New York’s Housing Crisis – A Nationwide Issue

Those of us fortunate enough to live anywhere but New York City may take comfort from reading the news about what is arguably NYC’s biggest campaign issue in 2025 -- the lack of affordable housing in the nation’s biggest city.

“There but for the grace of God go I,” we may say, shaking our heads in flyover country, where apartment rents and home prices may also be too high, but where there is at least some kind of availability.

But NYC’s problem is only local in part; many of the inputs are nationwide issues, which a new mayor, regardless of his self-confidence, cannot resolve on his own. Changes are needed at both the state capitals and the nation’s capital, if we want housing to be available and affordable again.

Since a safe and comfortable abode is a key element of the American dream, this is a challenge in which we all have an interest.

Full-on Marxist mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani advocates the usual New York methods to address the problem: more rent control and more government subsidies.

Marxist-lite candidate Andrew Cuomo advocates a more national Democrat method: building more public housing, though at least his platform shows enough self-awareness to acknowledge that tax code adjustments are needed, too. His greater experience in government helps him offer a more robust platform than Mamdani does.

It is possible, frankly, that part of the problem will go away as employers flee the state, taking their workforces with them, opening up at least those newly-vacated residences to new residents. But that’s hardly a net positive solution for the city.

In truth, the biggest problems with big city housing -- not only in New York but across the country -- are issues common to many blue cities and blue states,

Well, here’s a COMMON SENSE OBSERVATION....

The easiest item to address is the massive influx of illegal aliens who have descended on this country’s big cities in recent decades, especially exploding during the four-year open-borders fest of the Biden-Harris regime.

Many of those millions landed in New York City, partially because it’s always been a magnet for everyone, partially because it’s a special magnet for criminals (to say NYC is a target-rich environment for gangsters and drug dealers is an understatement), and partially because the city and state government have literally advertised it as a magnet by declaring themselves a sanctuary city in a sanctuary state.

To make it worse, the city and state have been paying exorbitant funds for years to house many of these illegals, instead of spending a fraction of that on throwing them out. A bankrupt city can’t afford to spend a couple billion dollars per year of taxpayer dollars on housing, feeding, educating, clothing and entertaining people who aren’t even a part of their tax base.

Cooperating with the federal government in deporting all the illegals would be the single easiest step in solving their housing crisis. So they won’t even consider it.

I want ALL those filthy scumbag democrats to suffer.

Suffer, suffer, suffer.

The Rats were applauding the Quisling Puppet Biden when the Cuban Alejandro Mayorkas opened the floodgates, allowing 20 million of the worlds flotsam into the USA. The vast majority of those aliens are unskilled, illiterate, uneducated, disease ridden, do not speak English, are Marxist and criminal. The third world gladly emptied their prisons and asylums to appease the democrat party with new voters.

Now here we are. Tens of millions demanding free housing and welfare. I say give them NOTHING and let the Rat cities burn.

We have two problems in Idaho. One is an influx of people from California with lots of money from selling their McMansions. That drives up the selling prices. The other is Blackrock and their network of "mom and pop" agents making lowball cash offers to property owners, then turning the purchase into rentals priced at the top of what the market will bear. There is also an explosion of apartment construction that is also priced high. The high priced property is attractive to retirees from other states. It is out of reach to local who earn blue collar wages including restaurants and retail workers.

Did they also think that property taxes should be frozen? That’s one of the biggest factors in causing rents to rise.

The property tax assessors are jacking up assessed values with the intent of collecting more taxes. As a property owner, you can dispute the assessment and get it lowered. My basement is unfinished, but the assessment improperly labels it finished with a higher assessed value. The property taxes are going to be passed directly through the rental prices. If rent control limits rents but allows property taxes to be jacked up, there will be a big problem.

As the author points out - NY City’s ‘housing crisis’ also has many causes outside of NY City. Our printed, fiat, debt-based monetary system will ALWAYS allow more money to flow to money-creators. It will follow the trends of economic and political power.

So of course, rich people will flock to buy real-estate in places like NY City, or downtown Tokyo or Beijing.

So by permitting this money creation, our monetary system is also to blame. Mamdani will just be more typically marxist, ideological and radical in his efforts.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.