As a Brooklynite, you probably think about rent as much as someone your age in Kansas thinks about every single imaginable topic that is not rent. Kansas doesn’t have such compelling songs about it though, so you’re still here, trying to find a place to sleep that requires less than 60% of your income but also mean you don’t have to share a bedroom with three other people. We’re with you in the search, and we’ve found some gifts from the affordable housing gods that could get you a studio for as low as $500 a month. Get in now and stay rent regulated before East New York gets rezoned into the new Williamsburg.
There are 223 brand new affordable housing units opening in East New York, and NYC Housing Connect is accepting lottery applications for them now through July 1st. Eligibility is based on your income, so if you make between $18,515 and $24,200 a year, you can apply for a $500/month studio or a $538 /month 1-bedroom apartment. There’s a pretty large range in the number of units available, with $861 1-bedroom and $1,042 2-bedroom units featuring the highest availability. To get one of those one-bedrooms , you’ll need a household income between $30,926 and 36,300. More plentiful are two bedroom units for $1042 a month, and you’ll need a household income of $37,166-41,460 to qualify for those.
The spots are near the 3 and L trains along Sheffield , Georgia, and Williams Avenue and include a laundry room, indoor bicycle parking, and a 24-hour attended lobby. There’s no application or broker’s fee, and for half the units preference will be given to people who already live in Brooklyn Community District 5, which includes East New York, Cypress Hills, and New Lots. Five percent of the units preference municipal employees, so if you work for the city you better get in on this. Interviews aren’t being held until two to ten months after the July 1st deadline, but you can apply here and in the mean time make a sacrifice to the bodega cats and Gowanus rabbits that we imagine are the rent gods’ earthly forms.
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It seems to me that there are a lot of places which will charge you an arm and a leg (No pun intended) for rent. Meaning that it's not viable for those who are single with one job. I would be more than happy to live somewhere affordable for once. $500 a month is very affordable for a lot of people and I do hope that more places offer apartments for this rate.