Views from the Northwest Bronx

On April 8th, the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) proposed a 2.1% increase to the NYC Water Board as well as a new program with a preferential rate for affordable housing projects. UNHP, a long-time advocate for water and sewer rate reform, called for an Affordable Housing Cap Rate last year at the Water Board public hearings and is pleased the DEP has proposed a special program and looks forward to the program rolling out in July.

On February 23, lenders, non-profit, for-profit and HPD representatives squeezed into the conference room at the offices of Enterprise Community Partners to listen to UNHP's latest update on the Building Indicator Project (BIP) as well as income and pricing trends in the Bronx.

For most Bronx residents, affordable housing means the housing that they live in now, but many Bronx residents are on the verge of becoming homeless; struggling to get by, facing high rent burdens and compensating through overcrowded living situations.

UNHP created the Home Ownership Database (HOOD) to reach out to homeowners of 1-4 family homes who have fallen behind on their City liens, such as water and sewer bills, and tax liens. A recent look at the data reveals that neighborhoods as different as the Upper East Side and Jamaica, Queens have much in common when it comes to delinquent City liens.

On Wednesday, April 22, 2015, twenty-five home-based childcare providers graduated from the inaugural class of the Northwest Bronx Childcare Entrepreneurship Program. The 40 hour business growth program was offered by NYC Department of Small Business Services (SBS) in partnership with Citi, the University Neighborhood Housing Program (UNHP) and Fordham Bedford Community Services (FBCS).

Housing, especially rental housing in New York City, exists with two purposes: to provide homes for people and families, and to be bought, sold and rented as commodities. Today in Part Two, we focus on prices and profitability of housing from the investor side, and a huge surge (perhaps another bubble) in the market.

Our blog has been a little quiet in 2015 and no we have not been hibernating – we have been so busy preserving distressed multifamily housing and delivering a wide range of financial services in the Northwest Bronx that we have not had time to brag about it!

Thanks to the new high-efficiency Lochinvar condensing boilers, 111 families in three UNHP buildings will be warm this winter.

​It's no secret that the housing stock in New York City is aging. Here in the Bronx, the median age of multifamily apartment buildings is 87 years. In Community Board 6 it's 98 years old.

Even as we marked our 30th anniversary in 2013, much of our work continues to address the lasting impact of redlining, disinvestment and speculation in the Bronx. In the past two years, UNHP has made significant strides in our work to identify and improve distressed multifamily housing and bring needed resources to the Northwest Bronx.