NYC Housing Memo 

To:	L. Carroll, Commissioner of the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development
From:	Mubashir Mirza
Subject:	Housing Market – Reform to Accommodate Job Growth
Date:	February 25, 2021

The purpose of this memo is to bring to light and voice my concerns concerning the discrepancy created by the current housing market. Affordable housing in general has stagnated, while job opportunities continue to grow.  

The research I have done has led me to believe that the housing market has gotten too competitive. While demand continues to rise this has been taken as evidence to also raise rent rates. But this competitive nature is incompatible with the ongoing rise in job opportunities. As jobs are being more available around the city, more people need housing, but as prices continue to rise few are able to acquire it. I strongly recommend rent reforms to better protect the current and future tenants. 

The entire market for houses relies on demand and high demand usually increases rent rates. The correlation between these two can explain the inverse relationship housing has with job growth. You’ll find that the majority of towns in which people have the ability to secure jobs, rent debt is at an all-time high. The fact that a job may provide reliable salary does not mean housing Will be affordable. This only ensures that people will continue to increase the demand because of a ready market. Higher demand makes it easier for landlords to control the pricing (Mulliner, Smallbone, & Maliene, 2013).  

Therefore, the majority of full-time employees would more than likely not easily acquire housing in towns in which employment is high. A situation in which housing is expensive because of the increased demand, policy-makers have always make sure they are focused on producing subsidized housing alternatives. Despite the housing market growth is not the same in every region, the housing sector might have negative impacts on the economy because high housing raises living expenses which can possibly fail to attract tenants. 

Although high employment rates are raising rent rates, the unaffordable housing originate from two factors. One being that housing consists of a greater portion than compared to other budget items individually in the majority of communities. An example would be, a singular household might spend a third of the total revenue they receive on housing costs whilst another, in poverty might keep two thirds of their salary (Mulliner, Malys, & Maliene, 2016). The other factor is the popularity of metropolitan regions, raising housing as more people relocate to urban areas. The majority of the time, policy making controls housing affordability. That being said, economists affirm that the affordability of housing is relative and asserts delivering housing quality and income therefore providing the ability to take loans, not to mention own housing facilities. 

I propose that the best way to improve the housing market, is that the state pass rent reforms, to protect tenants better and eliminate loopholes that can and often are used by landlords to raise the rent. Once more, raising housing production may not be sufficient to make housing more affordable for those who earn less according to the housing policy analyst at The Community Service Society of New York, and we need to create affordable housing along with subsidies and also rent restrictions. There could be programs to be funded for specifically helping low-income New Yorkers to get into fields which have better paying salaries to afford better housing. 

References 

Mulliner, E., Malys, N., & Maliene, V. (2016). Comparative analysis of MCDM methods for the ​assessment of sustainable housing affordability. Omega, 59, 146-156.  

Mena, Kelly and Merlino, Victoria, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Nov 8 2019, https://brooklyneagle.com/articles/2019/11/08/nycs-housing-supply-cant-keep-up-with-its-job-growth-report/ 

Mulliner, E., Smallbone, K., & Maliene, V. (2013). An assessment of sustainable housing ​affordability using a multiple criteria decision-making method. Omega, 41(2), 270-279

Memo Reflection

The assignment was a memo to be sent by email to the Commissioner of NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development, L. Carrol. I chose to him to be the intended audience for the memo because he has the ability and is in the correct position to create the change required, according to my memo. The purpose of reforming the pricing of housing and rent. The reason for this being, as employment rate rises the rent/price for housing also increases. Hence to make housing more affordable a new housing policy needs to be instated. The tone I chose to follow through with is a very formal, yet concerned and empathetic one, with clear and easy to understand explanations of the addressed issues. 

Writing this assignment helped to achieve more than just one of the course learning assignments. Mostly to enhance strategies for reading, drafting, revising, editing, and self-assessment and to engage in genre analysis and multimodal composing to explore effective writing across disciplinary contacts and beyond because I had to find and read accurate sources, then create a draft with the acquired knowledge and continue editing it until I had a suitable final draft. Another course learning outcome would be to develop in engage in collaborative and social aspects of writing processes, just because this assignment hinged on society itself. Most of the other objectives were also reached by writing this in general but not to the abovementioned extent.