Leonard Grunstein responds to NY Times front page article

Leonard Grunstein recently wrote a letter to the editor responding to a New York Times front page article, Public Housing in City Reaches a Fiscal Crisis.” Grunstein cites the articles as being further proof that the NYC Housing Authority can no longer rely on its current financial model.

According to Grunstein, the deficit faced by the agency is too great to solve the city’s current housing problems. “Rather than using costly government grants and subsidies to keep a flawed agency on life support, the city needs to tap into the power of capital markets.” Grunstein identifies a few options for taking advantage of capital market wealth, including relying more on public-private partnerships such as that of Battery Park City rather than relying fully on public funding.

To read the full response, “Money for Public Housing,” click here.

 

 

Real Estate Expert Leonard Grunstein Proposes a Solution to New York’s Affordable Housing Crisis

Leonard Grunstein has released a plan to resolve New York’s affordable housing crisis. Recently published in the spring 2014 edition of the Real Estate Finance Journal, the plan proposes a new mixed-income, mixed-use model of affordable housing that enables the free-market to fund the development.

The proposed plan would let the market play a larger role in New York’s housing policy, urging reforms to lower the cost of land in order to attract free-market financing and equity through the capital markets. This would enable development of unused city land and encourage developers to lease the ground where new projects are built, generating rents from the luxury component of the mixed-use complex.

Grunstein also encourages using the additional funds from these rents for the creation of self-funded “sticky” rent vouchers that would empower struggling families by letting them rent an apartment. He believes the answer to low-income affordability is more income, not more structurally flawed low-income projects.

To put these ideas into action, Grunstein is urging the city to create an Affordable Housing Authority, which can resolve issues using a public-private partnership model.