For decades, Black and Latino residents of New York City’s public housing have lived with the consequences of systemic disinvestment, neglect, and broken promises. So, when the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) announces new plans to redevelop public housing land through mixed-income models or public-private partnerships, it is no surprise that many residents respond with deep skepticism.
Their mistrust is not irrational — it is rooted in history, experience, and a persistent failure of government at all levels to prioritize their communities.
NYCHA, the largest public housing authority in the country, serves more than 500,000 New Yorkers, the majority of whom are Black and Latino. Since the 1980s, federal support for public housing has steadily declined, leaving NYCHA with a capital repair backlog that now exceeds $50 billion. Elevators break down regularly, heat goes out in the winter, and mold festers in bathrooms.
This chronic neglect has created a profound climate of distrust. When residents hear about plans to bring in private developers or construct mixed-income buildings, many fear displacement, rent hikes, and the erosion of their rights. They worry that “revitalization” is just a euphemism for gentrification.
Despite this, there are encouraging signs that it is not business as usual these days at NYCHA.
Recently, I had an opportunity to sit down with top NYCHA staff to discuss resident engagement, tenant survey data and reflections from our own tenant advocacy and organizing work. From that dialogue, it seems to me NYCHA not only understands that their success modernizing the city’s vast public housing stock hinges on greater resident trust and buy-in, but they are open to innovative ideas for how to achieve it.
Unfortunately, the perspective of many residents is that pilot programs like PACT (Permanent Affordability Commitment Together) are often rolled out with limited transparency and uneven results. To be fair, the RAD model has offered progress toward the preservation of public housing stock. Through it, federal funds are being unlocked to bring in higher levels of rental assistance that have been leveraged to make comprehensive repairs possible to aging public housing developments that might otherwise fall into further disrepair.
Still, the top-down introduction of the program through the NYCHA Next Gen and 2.0 Initiatives, makes resident engagement an afterthought. For example, NYCHA’s PACT residents are asked to choose a development team before they have knowledge of the state of their building or are surveyed with little clarity on what the re-development program will mean for them. Too often, residents are informed late in the process and given limited opportunities to shape the outcomes.
A Resident Tool for All Developments
But it doesn’t have to be this way. Last year, my organization partnered with private architecture and engineering firms Peterson Rich Office and ERA Architects to work with the tenant association of 1471 Watson to produce a resident-led booklet including an assessment of the property , resident preferences, and an expression of how THEY want to tackle major renovations.
Built in 1970, 1471 Watson is a 96-unit public housing development in the Soundview section of the Bronx. It is home to approximately 144 residents, many of them senior citizens with longstanding ties to the community. Like so many NYCHA buildings of its age, Watson suffers from severely deteriorated mechanical systems that put at risk the health and safety of residents. The six-month process to form the booklet revealed that residents understand the severity of housing quality issues but also their place in the climate and environmental emergencies facing their communities. Resident voices matched the assessment of the engineers: piping restoration, exterior waterproofing HVAC upgrades, roofing and window replacements are needed urgently.
Beyond assisting 1471 Watson residents in charting a renovation pathway for their building, we hope NYCHA will embrace this booklet as a blueprint for engaging public housing residents and tenant associations in the pre-development stage on potential strategies to remedy acute housing conditions.
Rather than a “top-down approach” the booklet is part of resident-informed model that must include giving tenants a balance of power during the development process and a vote prior to deals closing. Because public housing tenants are not passive recipients of aid; they are experts in their own communities, with decades of lived experience navigating broken systems. Their voices must be central to any effort to rebuild public housing.
NYCHA’s future as the city’s most affordable housing resource depends on its ability to secure funding, modernize infrastructure and adapt to changing urban dynamics. But if these efforts are perceived by residents as a threat rather than a lifeline, they will fail.
New York City has a chance to lead the nation in equitable public housing reform. But that will only happen if it listens to the people who have kept NYCHA alive through years of neglect. They deserve more than consultation — they deserve real control over the future of their homes.
David R. Jones, Esq., is President and CEO of the Community Service Society of New York (CSS), the leading voice on behalf of low-income New Yorkers for more than 175 years. The views expressed in this column are solely those of the writer. The Urban Agenda is available on CSS’s website: www.cssny.org.
Memo to David Jones, Esq. :
Do not take your foot off NYCHA—ever. Do not forget that a mere four years ago NYCHA had about four hundred empty apartments. Today there are over five thousand empty NYCHA. How did this happen? Moreover, how are tenants suppose to live amid apartment renovations? The City is now asking entire NYCHA developments to be rebuilt; for example six story NYCHA buildings in Fulton Houses are planned to be torn down and replaced with twenty story “market rate” buildings that will “let” NYCHA residents live in. Imagine the elevator ride with a NYCHA resident and a market rate resident? Where are the NYCHA residents going to live during the three to five years it will take to rebuild these buildings?