Gallo Likes Some Affordable Housing Projects, But Not Others

I wonder why?:

Mayor Shayne Gallo supports a plan by an affordable-housing provider to turn a former Midtown factory building into a 55-unit apartment complex.

Gallo said the renovation project by Rural Ulster Preservation Co. would transform a vacant building, add to the city’s housing stock, serve to help revitalize Midtown, and provide an oasis for young artists and couples.

“It would improve the quality of life in that neighborhood and contribute to the revitalization of Midtown,” Gallo said. “We need to do anything we can to revitalize Midtown and the (project) goes a long way to that end.”

Those of us with a memory that stretches back more than a few weeks will recall that Gallo sang a very different tune about affordable housing during the campaign:

Mayoral candidates from both major parties said on Wednesday that they strongly oppose a plan to build an affordable housing complex at the site of a former welfare motel in Midtown.

[. . .]

Shayne Gallo, an assistant city attorney seeking the challenge Clement in a primary for the Democratic mayoral nomination, said he, too, opposes the housing plan.

“Midtown has a disproportionate number of poor and low-income people,” Gallo said. “We need to have development at that site to diversify and create and foster an environment for all classes of people to live and work in Midtown.”

Gallo — who announced his candidacy at an event in the King’s Inn parking lot and has made the revitalization of Midtown a central theme of his campaign — said for-pruchase housing, such as condominiums or townhouses, should be built at the King’s Inn site.

Really? Some of the poorest people I know are artists. Many of the residents of the proposed RUPCO development are likely to receive government assistance. And if it says "affordable housing," it's very likely to be receiving money from HUD.

One might be tempted to suggest that Gallo has a problem with the demographic profile of those who would have lived in the Safe Harbors development. A more cynical person would say that this is definitely the reason. "Poor and low-income" is just the latest euphemism.