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Comment by BoxFour | Hacker News Reader

> The uptick in rental delinquency isn’t new. It started six years ago

It has nothing to do with Mamdani, for those of who don't want to bother to read. Most of this occurred under Eric Adams's watch.

Anecdotally, I do think covid made people a lot more aware of how deeply backlogged the housing courts are. It seems like a lot of people (like the anonymous one in the article) realized they could not pay rent and avoid being actually evicted for quite some time.

This is a recurring theme in city problems: Backlogged courts. Sometimes that's to the benefit of the less fortunate (here), but it also often results in terrible outcomes (see: Kalief Browder).

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I think even the benefit for the less fortunate here is at most a short-term one. In the longer one, you need building and renting out shelter to be reasonably profitable, so that people do it.

It's basically the same argument that says rent caps are bad for the renters in the long run.

We don't always have to consider the apparently very fragile and fickle motivations of investors. Social housing can and has worked very well in many cases.

Where has it been successful, and what counts as success in that? I genuinely do not know.

It's been exceptionally successful in Singapore, for one.

I currently live in an HDB property in Singapore. It's great.

I'm originally from the Netherlands, which traditionally had a strong social housing sector: regions and cities would have their own housing corporations ('woningbouwcorporaties') tasked with building affordable housing. Those corporations were given government support after 1950 to help with the post-WW2 housing shortage, but were semi-privatized in the mid-90s, and in 2015 their scope was strongly curtailed.

It would be reductive to say that this privatization was the sole cause of the current housing crisis affecting the Netherlands -- rents and housing prices have also increased a lot in Singapore since Covid -- but it probably didn't help.

Rents and housing prices went down a lot in Singapore during Covid. So them going up again afterwards is just a reversion to the mean.

Singapore doesn’t have social housing. HDB is government built and sold for 99 year lease hold.

You're describing a form of social housing.

No. Because HDBs are not owned by the government.

Yes. Because "social housing" is a general term that implies subsidization and affordability rather than any one specific ownership model.

No. Social housing is government owned and rented. Singapore is government built and sold. Singapore is a tiny island with little space. The government has to control what is built where and avoids it turning into Hong Kong slums.

You're being stubborn. From Wikipedia:

>Public housing, also known as social housing, is subsidized or affordable housing provided in buildings that are usually owned and managed by local government, central government, nonprofit organizations or a combination thereof.

ITS NOT OWNED AND MANAGED BY THE GOVERNMENT.

You literally just quoted why it’s not public housing. Jesus Christ.

Wikipedia says 'usually'. And, yes, you are right that the individual HDB flats are typically owned by individual families (though the government also owns some and rents them out, but that's the exception).

However, HDB still does a lot of the managing. Eg HDB manages the lifts and other common spaces. They organise getting the exterior repainted, or general upgrading works to plumbing etc.

HDB also subsidises the price of a flat when you buy directly from them. There's a reason they have maximum income caps for buying.

My unpopular opinion: HDB should declare victory and go home. They more than solved the original acute housing shortage they were created for.

---

Singapore does a lot of things right. And HDB is, as usually a lot more competent than pretty much any other public housing programme anywhere else in the world. But that doesn't mean everything Singapore does (including HDB) is automatically a good idea forever.

Just like our local recreational drug policy could probably be improved by moving closer to what we do with the casinos. And the ban on vaping is just silly.

> However, HDB still does a lot of the managing. Eg HDB manages the lifts and other common spaces. They organise getting the exterior repainted, or general upgrading works to plumbing etc.

By that logic every apartment block is public housing.

No, why? The condos in Singapore are run by private-sector management companies.

Because someone manages the lifts lights and exterior. So it must be public housing by your logic.

Huh? HDB, which is an arm of the government, manages lifts, light and exterior.

The condo management companies are not arms of the government.

What is so hard about this? Is there something I'm not understanding?

If the criteria to be public housing is that someone manages the lifts, lights, and exterior. Then all apartment blocks are public housing. Condos and HDBs are all public housing.

The criteria for social housing is that the government subsidized it.

That's all.

Pushing the goalpost to justify your classification.

Not really. The goal posts have not moved since the beginning. I'm still claiming the same thing, and the definitions are the same.

How about you read the wikipedia article on public housong in Singapore: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_housing_in_Singapore

It says: "In 2025, close to 80% of Singapore's resident population was reported to be living in public housing,[1] down from a high of 88.0% in 2000."

Let's follow that reference, and take a look at what the Singaporean government says, at https://www.mnd.gov.sg/our-work/housing-a-nation/public-hous... , under the section title "Public Housing":

"Singapore has one of the highest home ownership rate in the world, due to the commitment of our founding fathers since the very beginning of nation building. Today, there are more than 1 million HDB flats across the island, home to close to 80% of Singapore's resident population. The schemes highlighted below help Singaporeans meet their housing needs at different life stages."

So the dictionary says that HBD housing is public housing, wikipedia says that HBD housing is public housing, and the Singaporean government says that HBD housing is public housing.

Your logic is infallible. Of course, your premise is rubbish.

It's not about whether 'someone' is managing these things. Even an owner-occupier is managing their own lights and exteriors.

