Her district includes East 21st Street and the Lower East Side, the site of many subsidized buildings.

Armand D'Amato said that as a legislator he was frequently called by people trying to get into subsidized buildings.

Mr. Konkus, who built a subsidized building for the elderly on Kenmore Avenue two years ago, said he would never again undertake a subsidized project.

But in 1997, Congress passed legislation that made it possible to get financing to rehabilitate some subsidized buildings.

He and his wife still found too many dark, small places and daunting co-op boards, along with subsidized buildings with income restrictions they didn't meet.

There is an eight-year wait for government rental vouchers or an apartment in a subsidized building, city officials said.

Nonetheless, he said, because some of the subsidized buildings are in neighborhoods where values have soared, owners will receive a much higher return by withdrawing from the Federal programs.

Unable to afford a market-rate apartment, she lives in a subsidized building on a gang-dominated block of the South Shore.

Applications for tax abatements available for partially subsidized rental buildings like West End Towers have been filed and developers are waiting to hear.

Mortgages on the subsidized buildings are all federally insured.