Mitchell-Lama housing is not usually low-income. Many of these buildings are full of people who earn $75-200K, which is not enough money to rent a decent apartment in NYC. No matter how much money you make, they can’t kick you out, although they can apply rent surcharges.
If you check out some of these buildings in Queens and Brooklyn, the parking lots are full of expensive, late-model cars.
M-L is a completely different story. What is the connection you see here?
I have in-laws that live in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. In around 1990, my BILs mother had a two BR apartment in a mid-rise, which was rent controlled and she had it for many years the rent was at that time $145.00/month. At that time my wife and me were paying a mortgage in south jersey (Ocean County) we had a 3 BR ranch very simple home our mortgage was 6 times that amount at $900.00/month.
My BIL separated from his wife he got a 6th floor 1 BR apartment in Riverdale, very small his rent was about $700/month. He passed away in this apartment, we visited him the day of his passing and he had that place so full of stuff that it was difficult to get him out of it. I would imagine that many apartments are like this, filled to the rafters with stuff.
The press is reporting that this high rise apartment fire was caused by a space heater malfunction. My guess is in the details there was a lot of debris near or in contact with the heater. The thing about the doors not closing automatically, that might be true but if your door doesn’t close automatically do you simply leave it open?