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>> The cost of housing has risen
dramatically over the past few
years.
Helping drive levels of
inflation not seen in decades.
One key factor is in many places
they have not kept up with
demand.
Long Island east of New York
City, flagged behind the nation,
they have built less housing
over the past decade than almost
any comparable area in the
country.
After decades of a fight, there
are over affordable housing, he
reports on efforts to push for
more development.
>> A 14 acre eyesore in
Huntington, Long Island.
>> 146 units of affordable
housing.
>> Right now it looks like
scrubland.
>> Right now that is what it is.
If you like this for 43 years.
>> 43 years.
She runs housing help, the
nonprofit setting out to build
here when Jimmy Carter was
president.
Legal opposition and approval
delays have blocked it through
Reagan, bush, Clinton, bush,
Obama, trump, and Biden.
>> The cost of housing in long
Island has significantly
increased year after year.
Even for a young professional.
Because there's hardly any
housing.
You can see the sign that bus
drivers are needed.
This is all throughout long
Island.
>> The battles over affordable
housing are a national
commonplace.
The police is making up long
Island is a high percentage of
detached homes and a large
county in the country.
I lived on the second floor.
>>>> How much did it cost?
>> $3000 a month.
One bedroom apartment.
>> For the young folks who grew
up here and wanted to say,
buying was a pipe dream, renting
a nightmare.
You cannot afford it?
>> Unfortunately, I could not.
A good public high school,
university, a good paying job,
yet the market rate apartments
in Huntington are pricing out
young professional making
upwards of $100,000.
>> Where has the opposition come
from?
>> A large part are the newbies
in the town of Huntington and
Long Island.
People who don't want affordable
housing in their backyard.
Determined to preserve the quiet
suburban they moved to, and make
the resistance heard.
>> Is not just an issue, it is
exclusive housing, density,
traffic, schools.
>> We have to talk about making
it affordable for everybody.
When this gets built, that is
great for the 146 people who
will live there.
What about everybody?
>> Hector.
>> Developers like to build.
If they can put more people in
the same space, they will want
to do that.
That creates more high-density,
more people, and more congestion
and traffic.
>> But mainly insists it is
government subsidies to develop
for lower income residents
taxpayers will ultimately pay
for.
To drive his opposition to
projects.
>> We don't have an
affordability problem, we have a
tax problem.
One of the highest property
taxes, he's contributing to
that.
I'm ok with building any billing
as long as it doesn't cause tax
meters you always have a
surprise into having to
subsidize.
Like continuing to pay all the
taxes.
She thinks --
long had a problem that
precedes.
>> Tell it for what it is.
We are the is -- history.
There was a lot of fear.
>> It is fear with a history.
In the 1940's, farms were being
turned into neighborhoods.
The iconic community was the
model.
Single-family homes built as a
community.
They returned from World War II
and could afford them.
People of color explicitly kept
out.
More recently, after a newsday
hidden camera investigation, new
York state cited three real
estate brokerages for
discriminating against
homebuyers of color.
No surprise to appeal her, who
immigrated from Peru and
eventually settled on long
Island in 1986.
>> Within days that I moved into
my house, I got a message from
my door saying I don't belong
here, that I need to move out.
>> I refused to move out, they
sent a second note saying they
will burn down my house.
I got a third note they were
going to kill me.
When I received the third note,
I was so pregnant, I said I'm
not going to put the life of my
baby at risk.
So I told my neighbors I'm
moving out.
>> Enough convinced her to stay,
keeping an eye on her house, and
she became unaffordable housing
activist who finally sees more
Long Island neighborhoods come
around now that they are aging
as she is.
>> I don't have to go from being
a helicopter mom to being an
airplane grandmother.
There is a place for my
grandchildren.
For my adult children to move
in.
A place for me to live when I am
>> >> A senior citizen.
Just as important, the cost of
Long Island's economy.
80 two people making parts of
the military on Long Island
saying she could hire 10 more as
his lord employees from other
states.
>> Paid their rent for a year,
it was on them to find their own
place.
>> Year year on you, you are
paying the rent.
>> It was sticker shock to the
cost of living.
Renting a place here is upwards
of $3500 a month.
>> The CEO has a message for
neighbors.
>> You taxpayers are benefiting
from my employees working hard.
The number of employees I hire,
the number of employees getting
paychecks, buying food, I'm your
economic impact making this
region successful.
I'm telling you as a business
owner my people can't afford to
buy a house.
They are going to leave.
It is hard enough to compete for
talent.
Now I have to find someone
talented and able to afford
housing.
>> She's so desperate, she is
looking for help from above.
>> I'm looking at my roof,
50,000 square-foot building,
wondering there is structural
engineering issues, but I'm
thinking the footprint of the
building, how many apartments I
can put up there.
>> Apartments right up there.
>> Can I put a second floor?
20 of my employees right on top?
We've got to do something.
>> I asked the gas station owner
across the street about the
opposition.
>> Used to be a lot, I don't see
many people anymore.
>> Because they need the worker?
>> Yes, and understand how
expensive it is living in long
Island.
>> For the moment, the weeds
still rule.
By early next year, shovels will
uproot them.
146 units of affordable housing
will rise.
They 43 years late, but better
than never.
For the pbs newshour, Paul
Solman.