Blaz misses deadline to hire new NYCHA leader
Mayor de Blasio blew the deadline on Tuesday to name a new head for the beleaguered New York City Housing Authority.
The search for a new leader is part of the city’s deal with the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and the federal department of Housing and Urban Development to fix up dismal conditions including lead paint and mold in the city’s public housing. As part of the deal, any new chairperson must be picked from a short list approved by both HUD and the Southern District.
De Blasio acknowledged the midnight deadline would be missed hours before it arrived.
“We want to get it right,” de Blasio said at a news conference. “It’s a big, big decision.”
He said the delay was a mutual decision.
“We all are trying to achieve the same outcome,” de Blasio said. “It has been a very cooperative collaborative process. There are daily conversations on this process. Dozens of candidates have been looked at, and we saw some more candidates, by acclimation, by agreement that we wanted to take a look at. So everyone agreed that we wanted to take more time.”
The mayor did not say if any candidates had turned the job down. He said the search will take “several more weeks,”
A HUD spokesman said all parties involved had agreed to extend the time frame by another 45 days.
“All parties will continue to work collaboratively to identify the best available candidate to fill this important position and carry out the critical work of providing NYCHA residents with decent, safe and sanitary housing,” the spokesman said.
The authority is currently being led on an interim basis by Kathryn Garcia, who left her day job as sanitation commissioner to take over until a new leader is found, as part of the deal with the feds.
HUD’s regional administrator, Lynne Patton, spent a month living in various NYCHA buildings across the city and called the conditions “nothing short of a humanitarian crisis.”
Patton accused the city of mismanaging federal funding and said she thinks criminal charges should be pursued. She also questioned why finding a new NYCHA chair was taking so long. City leaders have criticized her and the Trump administration for cuts to the federal housing budget.