Another idea, OP: http://ny.curbed.com/2017/1/27/14414292/affordable-housing-lottery-brooklyn-john-catsimatidis
She can go on the email list for the affordable housing options at NYC Housing Connect.
Another thing to keep in mind about Williamsburg and North Brooklyn is that they’re next to a lot of noisy elevated tracks and they’ve become hotspots for those who want to have easy access to bars and nightlife. Great place for musicians/artists and young professionals who love that. Wouldn’t recommend it to most med students/doctors based on the ones I’ve known.
Maybe your D is the exception, but most med doctors/students IME(had 2-3 such roommates for a period of 5 years a decade ago) prefer to live in quiet/peaceful environments within close commuting distance of the med school/hospital they’re attending/working at. Most don’t tend to be eager to live in close proximity to loud bars, musical performance venues, drunk/loud patrons, and elevated subway tracks*.
They just want a close place where they can study and sleep after a long day in med school/hospital.
- I spent one year living a half block away from elevated tracks in Queens during HS. Let's just say that wasn't a year I got decent night's of sleep. Especially considering the NYC subway system runs 24/7 unlike many other cities.
Finding an existing setup looking for a roommate (Facebook or school website) may be easier.
Congratulations! I grew up next to SUNY Downstate so I am familiar with the area. Full discIosure I attended PS 235 and Wingate JHS. That said, NYC varies by location so YMMV. I am in Brooklyn every week. My family moved away from that area of Brooklyn due to the lower SOE demographic changes over time. If it was my DD, I would not permit her to live near Downstate.
Plenty of options in Brooklyn. Be prepared for sticker shock in Brooklyn. First and foremost be careful with safety and crime.
Always check out compstat for the local precint crime stats:
Local Precints: 71,67,73
https://compstat.nypdonline.org/
For example :
71 Precint reported a total of 1,305 incidents in 2016 of the following felonies:
Murder
Rape
Robbery
Fel. Assault
Burglary
Gr. Larceny
G.L.A.
68 Precint (Bay Ridge) reported a total of 843 incidents in 2016 for the same felony categories.
I would council that the decision of where to live should include consideration for the safety of life and property.
Just getting a chance to check back in on this thread, and once again want to thank everyone for the wonderful advice and tips. Sounds like we have a bit of time to do research, and I now have alot of resources! @frankie38 , I especially appreciated your mention of safety issues. When you say you wouldn’t permit your DD to live “near” Downstate, what neighborhoods would fall into that category in your mind? I did check out the link you provided for compstat, but can’t seem to figure out how to filter it by precinct, just Brooklyn North and Brooklyn South. Very interesting and useful information, nonetheless!
While crime is a present danger anywhere in NYC, Bay Ridge is far from a crime-ridden dangerous neighborhood.
If anything, most friends who are currently living there, including one who has lived there for nearly 30 years have said it was a very safe neighborhood. Several college friends who lived there for 6 years also had no issues while living there.
However, one main sticking point to Bay Ridge is commutes. Since they’re limited to the R train, if there’s any construction/other issues with that line/adjacent lines, commutes can be an extremely time-consuming ordeal. THIS was one of the main reasons several friends moved out of Bay Ridge.
D lives in Bay Ridge and it is a very safe, quiet residential neighborhood.
There are transportation options in addition to the R train. D and SIL work in Manhattan and commute by bus which picks them up on the corner very near their apartment.
I just looked up where SUNY Downstate Medical School is located, and my D lives about 6 blocks away in Lefferts Gardens close to Prospect Park. She takes the Q when going into Manhattan which is pretty quick. Someone mentioned not permitting their kid to live there. Well, I don’t permit or not permit my kid to live anywhere as she is a grown adult. She has lived there for some time and likes the location. Before Lefferts Gardens, she lived in Crown Heights and prior to that, she lived in Williamsburg.
Like @soozievt’s D, my D has moved around quite a bit during her time at her undergrad, in a city that was also new and strange to her when she first arrived, and I suspect she will do the same when she gets to Brooklyn. We’ve been thinking it might make sense to allow the housing budget to stretch a bit during her first year so she starts off on good footing, in a place she feels safe and has good commuting options, and then once she gets to know the lay of the land a bit, she can certainly move to save some $$ once she knows which areas suit her new lifestyle best.
We have seen what look like some decent options in Leffert Gardens!
You may have already done this, but have you checked with the school? They sometimes have things like roomate matching services or listings that may not be publicly available (not talking about SUNY downstate, talking schools in general), which especially in high cost areas might be a way to find something. I have seen people get things like a room in an older person’s house (not sure if that is legal in NYC, this was another city), to an apartment share where the primary leaseholder had been there a long time, so the cost was low. Worth a shot, most it can cost you is some time in contacting them…
I want to echo this advice–this is a good way to go, especially if you are looking for a sublet.
I’ve known several folks who’ve rented rooms from a homeowner in NYC and Boston and no one I’ve known had any legal issues arising from it. Heck, knew some undergrads who did this not only in major cities, but also at my rural LAC.
It is, however, illegal to rent a section of the house as its own self-contained apartment if it lacks a bathroom, kitchen, etc. There were several local news stories in both cities about local housing authorities sanctioning homeowners for renting out such “illegal apartments”.
Wishing you luck with the search, but a quick question… isn’t there housing for med students on campus? Daughter is a Vet student and with her wicked schedule of classes and labs, she is seldom in her dorm room. Most of the time she spends in study halls, lab, with her study group or the library. She does a small amount of cooking in her dorm, but barely has time to even shop for food. Does your daughter really want to have to shop, cook, clean and commute? The dorm is cleaned by the school and vendors come on campus to sell produce, the campus bus takes them to the market. Many times the study groups are late night or early morning. On occasion, a professor will call for a last minute “lab”, it isn’t required, but it is understood that attendance is critical. At least for the first yr, I would suggest that if you can, look at any dorms that may be available. Congratulations and best of luck to her.
I strongly recommend the Prospect Heights area. It’s an easy 20 minute commute to Downstate if you’re close to Eastern Parkway/Flatbush Avenue, and it has the same feel as Park Slope (lots of nice restaurants and bars, close to Prospect Park, the Brooklyn Museum, etc) at a lower price point. I lived in Crown Heights for a year, and have been living in Prospect Heights for a few years now, and I love the area. Crown Heights can also be nice, however it tends to be more expensive than Prospect Heights due to the trendiness of Franklin Avenue in recent years. Also, deeper into Crown Heights (past Kingston Av) still feels reasonably sketchy, though the area has been gentrifying quickly. Feel free to send me a message, because I am very familiar with the area and apartment hunting in Brooklyn in general!
Keep in mind that not all grad/professional schools guarantee housing for all their grad/professional students…especially past the first year.
Also, many grad/professional students IME tend to grow wary of being beholden to dorm rules/regulations which may be fine for boarding HS students/some undergrads…but may feel very smothering and helicopterish for someone who has outgrown that those earlier developmental stages.
Dorms are offered but in order to gain NY state residency for tuition purposes (D is not a resident) for years 2-4, you must have a lease for the prior 12 months for housing that is not student housing.
Another vote for Prospect Heights. D has been there since August and is quite happy. She commutes to Manhattan, and personally I feel the trip is way longer than I would tolerate, but that’s not an issue for OP’s kid.
D1 lives in Williamsburg and D2 lives in Gowanus. Rent is reasonable (for NYC) for both. Niece 1 lives in Park Slope. She likes the neighborhood, I think, but not the roommate.