Press Release
The NYCHA Preservation Trust
A Plan, if realized, to restore decent living conditions to Public Housing
The New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) and its Chair, Gregory Russ, are to be commended for putting forward an approach that, if realized, will restore decent living conditions to all developments in the next decade. And it will do so without resorting to privatization or the construction of market rentals on NYCHA campuses.
The plan calls for the creation of the NYCHA Preservation Trust (PT), a new authority based on the School Construction Authority model, which would assume ownership of the remaining 110,000 units not treated in the 2018 NYCHA 2.0 Plan, under a long-term NYCHA ground lease. The PT would take charge of capital improvements, assessing the condition of each development, planning and carrying out improvements. NYCHA would be contracted to continue its role in managing its properties. Public housing would be kept in public hands.
Where will the resources come from to cover the $25 billion cost? Nearly all the remaining units are “obsolete” by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) definition—they cost more to rehabilitate than reconstruct—making them eligible for HUD’s Section 18 Disposition Program. Developments leased under Section 18 to the PT would receive Tenant Protection Vouchers (TPVs), a rent stream greater than the operating funds that come with public housing or conversions under the HUD Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD). NYCHA may have to contribute some of its existing, critically needed pool of Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers, but that should be avoided if at all possible.
State and City legislation will be necessary to create the Preservation Trust. The statutes, we are assured, will carry along RAD rehabilitation standards—to meet the 20-year capital need—and the rights and protections that public housing residents have. The PT board is envisioned to have nine members, five appointed by NYCHA, four by City Hall, and will include four resident leaders. The new authority is described as a “small bureaucracy” able to sidestep federal procurement restraints on NYCHA and contract to large-scale construction management firms (10 to 20,000 units annually) and use design-build approaches.
Affected residents will technically no longer be part of the HUD public housing program. They will be considered HUD project-based Section 8 tenants. NYCHA will leave any needed restructuring of resident organization to the initiative of resident leadership. It is also open to the inclusion of residents in RAD-converted developments. The NYCHA Section 3 program to create resident training and job opportunities is expected to be strengthened under the forthcoming restructuring plan in which the federal monitor plays a role.
This is an ambitious plan, which may encounter many hurdles, but it merits our encouragement and cautious support. Bear in mind it is, in a sense, a “worst-case strategy” should nothing else work. If Washington turns over in the upcoming national election, a number of federal initiatives may also come to NYCHA’s rescue—an infrastructure package that includes public housing and several bills proposed by Representatives Maxine Waters, Nydia Velazquez, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. These will net $70 billion in capital funds for public housing nationwide, $20 billion for NYCHA. Perhaps, in these dire times, there is reason for some optimism.
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