Upstate cities confront housing shortage

Faced with a housing shortage and rising rents, Newburgh has taken the next step to embracing cost controls, City & State reports.

The Orange County community will become the second Upstate city to invoke the state’s Emergency Tenant Protection Act, which stabilizes rents if local officials declare a housing emergency and less than 5% of housing units are vacant.

Other cities examining a similar path include Poughkeepsie, Albany, Ithaca and Rochester.

At the same time that rents and homelessness are on the rise, housing assistance is declining. As the New York Times writes, “The three main federal programs for the neediest renters — public housing, Section 8, and Housing Choice Vouchers — serve 287,000 fewer households than they did at their peak in 2004.”

According to a Harvard study done at the request of the Times, “Nearly two-thirds of renters in the bottom income quintile face ‘severe cost burdens.'” That’s a record high.