Critics, admit it: NYCHA is improving
Over the years, we’ve fought many battles with the New York City Housing Authority over quality-of-life issues — including repair times, mold and community centers. We know from personal experience that NYCHA is not without its serious problems.
But it’s clear to us, and should be clear to all New Yorkers, that Mayor de Blasio has made the city’s Housing Authority a priority. For the first time we can remember, New Yorkers have good reason to believe that NYCHA can become a more productive, responsive landlord for the 403,000 people who call public housing home.
Upon Shola Olatoye’s appointment as NYCHA chair and CEO in February 2014, de Blasio, recognizing that the authority was in the worst financial shape of its history, tasked her with two mandates: reset the relationship with all stakeholders, including residents, employees, elected officials and community advocates and create a long-term plan that would enable the authority to overcome its challenges and ensure its future.
The chair and NYCHA staff at all levels, in broad partnership with those who live in developments as well as community advocates, elected officials, union leaders and policy experts at other city agencies and housing organizations, examined the most pressing issues demanding practical solutions: aging buildings in need of repair; federal funding shortfalls of more than $2 billion since 2001; a large senior population aging in place; and a waitlist the size of a small city.
NYCHA gathered input from all involved and crafted Next Generation NYCHA — a realistic, comprehensive strategy to revitalize the Housing Authority into a viable, healthy public resource that New York City can actually afford to maintain. That plan, calling for a transformation of the authority far more ambitious than anything in memory, requires some dramatic and unpopular changes to the way NYCHA operates. But this chair, with the mayor at her back, has the courage to take bold steps.
Next Generation NYCHA focuses on 15 specific strategies to preserve and protect public housing for future generations. The work has already begun.
Take repairs, for example. Under the leadership of Olatoye, the time it takes to respond to a service request has declined by 90% in the past two years. In January 2015, NYCHA started a pilot program at 18 developments which decentralizes property management, giving residents more decisionmaking opportunities and improving customer service and satisfaction.
The mayor has already provided unprecedented financial support to execute the new vision: his waiver of NYCHA’s $30 million “payment in lieu of taxes” and relief of payments to the NYPD totaling over $52 million in 2014 and $70 million in 2015 will fund critical repairs.
He committed $300 million in capital funds over the next three years to replace roofs, addressing a seemingly intractable mold problem, protecting the health of residents and reducing maintenance workload and operating expenses.
This isn’t small stuff, and there is momentum to get the authority on firmer fiscal footing.
While we do not agree with everything NYCHA does or plans to do, we know Olatoye is someone who we can work with over the long haul, and it’s plain as day she has the full confidence and support of de Blasio to make the changes NYCHA needs to protect and preserve the city’s precious public housing stock.
The financial and physical challenges a network of 328 aging developments did not appear overnight; it would be unrealistic to think that the solutions Olatoye has proposed will wipe away years of disinvestment and neglect in days or weeks. But between her vision and leadership and the mayor’s support and historic investments, the future is brighter for NYCHA and its residents.
The mayor and chair are making bold moves