HBO Series Hits Close to Home

Thirty years have passed since Yonkers was ordered to build affordable housing in white, middle class neighborhoods, but the argument over integrated housing still rages on today. Westchester County is struggling to comply with the Fair and Affordable Housing Settlement, which orders the county to build 750 AFFH units in the county's least integrated communities by 2016.

Proponents and opponents are making the same arguments now as they did decades ago. That's what I realized watching the new HBO series, Show Me a Hero, which chronicles the Yonkers altercation in the late 1980's, when the city was ordered to insert public housing east of the Saw Mill River Parkway. At the time, white families, including many Italian-Americans, lived on that side of town, while public housing across the parkway included 81 percent minority residents. The new series is based on a 1999 book by former New York Times reporter and Westchester resident Lisa Belkin.

The conflict then bears many similarities to Westchester today, as the county scours the map for locations to build affordable units in densely populated, affluent communities. To make matters worse, zoning laws here often preclude the construction of multi-family dwellings, and developers would rather reap profits from a ten-bedroom mansion than a multi-family unit.

The protagonist of the HBO series is 28 year-old Mayor Nick Wasicsko. In 1987, Wasicsko unseated a long-sitting incumbent to become the nation's youngest mayor of a major city. Though he campaigned on overturning the housing order, Wasiscko soon saw that Yonkers had no choice. Facing citywide bankruptcy, Wasicsko beat back the opposition, and saw affordable housing built across Yonkers' east side.

Here in Westchester, Rob Astorino became County Executive in 2009, ending Andy Spano's 12-year reign. Astorino vowed to fight the $51 million settlement, which requires the county to build 750 units of affordable housing in 31 eligible communities by 2016. In these neigborhoods, African-Americans account for less than 3 percent, and Latino residents less than 7 percent, of the population. The settlement was reached after the county was charged with the misuse of millions of dollars of community development block grants, which were earmarked for the construction of affordable housing.

Unlike Yonkers Mayor Wasiscsko, Astorino has continued to spar with federal authorities over the terms of the settlement. As of July 2015, the county argues that it has met its benchmark to have funding in place for 450 units, but the U.S. Attorney says that Westchester has not met the mark, as 28 units planned for Chappaqua Station have not received local approval. The federal government has called for Astorino to order local agencies to grant variances, but his office argues that he lacks the authority to do so. The county has already forfeited millions in Community Development Block Grants that were denied and now faces fines of $60,000 per month in penalties for every month that housing benchmarks are not attained.

In the HBO series, residents object to "social engineering," and argue that the construction of public housing will cause overcrowding and stress in the public schools, a decline in real estate values and white flight. Opponents claim that economically diverse residents won't mix and will tear at the fabric of the community.

On the other hand, as Chuck Lesnick, former city council president, told Gina Bellafante of the New York Times, "for those who value diversity, Yonkers is a better place to live than many surrounding districts." And as a recent piece by Malcolm Gladwell argues, when disadvantaged children get a "fresh start" in a new place, their chances of upward mobility are many times greater. 

It is a thorny issue, still hotly contested all these years later. The right balance is difficult to strike – but the longer we wait to compromise, the more funds are lost; monies that could be used to build new homes that would provide local residents with better lives.