Press Release
New CSS Report Paints Bleak Picture of Government-Built Public Housing
Report is first to estimate total public housing need outside of NYC, and proposes plan to preserve 40,000 units and build 8,000 new units
Chronicling Public Housing from the very first U.S. development constructed in New York to the recent proliferation of voucher-funded private management, a new Community Service Society of New York (CSS) report, What happened to public housing in New York? The past, present, and future, provides a view of public housing beyond just the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA).
Due to the federal government’s abandonment of the Section 9 program—the New Deal era initiative to foster affordable housing and strong communities—the idea of “housing as a municipal service” has drifted out of focus in the United States. In fact, from 2020-2023,the federal government gave New York public housing authorities (PHAs) $59 million less on average than they were eligible for. This added to a total funding shortfall of more than $1.5 billion over the last two decades.
The report, which highlights the ongoing and shared struggles of state residents living in dilapidated public housing, provides the first attempt to estimate total statewide public housing capital needs, putting the 20-year capital needs for New York's public housing (not including NYCHA) at $1.4 billion to $5 billion:
- $691.6 million of these needs are require immediate attention and are backlogged;
- $417.8 million of these needs will need to be addressed between next year and 5 years from now; and
- $331.4 million of these needs will need to be addressed before the next 20 years (However, renovating and replacing some of these needs earlier will lower this estimate in the later years.)
The needs may be up to $3.5 billion more over the course of the 20 years, depending on inflation. Given that NYCHA’s 20-year needs estimate is $40.3 billion when ongoing and planned projects are accounted for, total physical needs for the state sit between $41.7 and $45.2 billion.
“The most-recent state housing plan totaled $24 billion and neglected public housing, despite the fact that more than 35,000 residents in 37 counties live in public housing developments located outside of New York City,” said David R. Jones, CSS President and CEO. “It is high time for New York to take action to stem the decline of its public housing stock. That includes significant regulatory and statutory changes to ensure public housing can exist and be successfully maintained moving forward. Among other things, the report urges government to use its purchasing power to cut construction and costs and carbon emissions, add to the state’s housing supply, truly democratize public housing, and modernize the capital formula for public housing authorities so that they can actually spend the money they receive.”
“I don’t think we as a community realize the role and legacy that New York had in furthering the idea of housing as a government service that competes with the private market,” said Iziah Thompson, CSS Senior Policy Analyst and author of the report. “Most people have internalized the fact that the housing market is not coming to fix our affordability issue. It takes government to innovate in spaces where risks are high or unknown. The housing crisis needs moonshots and New York should look to it's past to chart its future.”
According to the report, New York’s public housing authority leaders are constantly in disaster response mode, at the mercy of luck and benevolence when looking for funding sources to maintain their developments. Given the lack of federal funding, the only available option appears to be the Obama era Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) program. Under RAD conversion process, public housing developments are privately managed and can access funding options that are unavailable to units stewarded under Section 9.
While RAD conversions have strong appeal with private developers in the form of guaranteed income through Section 8 vouchers and bring needed capital into developments quickly, the change has not always been positive. Not only does the program privatize management of households, it signals the end of the goal of strengthening communities through housing investment, hollows out the public and union workforce, limits access to grants historically available to housing agencies, and has been dubbed “…lipstick on a pig…” by a director of a NY public housing agency.
Since its inception, 10,374 of New York’s Section 9 units (4.6 percent) were demolished or sold and another 21,805 units (9.7 percent) were converted to the Section 8 program. From 2010-2021 alone, the number of Section 9-administering housing authorities in New York declined from 85 to 72, as 2,259 units went through RAD. By 2030, we estimate that between 12,958 and 25,000 Section 9 units will leave the program (depending on the authorities’ abilities to close the deals). CSS found that the Section 8 project-based conversions have made funding available for long-awaited repairs to public housing developments but only when the projects create enough return on investment.
Both state and local governments in New York have large capital plans and secure billions in debt to fix and maintain infrastructure projects. However, these plans prioritize spending in almost every other area except public housing. This includes funding for museums with expensive admittance prices and private universities with exorbitant per-student tuition fees. When investments are made in housing, essential factors like permanent affordability, resident control and stability, and fair housing are often overlooked.
CSS found that New York communities with public housing are more resilient and economically diverse, with analysis showing that between 2010 and 2020:
- The population of New York counties without public housing units declined by an average of more than 1,700 residents, while the 35 with public housing units increased by 6,600 individuals on average;
- Every additional public housing unit in a New York County was associated with a 10-person increase controlling for various county characteristics.
- New York counties with public housing units had their populations of low-income households, members of a vital workforce, grow by 14 percent on average, compared to 9 percent on average for counties with no units;
- Counties with more than one thousand Section 9 units had their makeup of low-income households increase by 24 percent on average;
- Every dollar of public housing spending on capital and maintenance results in $4.05 in regional spending.
The report calls for the advancement of the PHIX New York Plan (Public Housing Infrastructure & Expansion for New York) which would:
- Preserve 40,000 public housing units;
- Build 8,000 new ones;
- Grow the economy by $9.5 billion with 47% less in an investment;
- Support 65,000 direct and indirect jobs.
The plan does this through six steps:
- The creation of a consistent and predictable public housing capital funding plan
- The cutting of costs and carbon emissions via a green mass procurement statewide initiative wherein the state uses bulk purchases, standardized green appliances and components for public housing renovations, and where possible, issues requests for proposals for the production of the equipment in New York State with a focus on making sure that Passive Haus, mass timber, and modular construction are not just the luxuries of the wealthy
- The expansion of public housing using air rights in NYC and state and local bond financing
- A new Homes and Community Renewal (HCR) public housing program that reimagines resident governance, promoting resident management corporations in the model of Guste Homes in New Orleans and a resident voting process, standardization of the process for choosing which developments are targeted, and job creation for public housing residents
- Modernize PHAs and allow them to spend capital funding
- Broadening the mandate of PHAs
- Requiring “RAD Roundtable” protections for all Section 8 conversions
- Reform public housing authority procurement, and contracting rules by amending state Public Housing Law, expanding the design-build authority, repealing Wick’s law; and
- Remove Restrictions on Local Public Housing Capital Funding
Read our full report on public housing in the state