Now, WNYC housing reporter David Brandt, who is reporting on a new study that found

a third of New Yorkers pay at least half their monthly income on rent and also on May

or out of his newly announced policy of restricting shelter stays to 60 days for family of asylum

seekers who've come to the city recently. The limit was originally just for single adults,

now families with children. David always good to have you on. Welcome back to the show.

Thanks a lot Brian. Can you tell us about the new stats on how much people pay and what's new there?

Well, they're pretty striking and pretty depressing and I don't know if that's new but it's

it's just the latest reminder that people, tenants in New York City are having a hard time.

That's hundreds of thousands of millions of tenants in New York City so you mentioned it. Half of

all renters, more than half of all renters in New York City are paying at least 30% of their

income toward rent. You know, federal guidelines recommend that people pay no more than 30%.

Most people in New York City are paying that and much more. A third of New York City tenants are

paying half their income on rent and that's, you know, 400, 500,000 people, 500,000 households.

And you look at the numbers, you know, it sounds like kind of crazy to be paying that much toward rent

but when you break it down, it's actually not even that much relative to other apartments, I guess,

in New York City. So if you're making $40,000 a year, you're paying $20,000 rent. It's only about

$1,700 a month. That's low income people, middle income people, you know, making $100,000 a year

comes to about $4,200 a month. And for a family, maybe in a two bedroom, a three bedroom,

that might be considered not so high in this kind of weird dynamic we have. So it really is affecting

a lot of people. How have these numbers changed over time? Well, it's been since 2005 so that

the majority of New York City renters are paying more than that 30% threshold so that every three

years the city's housing agency, Department of Housing, Preservation and Development and the US

...