Poverty is not only about income. It is about what money can buy. Many people talk about the high cost of food. Others talk about gas prices. Health care is a concern for all, including the middle-class and the poor.

Shelter is yet another concern. Most call it housing.

New York City is big and rich. It is the financial center of the U.S., and that means the financial center of the world. Amazon recently said it was opening a center in New York City. Along with other new projects, NYC will soon be a tech center as well.

Like other cities, New York has its share of low-income people. But poverty in New York is not the kind of poverty found in Haiti or Central American nations. It is not about searching for scraps of food as people do in Venezuela. It is not about inflation where money buys nothing as is taking place in Yemen.

It is about housing. Rent in NYC is the biggest expense for many families. The drive is for affordable housing. Affordable means that only about thirty percent of a family's income should go for rent.

There are two crises in New York City. One is about the cost of housing. The other is about the quality of the housing.

Overseeing public housing in NYC is the job of the Housing Authority. NYC has more public housing than any city in the country. Most of the stock is in terrible shape. It is not only the terrible shape of apartments. It is the terrible shape of stairwells, elevators, lobbies, and hallways. The worst part of NYS public housing is that the lead in the paint on the walls is poisoning children.

It is a public scandal. Heads at the Housing Authority will roll. New management will come in. The Mayor will express outrage. The public looks to the government for solutions. Here, the government is the problem.

The new answer is to turn some projects over to private landlords. The question is how to make it profitable for them? The answer is to make housing a public-private partnership. For example, there is space above and next to public housing projects. New dwellings can go up in the space. Building new housing is a way to get new money that can go for repairs and maintenance in old buildings.

Tenants and advocates are always on the watch in New York City. Advocates suspect landlords will try to take advantage of tenants. Tenants suspect that if new tenants are paying more rent, they will drive out lower-income tenants. Observers call it "gentrification".

Cities become rich by attracting the best people to work in the best companies. They do not grow by helping lower-income families. But political leaders are elected by all the voters. At election time, politicians make promises to the poor. Most of the time even the best intentions are hard to achieve.

What will give low-income people their best chance to succeed? It is a hard thing to do. It is to organize. In a city as vibrant as New York City, it is a struggle to get heard above the noise.