$30,000 a year for housing? That's average in New York.

Good morning. It's Monday. We look at housing costs in New York City. We'll also look at the state's plans to close a hospital in Brooklyn.

Housing costs a lot in New York City: about $30,000 a year for the average household, according to a report from the state comptroller that charted 2021 and 2022 rents and home prices.

That figure was 13.3 percent higher than three years earlier. And it accounted for about 40 percent of total household spending, compared to 34 percent nationally, according to the report by Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.

The report examined housing costs – including mortgage payments and property taxes for homeowners; rent for tenants; utilities; and maintenance – and found that in the ten years from 2011-2012 to 2021-2022, costs in New York increased by more than 68 percent, leading the nation. Seattle ranked second, with an increase of nearly 62 percent over the same decade.

According to the report, the increase was greatest among low-income households, but middle- and middle-income households had also felt the pressure.

Renters were hit hardest during the pandemic, despite a drop in rents in 2020, the report found. During the three years from 2018-19 to 2021-22, New York's housing cost increases ranked seventh among the ten major cities nationally. Still, as of October 2023, 18 percent of New York City residents were behind on rent — down from 26 percent in June 2021, but still well above the national rate of 12 percent, the report said.

The statistics pointed to a question that has long plagued officials: When will New York solve its housing crisis?

DiNapoli alluded to this when he said in a statement that city and state officials must “implement cost-effective solutions more quickly.”

Our colleague Mihir Zaveri noted in early January that the backdrop this year is in some ways more ominous than in 2023, when addressing the housing crisis was perhaps the most important issue for Democratic lawmakers. Since then, migrant arrivals have overwhelmed the city's homeless shelter system, and high interest rates and the expiration of a tax break for developers have slowed construction of new apartments.

Last year, hopes for a housing deal were dashed in just over 100 days. An ambitious plan by Governor Kathy Hochul, based in part on ideas borrowed from other states, was doomed by entrenched political forces.

The most vocal opposition came from lawmakers in Westchester County and Long Island's two counties, Nassau and Suffolk. They were annoyed by her proposal to build denser housing in the suburbs. Democrats worried that abandoning century-old restrictions in favor of single-family homes could cost them votes on Election Day.

Hochul has said she would not reintroduce her housing plan this year. Her supporters say some incremental improvements have already been made: She signed a bill last October to help rehabilitate affordable housing, and she took executive action, including affordable housing incentives for developers. By mid-December, approximately 19 applications for projects involving some 5,500 units – 1,400 of which are considered affordable – had been submitted.

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Too few patients. Operating deficits of approximately $100 million per year. A deteriorating building.

Those are the symptoms of what the state sees as a troubled hospital. The diagnosis is that the facility, Downstate University Hospital in Brooklyn, will need to be downsized or even closed.

Administrators at the East Flatbush hospital told doctors last week about the plan for the hospital, the only state-run medical hospital in the city. Our colleague Joseph Goldstein writes that it is not clear how the plan will affect access to medical care for residents of central Brooklyn.

Another major hospital, Kings County Hospital, part of the city-run system, is across the street from SUNY Downstate, so downsizing or closing SUNY Downstate would not deprive residents of nearby neighborhoods of access to a hospital.

But Downstate and Kings County are different. SUNY Downstate offers certain types of specialized care that are not available in Kings County. SUNY Downstate has the only kidney transplant program in Brooklyn, and hospital administrators said last week they were unsure about the future of that program.

SUNY Downstate has about 144 inpatients on a typical day, even though it has more than twice as many beds. The union representing about 2,300 Downstate workers said nearly 90 percent of patients at SUNY Downstate are Medicaid recipients, underinsured or uninsured. Downstate is part of SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University, a major medical school and research institution that is in turn part of the State University of New York.

John King Jr., the chancellor of SUNY, said the proposed changes would “strengthen” Downstate. He said the plan is to shift Downstate's inpatient care to other hospitals, with much of Downstate's inpatient services going across the street, essentially creating what he called “a SUNY Downstate wing in Kings County” is created. He said there might be 150 beds, less than half the number Downstate.

He said closing Downstate's inpatient services would free up funding and make Downstate eligible for additional state money that he said would go toward a new urgent care center and an outpatient surgery center, along with more primary care.

As for whether the changes would lead to less available health care in East Flatbush and nearby neighborhoods, he said it would increase. “This is not a budget cut,” King said.

But Frederick Kowal, the president of United University Professions, the union that represents many Downstate health care workers, said in a statement that moving services to other hospitals would shrink Downstate and “undoubtedly harm the health of the central Brooklyn community.”

“Let's call this what it is: SUNY is closing Downstate,” Kowal said.

METROPOLITAN diary

Backward Cinderella

Dear Diary:

It was 2009 and I was 23. I was sitting at a bar in Midtown with four of my best friends. We had tickets to a Girl Talk concert.

My best friend was dating my boss at the time, and it slowly but surely drove a wedge between her and me. It all came to a head that day over a pitcher of margaritas. We exploded at each other and she left for the show.

I stepped out of the bar into the sunlight. My attention was drawn to a man driving a pedicab. He smiled and asked with a Turkish accent if I wanted a ride.

“I'm with my friends,” I said.

He gestured for a second taxi driver, who later turned out to be his roommate, to come over.

“Me too,” he said. “We will take you wherever you want to go.”

We hopped into the pedicabs and went on an all-night adventure.

The driver and I started dating. We often met in Central Park, where he also drove a horse and buggy.

For eight months I felt like a retarded Cinderella, meeting him when his shift ended at midnight. Times Square looked magical as we drove through on our way back to the stables.