This is the problem with housing subsidies: they very often go to those who don't need them. In New York, your choice of apartment is primarily based on location -- anything that's not in the >$1 million range is pretty similar. So if you're looking at two apartments near your work and the rent stabilized one is $1200/mo and the other is $3000/mo, you try to get the $1200/mo one even if you could afford the $3000/mo one. I guarantee you it's not $1800/mo nicer.<p>You see this effect anywhere that supply of rental housing is a problem. If you implement price controls, people with high incomes will seek out lower rents. They'll still often end up driving out the lower-income folks, because if you're a landlord with two applications for a vacant apartment, you're going to favor the one with better credit. Rent controls also deter landlords from investing, both in existing properties and in new ones.<p>IMO the right answer (and this is not a popular sentiment) is to let rents float and have certain desirable areas of certain cities end up effectively "off limits" to lower income renters. Is it fair? Not particularly, but the side effects of this situation are that the people who can afford to shoulder the costs associated with their way of life are the ones actually doing so. They are going to crowd low-income renters out of the neighborhood eventually anyway, and hopefully a housing / worker shortage would prompt the city to actually develop a low income housing solution rather than forcing landlords to just deal with rents too low for even basic maintenance.
Subsidies and regulation doesn't work.<p>If you subside families, the subsidies will simply go into rents and then those who don't get subsidies still have to pay that same rate. Basically, the lowest rent turns into exactly the same level where you're entitled for full subsidies. In effect, you'll just give tax payer's money to landlords.<p>If you regulate rents (or subsidize apartments), the apartments aren't taken cared of. The landlord is squeezed between the regulated rent and rising costs, and this doesn't lend to a very good and successful renting business.<p>If the city builds public housing (council housing) and rents directly to poorer families, you'll get two things. First, a lot of poor people get flocked into the same building or neighbourhood, including problematic people (most poor people aren't problematic but most problematic people are poor), and this lowers the reputation of the area. Second, those who were poor but are now in the middle class still want to hold on to their cheap apartment because they would face a direct hit in their standard of living if they moved out to an apartment rented at market price. This is a huge disincentive to move because of a better job or to move because more (or less) space is needed.<p>So far I've only seen one scheme that does work: public housing, initially at at-cost prices (no profit for the city) but with rents discounted based on the tenant's annual income. The subsidy isn't money that could go to anyone else but the tenant as the city "pays" for the subsidy by simply getting less money from that tenant. If the tenant begins to earn more money, the rent will go up in proportion to the extra income so that there's no big jump or disincentive to not get a better job. The rent always goes up less than the income, so that it's always worth taking a better job, until at some point the rent will equal market prices. This allows people to stay (if they like the place) or move away (because they already pay the market rent). The city could also sell individual apartments to long-term tenants if they wish to buy: this is to gradually balance the demography of the area and keep the houses from being populated by poor people forever.
The correct solution to this problem is to tax the rental income and hand that money to low income households. It would create a balance of correct market prices and allowing low income people to stay.<p>Just letting the price float and pushing low income people out creates an unbalanced society where a class divide builds up over time. Modern housing policy in the UK is to mix social housing with regular housing developments, having social housing all grouped into one location was a catastrophically bad idea from the post war era.
"For renters like Soni Fink, 91, the rules have meant she can keep living in the apartment she moved into in 1961. A move to market rate would easily eat up her retirement income, she tells the BBC outside her two-bedroom home towards the south of Manhattan."<p>Why Soni Fink, 91, is entitled to live in a two-bedroom home?