Ron Lauder and the other billionaires that want Mike Bloomberg to run for a third term constantly harp that since he's rich, the Mayor's continued presence will help us through tough times. The logic is shaky at best and really the only way that benefits us is the trickle-down effect around his townhouse on the Upper East Side. As for things that matter to New Yorkers such as affordable housing, it looks like he is either worsening the problem (by kowtowing to developers with zoning laws that push lower income residents away from the city) or merely ineffectual, as this bit of news confirms.
From The NY Daily News:
Mayor Bloomberg's campaign to build 165,000 units of desperately needed affordable housing appears to be running into the same economic maelstrom that brought down Wall Street.
A $240 million fund that was a key element of the mayor's housing plan relies on some of the country's most troubled banks and securities firms, records show.
The New York City Acquisition Fund's partners include Washington Mutual, Wachovia and Fannie Mae, strongly suggesting it may become a casualty of the still-evolving credit meltdown.
That would be bad news because the city has a shortage of 100,000 to 300,000 units of affordable housing, the Pratt Center for Community Development says.
And with numbers like that, it is also hard to determine what "affordable" means. According to the Mayor, those who qualify are singles that makes under $32,300 and $46,000 for couples. As the Daily News article mentions, many of us in NYC spend more than half our income in housing. With caps like that, even if the housing gets built, many people are still going to struggle.
Of course, it has to be built first and frankly there is no way to do it now with the markets as nuts as they are now. Bloomberg's supporters say he can walk us through this because he's a billionaire. Yet, even a billionaire is no match for the economic crisis unless....he wants to use his wealth to build some of those homes. And as we all know, that'll be a cold day in hell.
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