As anyone who’s ever lived in New York City (or heard of Jimmy McMillan) can tell you: the rent is too damn high.
It’s particularly bad in Manhattan, where this author once paid well over half of her take-home pay to live with a roommate in a fourth-floor walk-up on the Upper West Side–sometimes without water, and usually with mice.
So in an effort to cash in on some of that financial stress, one developer has applied for millions in tax breaks and air rights from the city in exchange for including over 50 low-income units in a luxury apartment complex along Riverside Boulevard, reports the New York Post.
Sounds like a sweet deal? Here’s the kicker: the low-income tenants will have to use a separate entrance to the building than the one used by wealthier residents. The affordable housing will also be serviced by a separate elevator and maintenance company, and be blocked off from the market-rate condos overlooking the water, despite sharing the same building.
“My immediate reaction was, ‘This is reprehensible,’” said New York State Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal, who represents Manhattan’s Upper West Side, on NewsNation Monday. “Why would they do this? What is the need to segregate low-income working-class people from the wealthy? And there is no need in my mind.”








