Poughkeepsie – The Poughkeepsie City Council passed a memorializing resolution in support of the REST Act.

“Poughkeepsie is a perfect example of a locality where an obvious housing emergency was too difficult to prove under the current law where localities must conduct vacancy study and show a vacancy rate of 5% before they can opt into rent stabilization. More than 50 percent of all households in Poughkeepsie are housing-cost-burdened, meaning they spend over 30% of their total household income on housing costs. Among those households, approximately 630 homeowners and 2,935 renters spend more than half of their income on housing costs, which is considered “severely cost burdened.” This means that roughly one in three renters in Poughkeepsie spend more than half of their income on housing costs. Housing costs this high are especially difficult for low-income households as it leaves little money left over for other necessities, let alone savings. Among all households in Poughkeepsie that are spending more than half of their income on housing costs, 69% of them have an annual household income of less than $28,380, which is just 30% of the Area Median Income (AMI) as defined by HUD.

Hundreds of Poughkeepsie residents are on long waiting lists for subsidized housing

The City of Poughkeepsie Housing Authority oversees 359 housing units in five locations throughout the city. There are 684 households on the Poughkeepsie Housing Authority waiting list, and the average wait time is six and a half years. The larger the household, the longer the wait time – the average wait time for a four-person household is almost 12 years.