Benefits and Costs of New York City's Middle-Income Housing Program

Abstract

A method for evaluating publicly subsidized housing is presented and applied to New York City's Mitchell-Lama middle-income housing program. Households occupying the 57,000 subsidized dwelling units received net benefits of 25.6 million, or 450 per household, in 1968. The public subsidy required to provide these benefits was 46.9 million, or 824 per unit. Hence, rather substantial nontenant benefits of 21.3 million, or 374 per unit, would have had to be generated by the program for it to be considered an efficient use of resources. Net benefits to participants were found to rise with age of household head and family size, to be lower for female-headed households, and to show little relation to income level. However, net benefits varied considerably for otherwise similar households. Finally, program participants were found to differ little on average from those occupying private, unsubsidized rental housing in New York City in 1968.