NYCHA ‘fix’ is in – but not repairs
Public-housing wait times surge
It’s a NYCHA-mare. New York City Housing Authority staffers allegedly have no problem fixing government contracts, but residents regularly wait more than two months for them to fix clogged tubs, leaky faucets and broken refrigerators.
NYCHA workers took an average of 65.4 days to complete nonemergency repairs during the fiscal year ending June 30, records reviewed by The Post show.
The wait is 33% longer than in the previous year, when it took 49.1 days, and a whopping 237% worse than in fiscal 2019, when the average repair time was 19.4 days.
And the latest records for the embattled authority — which saw dozens of past and present staffers busted this week in the largest single-day bribery takedown in the US Department of Justice’s history — show wait times are getting worse for the city’s 528,000 public-housing residents, climbing to nearly 66 days from September through October 2023.
“There been a lot of shady business going on for a long time and nothing is getting fixed,” said Glenn Collins, a tenant leader at Redfern Houses in Far Rockaway.
Collins said he’s been waiting for more than two years for NYCHA to fix at least a dozen problems — in his three-bedroom apartment. The radiators haven’t worked since Hurricane Sandy in 2012.
For three years, he had raw sewage leaking into the bathroom whenever upstairs neighbors flushed a toilet. NYCHA finally fixed the leak in December, after repeatedly ignoring court orders to act immediately, he said.
“No one should have to live like this,” Collins said.
Agency blames COVID
The average wait time for NYCHA to complete an “emergency” repair — usually no heat or hot water — was 27.8 hours in fiscal 2023, up 26% from 22 hours a year earlier, and 119% slower than 12.7 hours in fiscal 2019.
In Mayor Adams’ preliminary management report for fiscal 2024 released last week, NYCHA attributed poor response times to minor repairs to a “backlog of work orders” from the pandemic.
The agency’s goal for resolving non-emergency repairs is 15 days — an average it’s failed to meet since fiscal 2016. NYCHA’s target for completing emergency repairs is 24 hours — which many tenant advocates feel is too still too much time.
NYCHA workers allegedly pocketed more than $2 million in bribes since 2013 by awarding contractors $13 million in small, no-bid repair jobs at nearly 100 NYCHA developments citywide.