Landlord Bill is still here
Housing Authority Chairwoman Shola Olatoye will be gone by April’s end — the face of so many failures to keep more than 400,000 residents reliably warm and healthy that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, federal prosecutors, Gov. Cuomo and tenant plaintiffs all grasp for leverage over NYCHA’s shaky operations.
It’s tempting to breathe a sigh of relief that a leader who couldn’t manage to manage a sprawling, defective bureaucracy is gone. When the status quo is rotten, fresh starts are welcome.
But as seriously as she fumbled problems like lead paint and boiler repairs, Olatoye wasn’t the biggest thing wrong with NYCHA. It’s Mayor de Blasio who has exhibited a consistent failure of will and imagination and hemmed in Olatoye even as she tried to make bolder moves. And he remains on the job for nearly four more years.
Tuesday, sitting alongside Olatoye at a Rockaways development nicely remodeled with the help of private funding, de Blasio belatedly cast himself as leader of a reinvention soon to blossom at untold numbers of housing projects. But he’s been obstacle more than prime mover. Three years ago, de Blasio and Olatoye unveiled a plan that pledged “aggressive action” and “difficult choices” to put NYCHA, in want of billions of dollars for major repairs, onto sound financial footing.
When it came to applying city tax dollars, de Blasio delivered. Tapping $1.3 billion, Olatoye has since replaced 65 roofs as bulwark against destructive mold and leaks — leaving, whoa, 885 to go.
But the mayor has scarcely shown the nerve to take the necessary plunge into steps he now insists are “part of the solution”: private management, financing and development.
NYCHA has committed to just two real estate developers to build market rate and affordable housing within Manhattan and Brooklyn developments, still barely in blueprints.
Meantime, the Rockaways development powerfully shows how HUD’s Rental Assistance Demonstration program generates private funds for fixes. But de Blasio’s late embrace of the model leaves NYCHA years behind on getting 15,000 future apartments done, never mind more.
After a critical mass of headlines piled up on falsified lead inspection certifications and residents without heat and hot water, with federal prosecutors breathing down her neck, Olatoye finally said goodbye.
Capable enough old hand Stan Brezenoff, whom de Blasio previously tapped to be interim head of the public hospital system, is stepping in for now. But make no mistake: It’s the mayor who owns this crumbling housing stock. And he’s the one who must own the rescue.