Build It Back? Not this year
DE BLASIO administration officials could not set a new deadline Thursday to finish fixing thousands of homes damaged by Hurricane Sandy, after revealing a day earlier they would fail to meet the mayor’s promise to complete the job this year.
Leaders of the program, called Build It Back, came under fire at a City Council oversight hearing after the city late Wednesday — during the presidential debate — dropped a news release saying not all homes will be done and some won’t even have been started by the time the year is out.
“We’re upset,” said City Council Minority Leader Steve Matteo. “These aren’t numbers. These are real people. These are real people who aren’t home.”
Matteo (R-Staten Island) pressed housing recovery director Amy Peterson for information on when all 8,500 homes expected to be repaired in the program would actually be done. “Do you have an answer?” he asked.
Peterson could not provide a date, or answer a later question from Councilman Donovan Richards (D-Queens), who asked whether the work would be finished a year from now.
It will depend in part on how many families take advantage of a new option the city is offering to stay in their homes through the holidays before moving out to make way for construction.
“We’ll come and let you know . . . the plan for completing the program,” Peterson said.
Only 44% of homes in Build It Back are finished. The city says that by the end of the year, 90% of program participants will either have construction underway or have received a check to pay them back for work they funded themselves.
Peterson said the city “took very seriously” the mayor’s promise two years ago to finish the repairs in 2016, but couldn’t make it happen.
“We pushed to meet that goal. We did not meet that goal. We are unhappy that we did not meet that goal,” she said.
The troubled program is blowing past its deadline even as its budget ballooned by $500 million, which city taxpayers are on the hook to make up. It is also serving less than half of the more than 20,000 homeowners who originally applied.
“I honestly don’t know how you can sit here with a straight face after blowing billions of dollars and ask the City Council for more money,” said Councilman Eric Ulrich (R-Queens).