Comptroller Stringer Op-Ed In The New York Post: Fixing NYCHA Is Up To The Mayor

(New York, NY) — The New York Post published an op-ed by New York City Comptroller Scott M. Stringer on the lessons learned from the Comptroller’s 15 audits of the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) and the desperate need for accountability and 24/7 leadership at the top.

Text of the op-ed is available below and can be viewed online here.

Growing up in Washington Heights, I could see firsthand the impact the New York City Housing Authority had on hundreds of thousands of families. NYCHA provided so many with a foothold to a brighter future.

It promised quality housing for working-class New Yorkers who would form the backbone of New York — seniors, immigrants and young families striving to make it. For poor New Yorkers or those who had suddenly fallen into money troubles, NYCHA was a lifeline out of homelessness.

That was the idea behind ­NYCHA back when Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia started building public housing in the 1930s — it was aspirational housing for the poor and working class. Nowadays, NYCHA has turned aspirational homes into a horror for too many of New York’s most vulnerable residents.

From busted boilers to leaky roofs to dangerous children’s playgrounds to years’-long maintenance backlogs to vacant apartments to non-working elevators, NYCHA apartments simply don’t work for too many of the people inhabiting them.

The list goes on: damaged doors, runaway contracts, lack of storm preparedness. Mold. Mice. Lead. All horrific.

Our 15 audits and investigations of NYCHA are a true catalogue of horrors that must be a roadmap to real, permanent solutions for the 400,000 New Yorkers who call NYCHA home. In fact, our newest audit of NYCHA’s roof dysfunction shows how the mismanagement causes a cascade of harm — lighting millions of dollars on fire and leaving toxic living conditions for residents.

In our office’s review of public housing in the five boroughs, we found deficient conditions on 88 percent of the NYCHA roofs we sampled — sagging roofs, pools of standing water, open seams, ­debris and blistered and cracked surfaces.

Damage on just 19 roofs alone could cost New Yorkers $24.6 million to repair later on. But it’s not just future costs. NYCHA has already burned through $4 million at one development by forgoing a 20-year warranty and replacing eight roofs just halfway through the term — instead of getting the roof repaired at no taxpayer expense, under the still-valid warranty.

It’s abundantly clear: City Hall must step up and put an end to the dysfunction. Because we are now past the point where leadership is called for — it’s already overdue.

We are either in the business of providing public housing, or we’re not — there’s no middle ground. We can’t fix NYCHA with a part-time focus. The massive challenges that exist — leaky roofs, lead paint, dangerous playgrounds, busted boilers — aren’t part-time at all, they’re persistent. They threaten the health and lives of children. This situation is no joke. It should sear and agonize consciences at City Hall.

Right now, with a new federal monitor and an incoming NYCHA chairman, we have an opportunity for change — to make the story of aspiration at NYCHA recognizable for those who grew up only knowing that story.

That can only happen with an engaged City Hall and a NYCHA chairman who jumps in with both feet to tackle the task of reform — 24/7. The same is true for Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Because when leaders are away, NYCHA residents are here ­confronting the crumbling conditions of their homes. The ceiling won’t fix itself. The mismanagement won’t just fade. And systemic problems won’t get fixed if we only point the finger and pass the buck.

It’s time to return NYCHA to its original and noble mission — a place where striving, working-class New Yorkers could find dignity in a decent home.

That means City Hall must look at all the issues we’ve raised, the issues raised by the Department of Investigation, the issues raised by the US attorney and most importantly, those raised by NYCHA tenants each and every day — and finally take some accountability and action. That’s all we are calling for.

It’s about damn time.

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