A useful criterion is whether the government (or an arm of the government) is managing these things. Like HDB, but unlike your typical condo management organisation. It's far from the only criterion, but it's a useful indicator.

The definition is qualified: "usually", "nonprofit organizations", "combination".

>Jesus Christ.

Sometimes I'm disappointed by the level of contributions here.

I can say the same about your “contributions”

You can’t go calling things they are not.

For the benefit of any others (miraculously) still reading, I will repeat the statement of fact that you continue stubbornly to deny against all evidence: "'social housing' is a general term that implies subsidization and affordability rather than any one specific ownership model".

Others will make up their mind. Over and out.

For the benefit of any others. Bluebarbet has never been to Singapore and ultimately doesn’t know what he’s talking about. HDBs are not public housing. It’s land control because Singapore is so tiny.

Primarily Vienna. There's nothing complicated about what Vienna did - other cities just prefer to please billionaires instead of providing services to citizens.

Do you actually know what Vienna did? Because the overwhelming number of people who reference the city basically just repeat a few dubious talking point about restricting rent.

I don't know about restricting rent but they certainly had a progressive tax on high rents, a 1% income tax to fund housing, and then used that to build a ton of high quality social housing with balconies and amenities for all. I also like to think it helped that they slapped a big sign on each to proudly let people know it was their tax dollars at work.

I didn't stay in social housing while I living there but I never once heard people complain about it. They basically just didn't think much about it at all and felt it was a good system and then would ask me why the US only makes it for poor people.

Have a massive empire and then lose it resulting in a capital city with surplus housing?

That was Berlin several decades ago. The gap has closed now and it's just another city.

Well, Berlin's history was a bit more complicated. Between the 'losing the empire' bit and the 'surplus housing' was a whole generation or two of the city being divided and one part living under siege and the other under real world socialism.

But you are right, that surplus housing is no longer a thing in Berlin.

I mean, to be fair, having your population semi-permanently depleted by two major wars and a fundamental loss of national economic centrality and prestige will help you keep a fixed stock of social housing lasting longer.

Vienna's population has been growing constantly for the last 40 years.

Basically, all of Europe post-WW2. A significant share of new build in the 50s-60s was social housing.

No one absolutely no one considers that to be remotely true. Look at French banlieues, German Plattenbauten or British Councils - they are synonymous with Crime and physical as well as cultural despair.

And while Vienna or Stockholm are often cited as Utopias, the citees often intentionally leave out the negative side effects (ie. Waiting-times of years, housing black markets, etc) that are eventually coming full circle to the thing they were proposed as a solution against. Just with much less transparency.

There have been social housing projects that paint a more nuanced picture, eg Hamburg-Steilshoop, where a giant block (for EU standards) has been erected in the 1970s and was basically divided into three sections: one to be run by existing housing coops, one by owner occupants, and one by the city. Needless to say that those parts run by the city were quickly becoming a prime example of a German „banlieue“ while the other parts became a prime example for those eager to dismiss any criticisms.

> Look at French banlieues, German Plattenbauten or British Councils - they are synonymous with Crime and physical as well as cultural despair.

Sure, because what existed before was absolutely fine [1][2]...

The truth is that these policies worked so well that pepole completely forgot what existed before. The alternative to housing projects wasn't a country without crime or despair, it was more crime, shanty towns, people displaced by war and unable to get back to normal life, and young workers unable to move to places of employment in the postwar economic boom. That topic was so uncontroversial that every european government, leftwing or rightwing, did it.

I agree that a social housing project alone isn't enough to fix every problem, but that doesn't make it the source of other unsolved problems.

[1]: Nanterre's shanty towns, https://www.defense-92.fr/exposition/la-vie-des-bidonvilles-...

[2]: pre-war shanty town, https://www.theguardian.com/cities/gallery/2019/jul/04/how-p...

This was aggravated by modern city planning with it's separation of function that left these new districts with no third spaces, barely any shops and large spaces of 'no man's land' between buildings.

In classics European cities there were shops on street level and dense blocks that generated demand for those.

The post war developments followed the 'high rise in the park' concept, lots of greenery and parking lots between buildings to create a mid density neighborhood.

But there is no life in the streets and you have to walk a lot through repetitive environment but to do anything you still have to go to the 'old city'.

High rises were far from being the only, or even the dominant model for social housing in Europe. Different plans such as low rises, semi-detached houses and single homes also got implemented.

Those are even worse - you need a certain density for urban life, otherwise you'll just create large empty spaces that belong to no-one, so nobody feels responsible for them.

Unfortunately, most housing "investors" are people who bought a home 10-30 years ago and will be furious if they can't sell at a large profit compared to what they bought it for.

Sadly, a lot of places (Netherlands and Ireland come to mind) _discourage_ you from investing in things like stocks, and _encourage_ you to "invest" in a primary residence, making the problem even worse.

Seems like a non sequitur?

If you want people to be able to live in a place without paying rent, please just outright gift that to them and make that official policy. That may or may not be good policy, but at least it's honest.

But if the deal that people agreed to is to pay rent, then the courts should also enforce that.

