The notion of affordable housing that is too expensive may seem counterintuitive, but city housing officials say their efforts have focused, in particular, on an underserved population of New Yorkers who struggle to make ends meet but earn too much to qualify for public housing and other government assistance. That has helped a broad section of the city’s workers survive in a rental market that is among the most expensive in the nation.

But many housing advocates and community leaders say that the city’s efforts have failed to help many of the poorest residents, who face long waiting lists for public housing and a shrinking pool of other options. They also say that the plan has failed to stabilize neighborhoods like Highbridge, where residents are being priced out by rising rents.

“The point of an affordable housing program is to be affordable,” said Moses Gates, an author of the report, which examined more than 124,000 affordable housing units that were developed with billions of dollars in public subsidies from fiscal 2004 to fiscal 2011. “If the housing built is not actually affordable to the people living in the neighborhood, the affordable housing is just housing.”

Housing advocates say the city relies heavily on federal housing subsidies and, as a result, is constrained by federal income guidelines for occupants. They say the federal government estimates that New Yorkers earn more than they actually do for several reasons, including because the government uses a complex formula that factors in income levels in wealthier suburban counties and not just in the five boroughs. On top of that, they said, the federal guidelines also account for the fact that rents are higher in the New York area than nationally.

Tom Waters, a housing policy analyst with the Community Service Society of New York, a nonprofit group that advocates for the poor, said the report highlighted a common problem for the city’s low-income families. “I would love to see these programs tilted more towards lower-income people, especially in neighborhoods where they are being displaced,” he said.