New York City - According to a new study conducted by Rep. Anthony Weiner’s Office (D - Queens & Brooklyn), senior housing wait lists in New York City are crammed with over 200,000 names, leaving seniors to wait for up to 10 years to get an affordable place to live. That’s because Capitol Hill Republicans have gutted the only federal program that funds the construction of affordable housing for seniors: the Section 202 program. Rep. Weiner announced the findings today, at a press conference with housing activists.

HUD’s Section 202 housing program provides federal dollars to local non-profits to build affordable housing for low income seniors–and it’s the only federal program to do so. But years of Republican budget cuts have caused 202 funds to dry up, construction to plummet, and wait lists to skyrocket.

• NYC Section 202 wait lists are crammed with approximately 217,589 names, including 119,000 in Brooklyn, 29,498 in Manhattan, 29,376 in the Bronx, 27,715 in Queens, and 12,000 in Staten Island.
• With a total of 17,025 Section 202 housing units in NYC, wait lists names outnumber units by a ratio of 12 to 1.
• Seniors are waiting for up to 10 years to get apartments.]
• Congress has cut NYC’s 202 funds almost in half: from $71 million in 1993 to $48 million last year.
• Section 202 construction in NYC has dropped over 50% in the last nine years: from 883 units in 1993 to only 403 last year.
• On average, seniors are waiting over 5 ½ years for 202 housing in Queens, over 5 years in Manhattan, 4 years in Staten Island, over 3 years in Brooklyn, and almost 2 years in the Bronx.

"The last thing New York City seniors should have to worry about after spending a lifetime working, paying taxes, and playing by the rules is finding a place to live," said Rep. Weiner. "But the affordable housing shortage is leaving too many deserving seniors out in the cold."

The Section 202 senior housing program is critical to NYC, where sky high rents too often put housing out of reach of seniors on retirement or fixed incomes. Rep. Weiner will introduce legislation to bolster the 202 program, and address New York City’s senior housing crisis. The Senior Housing Investment Act will:

• Double federal funding for Section 202 senior housing.
• Increase funding to rehabilitate and modernize existing 202 facilities.
• Increase funding for assisted living facilities.
• Relax regulations to make construction of new 202 housing easier and faster.

To produce the senior housing study, staff in Congressman Weiner’s Office contacted every Section 202 senior housing facility in NYC to ascertain the number of seniors on each facility’s wait list. With more than 1/3 of the facilities responding, Weiner staff then calculated the average senior to unit ratio, multiplied the average by every senior housing unit in NYC, and projected approximately 217,000 names on housing facility wait lists, city-wide.