New York City\u2019s new budget includes thousands of new rental-housing vouchers, billed as a means of helping low-income citizens remain in an increasingly unaffordable city. \u00a0<\/p>\n
But this misguided compassion actually encourages poverty \u2014 by incentivizing\u00a0low-income households to form in the first place, and to remain low-income for years on end.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s largely because, unlike cash welfare, Gotham\u2019s housing handouts<\/a> come with neither a work requirement nor a time limit.<\/p>\n Mayor Zohran Mamdani acceded to Council Speaker Julie Menin\u2019s push to expand a city-funded housing voucher<\/a> that pays 70% of rent for those eligible.\u00a0<\/p>\n The new $175 million program will subsidize some 8,000 households, per the mayor\u2019s office.<\/p>\n Yet\u00a0debate over the program\u2019s cost ignores an inconvenient fact: The city already provides more housing vouchers than anywhere else in the US.<\/p>\n The expanded voucher program was breathlessly deemed urgent by the supposedly moderate Menin.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cEvery New Yorker deserves a safe, affordable home,\u201d she declared, \u201cand this agreement will help more families avoid eviction and homelessness.\u201d<\/p>\n But her enthusiasm overlooks the fact that the housing crisis she seeks to address has not been eased by the\u00a0119,000 federal housing vouchers the city\u2019s Housing Authority already distributes.\u00a0<\/p>\n Nor have the 39,000 vouchers given out by the city\u2019s Housing Preservation and Development\u00a0agency, which will administer the added program, made a dent.\u00a0<\/p>\n Add in the city\u2019s 177,000 public housing units, and some 335,000 NYC households get housing help to pay just 30%\u00a0of their income in rent.<\/p>\n That\u2019s a substantial 14.5% of all rental housing of any kind in the city.<\/p>\n And under the perverse incentives of voucher housing, the city\u2019s rules are actually worsening poverty \u2014 by encouraging the formation of more poor single-parent households.<\/p>\n The Housing Authority operates a complex ranking system to qualify New Yorkers for either public housing or a voucher \u2014 a system it calls priority tiers.<\/p>\n The disabled and the elderly poor can go to the head of the line, as can households with extremely low incomes, from no income at all to 30% of the area\u2019s median.<\/p>\n Those households are almost invariably headed by single parents, according to groups like the Robin Hood Foundation.<\/p>\n The city\u2019s voucher programs send a message: Single parents will get support.<\/p>\n And because households headed by those as young as 18 can qualify for a voucher, those making life choices at a young age are getting that message loud and clear.<\/p>\n These endlessly generous vouchers are pulling the plug on what\u2019s widely known as the success sequence: finishing school, getting a job and then postponing childbearing until after marriage.<\/p>\n Other than the elderly, single adults with children are the largest group of voucher households \u2014 both in New York City and nationwide.<\/p>\n Virtually all report \u201cextremely low income\u201d and have every incentive to continue in that category.<\/p>\n The more they earn the more they pay in rent, because their rent is set at 30% of any income they make. \u00a0<\/p>\n And once in the system, they stay: The average voucher household has been\u00a0subsidized for 14 years.<\/p>\n These are the same types of households living in the city\u2019s sprawling family-shelter system \u2014 who will get\u00a0priority under the new council-backed voucher program.<\/p>\n They are \u201chomeless\u201d not because they live on the street \u2014 street homeless tend to be single men \u2014 but because they\u2019d otherwise be doubling up with their families.<\/p>\n The city, in other words, encourages the formation of independent but very low-income households: One can have a child at 16, move into a \u201cyouth crisis\u201d shelter and go to the head of the line for a permanent voucher at age 18.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\tStart your day with all you need to know\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMorning Report delivers the latest news, videos, photos and more.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\tThanks for signing up!\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n That puts a hard stop to upward economic mobility.<\/p>\n Yet nationwide the Department of Housing and Urban Development is taking the opposite tack, encouraging cities to adopt work requirements and time limits for voucher households.<\/p>\n That\u2019s because the idea is already proven to work.<\/p>\n In affordability-challenged California, for example, the San Bernardino Housing Authority adopted a five-year time limit on housing assistance in 2012.<\/p>\n The\u00a0results\u00a0have been striking: Income \u201cat exit\u201d has gone up 126%, those on public assistance declined from 343 to just six, and 18 former voucher families became homeowners.<\/p>\n