The Housing Situation Is Dire. But Progress Is Still Possible.

In the South Bronx, developers found ways to build an array of sleek, affordable apartments in two subsidized housing developments. Is this a way forward?

Good news is hard to come by on the housing front. The eviction moratorium has expired. Experts now predict skyrocketing home prices may rise indefinitely. According to a Pew study, more American adults today consider affordable housing a major worry in their communities than crime, drugs or Covid-19.

And no wonder. The lack of affordable housing is inseparable from racial and other disparities in health, education, public safety and economic opportunity. New York, by one estimate, is now the nation’s most segregated state. Not coincidentally, its deficit of nearly 650,000 affordable housing units is surpassed only by California’s.

Then, of course, there was the unfathomable week in January when a fire killed 12 people in an overcrowded Philadelphia rowhouse owned by the beleaguered public housing authority there. Another 17 died a few days later when a space heater ignited at Twin Parks North West, a privately owned, 1970s-era, Section 8 high-rise in the South Bronx.