Fighting fires, but not owning homes

Many of L.I.’s Bravest are financially unprepared to realize the American Dream

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Shortly after Fred Senti, 28, a chief with the Lakeview Fire Department, got engaged, he was looking to rent an apartment with his fiancée for $2,000 a month when he was advised otherwise. “My friend told me, ‘You’re going to be paying someone else’s mortgage; why not pay your own mortgage?’” he recalled. Luckily, Senti had enough money to make a down payment, and became a proud owner of his own home.

Unfortunately, many firefighters his age aren’t in his shoes.

According to several recent studies, Long Island is losing its young adult population because of its unaffordability. A 2014 study by the nonprofit Community Housing Innovations organization found that, since 2000, villages and towns with the most expensive housing have seen young adults, aged 25 to 34, leaving at unprecedented rates.

The exodus causes not only a “brain drain,” but a “train drain” as well for fire departments and ambulance corps, which invest countless hours in training new recruits, and arranging for grants to pay for their education, only to see them leave because they cannot afford to buy homes.

For Brian Monahan, a captain with the Malverne Fire Department, the trend started affecting his own family almost 10 years ago, when one of his sons, a six-year member of the Malverne Volunteer Ambulance Corps, left for North Carolina. “Matthew ran there because he couldn’t afford Long Island,” Brian said of his son. “His personal goal was to buy a house. He and his wife wanted to start a family, and couldn’t see how they could afford it here.”

The housing situation is also creating financial difficulties for another of Monahan’s sons, Peter, who is also a Malverne firefighter and lives with several friends in a rented house. “There are five people in that house, and they only have half the house,” said Brian. “But the problem is, you find something affordable, you can’t afford to make it livable.” According to Monahan, a house with a sale price of $325,000 in the area would probably require another $50,000 to be made acceptable for living.

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