I was delighted to hear Jamie Rubin discuss affordable housing and his role in NYCHA. I valued the honesty with which he discussed his path to his current position and throughout his speech. I believe that as college students, we make the mistake of assuming that we will only pursue one field or career throughout our lives, when in fact, we are likely to pursue several different career paths. 

Nonetheless, I learned more about affordable housing than I did before coming into this session. Something that surprised me was to revamp all NYCHA housing, we would need 80 billion dollars ideally. Knowing this number shows us the complexity of this issue which is nowhere near easy to fix. To answer the question Professor Kirschner asked in class, I think this is why affordable housing is not seen as a priority in terms of the other issues. It requires immense financial resources, time, and focus to tackle, and the results will not give New Yorkers the solution they want in an attainable timeframe. In a city with so many other matters, long-term solutions like this often get pushed aside for other urgent issues

 Another subtopic I wanted to discuss is the population. New York City is already congested, and housing availability is limited.  This begs the question—if we continue to advocate and push for more affordable housing, will NYC be able to accommodate all of these people? While increasing affordable housing is significant, we also need to tie in other factors like transportation and infrastructure. Overall, I think affordable housing is an important issue to advocate for if New Yorkers want to keep their residents in the city.