a Fight Over Affordable Housing.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 26 Aug. 2014. Web. 25 Sept. 2015.
• Barro, Josh. “In Defense Of The ‘Poor Door’: Why It’s Fine For A Luxury Condo Developer To Keep Its Low-Income Units Separate.” Business Insider. Business Insider, Inc, 19 Aug. 2013. Web. 25 Sept. 2015.
• Levy, Diane K., Zach McDade, and Kassie Bertumen. “Mixed-Income Living: Anticipated and Realized Benefits for Low-Income Households.” Cityscape: A Journal of Policy Development and Research2 (2013): 15-28. Print.
• CHASKIN, ROBERT J., and MARK L. JOSEPH. “Social Interaction in mixed‐income Developments: Relational Expectations and Emerging Reality.” Journal of Urban Affairs2 (2011): 209-37. Web.
• McCormick, Naomi J., Mark L. Joseph, and Robert J. Chaskin. “The New Stigma of Relocated Public Housing Residents: Challenges to Social Identity in Mixed‐Income Developments.” City & Community3 (2012): 285-308. Web.
• Gans, Herbert J. People, Plans, and Policies: Essays on Poverty, Racism, and Other National Urban Problems. New York: Columbia UP:, 1991. Print.

Images by: Extell Development Company

Architecture by: Goldstein Hill & West Architects