You can get from one regime to the other, by eg buying out the landlords or outright expropriating them. But if you want to do that, please just advocate so outright.

Social housing may or may not be a good idea. But it's a completely separate issue from non-enforcement of existing rental contracts.

Not a non sequitur. I was responding to this specifically:

> In the longer one, you need building and renting out shelter to be reasonably profitable, so that people do it.

Maybe. That narrower focus definitely makes your remark more defensible.

On a tangent: along with most economist, I generally prefer giving poor people money that they can spend on goods and services as they please; instead of having some pencil pusher decide what they need and giving that to them in-kind.

Eh, I agree with the general point that rental housing has to be financially viable over the long run. I just don’t think NYC politics lets this particular problem turn quickly into a clean “landlords stop renting/developers stop building” outcome. It’ll look a lot weirder.

Affordable housing is too central to NYC democratic politics for the city/state to simply let a large share of subsidized housing totally collapse. More likely, they keep patching it with public money: arrears assistance, vouchers, preservation funds, regulatory tweaks, etc. That’s already basically the pattern.

The real likely long-term problem is that the city robs Peter to pay Paul: It props up housing operations by reducing funding for other services, creating recurring subsidy obligations, or risking pressure on its fiscal position and bond ratings.

They’re already doing that all the time: Part of how Mamdani plugged the budget gap, for example, was by delaying a classroom size reduction in public schools.

Obviously, I don’t think that’s a great long-term strategy. It turns a blind eye to an enforcement problem in favor of a recurring taxpayer-funded operating subsidy.

It's a shame that NYC can't raise more from property taxes / land taxes?

They sit on some of the most valuable real estate in the world, surely that should be able to find public infrastructure etc? Especially since the density they have would allow them to provide the infrastructure rather efficiently.

But they are so ham-strung / incompetent, they still have surface level street parking on public roads. Surely, there's more valuable uses of NYC real estate than that, and the market would be more than happy to find them.

(At least they made some inroads recently by introducing some congestion pricing. As neutered as that programme turned out, it's a lot better than nothing, which they had before.)

They can and it often comes up: One of Mamdani's tax proposals was to raise property taxes, though he backtracked on it.

Still, NYC's municipal budget is already the largest in the world by far. When I last looked, it was roughly double Tokyo's and bigger than many countries: NYC's municipal budget is larger than Singapore's, for example, and obviously NYC's budget gets to exclude things countries pay for like national defense.

It's likely they will need to continue raising taxes, but we also need to take a hard look at how effective each dollar being spent is.

You can't blame Adams for delinquent payments. He dramatically expanded housing vouchers (the source of the budget crisis) which in theory should have reduced delinquency.

Moreover rents for affordable housing haven't kept up with inflation while benefits have.

Arm chair speculation like what's in the article won't suffice. People need to be surveyed and interviewed to get to the bottom of this.

I can and do put some blame on Adams here, but I don’t think the story is ineptitude or corruption, at least on this issue. I think his administration mostly chose to prioritize the long-term housing supply problem, even if that meant more short-term pain for tenants.

He had a pretty good "Abundance-style" agenda IMO: City of Yes didn’t go far enough, but passing it at all was a big deal in NYC land-use politics. Various tax policies like 485-x are at least serious long-term attempts to restart housing production, even if the details are debatable.

> He dramatically expanded housing vouchers

This is being extremely charitable to Adams. The big CityFHEPS expansion was vetoed by Adams and the city council overrode him. The Adams administration was clearly skeptical of short-term tenant-side relief.

You can see that in simple things like his rent board appointees: Adams-era boards approved rent increases every single year. I'm not saying that's bad and it's in-line with his general view of housing as a supply-side problem. He inherited a system coming off years of freezes and very low increases under BDB, so some correction was necessary.

But overall when given the choice, he did choose to inflict a bit of short-term pain for a longer-term view.

It’s fascinating that America can be the world’s superpower(?) and yet huge swathes of society still live in unstable conditions like this.

> It’s fascinating that America can be the world’s superpower(?) and yet huge swathes of society still live in unstable conditions like this.

Because huge swathes of society choose to live in these unstable conditions.

They could move to Detroit or even Salt Lake City, but they prefer the lifestyle of New York City.

.. and the jobs? I mean, people moved out of Detroit precisely for that reason.

Just man up and ask your dad for more access to the family trust-fund. Work isn't the only way to make income you know.

Not to mention that to move they would need to have resources to do so. And in many cases would take them away from what little interpersonal safety net they have in the form of friends and family — which for people who are struggling typically makes things worse.

That's what it usually takes. To be a superpower, the government has to extract a lot from the citizens. Russia is an even more extreme case.

So say they do get evicted eventually, what are their chances of getting the next rental?

In a Palantir style totalitarian state with panopticon tracking of everyone's every thought, action and history? I'd say pretty good!

The founders of palantir didn’t finish reading the books

i assume they also owe back payments? with interest?

Blood from a stone. Sure the landlord could theoretically go after them, but they would spend a bunch of money on legal fees for someone that will probably never pay it back.

Politico is an Axel Springer rag, in case anyone was wondering why they would put a photo of mamdani in the article. It's propaganda.

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