Tough-talk tour
Patton, in B’klyn stay, hits NYCHA-cut critics
Housing administrator Lynne Patton hit the last leg of her NYCHA tour in Brooklyn Tuesday just as her battle with city officials over federal funding was heating up.
Patton, the regional director for the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, continued to bash City Hall over NYCHA’s “humanitarian crisis” while defending President Trump’s proposed budget, which includes massive reductions in federal housing funding.
Local officials and elected leaders have decried the spending cuts, but Patton, a Trump administration representative, said critics are just playing a numbers game.
“I really resent the local politicians who are fearmongering over what they know damn well is a budget proposal, certainly not in its final form,” Patton said after visiting apartments in Brooklyn’s FenimoreLefferts Houses, one of the city’s smallest public developments. “In fact, if anything it’s $3 billion dollars more than what President Trump proposed last year,” she said. “Everybody who’s watching knows that those aren’t the final numbers.”
Patton, who’s spending several nights in the home of NYCHA tenants Leonard and Gwendolyn Jones, criticized the city over the conditions at Fenimore-Lefferts, where she said a sewage leak was spewing feces and urine in the basement.
“A big puddle of urine on the ground that we all smelled,” Patton said. “It’s not like they have to figure out where its coming from. These are things that are relatively easy to fix.”
“I appreciate Ms. Patton’s visit,” Leonard Jones said. “It shines a light to all the things we’re going through with NYCHA. This is one of NYCHA’s smallest developments and we still have big issues here. I’m glad for her to be here so things can get finally done.”
Patton has previously had sleep-ins at the Patterson Houses in the South Bronx, where she took a Zumba class with residents, and the Frederick Douglass Houses in Manhattan, where she got stuck in an elevator.
Last week, she bedded down at the Queensbridge Houses, the largest public housing complex in the nation.
Patton said she will share her observations and videos with a new federal monitor appointed to oversee NYCHA under an agreement between HUD and City Hall.
She said her report will include recommendations for more skilled trade workers, including plumbers, painters and plasterers, all good news to city officials, who say they just want the money to pay for them.
“Please tell Lynne to stop showing up for photo ops and to instead publicly condemn this PRESIDENTIAL budget whichwouldseverelyhurtNYCHA residents,” tweeted Council Speaker Corey Johnson. “She can take Zumba classes, tweet at NYCHA staff & leadership while ALSO condemning this immoral document. Let’s get real.”
Meanwhile, thousands of NYCHA residents in Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx were without heat or hot water for parts of Monday and Tuesday, according to agency data. A NYCHA spokesman had no immediate information on restoration efforts.