Rental Housing in New York City

This study is intended primarily to shed light on the ability of the City's 2.1 million renter households to pay for adequate housing. It traces recent changes in the numbers and characteristics of the City's households, their living arrangements, and their incomes. It examines the changing pattern of rent expenditures by these households and analyzes the variations in rent expenditures among different types of households and in the City's principal housing submarkets. It shows who has benefited from the City's program of rent control and how large the benefits have been. It also shows how the system of rent control has affected the pattern of housing consumption and rent expenditures. Finally, on the basis of 1968 data, it attempts to distinguish which among the City's renter households were then unable to afford adequate housing without some form of assistance and to estimate how much assistance these households needed. (See also RM-6190.)