Op-ed | How do you measure a housing crisis? Talk to New Yorkers.

The New York City skyline.

File Photo by Dean Moses

How many apartments are available to rent in NYC? Is housing really more expensive? When people say there’s a housing crisis, is that just rhetoric or is there data backing that up?

As New Yorkers, we know the answers to these questions because we live the housing crisis firsthand. We know that when a low-cost apartment comes on the market, it won’t be available for long. We know how much we spend on rent each month, and we know how much it’s eating into our paychecks. That’s why when City leaders needs good, reliable data on our housing market we turn to the people who know best – New Yorkers themselves.

About every three years since 1965, the City’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development partners with the U.S. Census Bureau to conduct a rigorous survey based on tens of thousands of interviews with real New Yorkers at their doorsteps about our housing market and how we live. This one-of-a-kind study, known as the New York City Housing and Vacancy Survey or the NYCHVS for short, provides rich details on the state of housing in our city. In fact, new interviews are being collected right now, and you may be asked to participate.

Consider these findings from the 2021 NYCHVS as a snapshot in time: less than five percent of rental homes are available for rent. Even fewer homes under $1,500 are available for rent – less than one percent – the lowest it’s been in 30 years. The typical New Yorker needs to make twice as much to afford the city’s median rent, which is pushing $2,750. And half of the city’s renters are considered rent burdened, with a third spending over half their monthly income on rent.

Altogether, the NYCHVS takes a precise picture of what it’s like to live here that we can compare to past versions. But it’s not simply a snapshot either. It’s a scientifically conducted survey selecting 15,000 addresses throughout New York City to represent the overall…