Understanding Housing Inequality in New York City

By: Ismael Garudo, Matthew Rao, Micah Ardayfio

New York City is facing a housing affordability crisis that affects millions of renters across all five boroughs. Housing affordability refers to the relationship between what households earn and what they pay in rent. When housing costs consume too large a share of income, families are forced to make impossible choices between paying rent and covering other basic needs like food, healthcare, and transportation. This crisis is driven by three interconnected forces: rising rent burden (the percentage of income spent on housing), the decline of rent-stabilized housing (apartments where rent increases are legally limited), and increasing evictions (legal processes that forcibly remove tenants from their homes). While these issues have deep historical roots in New York's housing policy, they have intensified dramatically over the past decade, creating an urgent need for New Yorkers to understand the scope and geography of the crisis.

The fundamental problem is that most New Yorkers lack a clear, data-driven understanding of how the housing crisis manifests across different neighborhoods and boroughs. Rent burden varies dramatically by location, with some neighborhoods experiencing rates above 40% while the federal standard for affordability is 30%. Rent-stabilized housing, which historically protected tenants from dramatic rent increases, has been steadily declining citywide, yet most residents don't know where these protected units are concentrated or how quickly they're disappearing. Eviction patterns remain similarly opaque, even though evictions create devastating ripple effects including homelessness, job loss, and family separation. The COVID-19 eviction moratorium temporarily reduced evictions starting in 2020, but as protections expired in January 2022, eviction rates began climbing back toward pre-pandemic levels, leaving many vulnerable households at risk. This project transforms fragmented housing data into an accessible narrative that empowers everyday New Yorkers to understand the crisis affecting their city. Our primary audience includes renters facing high rent burdens, tenants in rent-stabilized buildings worried about losing protections, and families at risk of eviction, all of whom need clear visual explanations to understand their own vulnerability and advocate for change. We also aim to support housing advocates, community organizers, and tenant rights groups who struggle to communicate the scale and urgency of the crisis to broader audiences. Through three focused dashboards covering rent burden, rent stabilization, and evictions, we provide a comprehensive yet digestible view of how housing instability manifests across neighborhoods and boroughs, making abstract policy issues concrete and immediate for those most impacted by the housing crisis.