Tuesday, July 8, 2008

NYC Housing Authority in financial straits

The biggest landlord in New York City gets one of the biggest bills in New York City.

Every year, the city charges it about $200 million, for everything from water to trash pickup to police services. The bill for police protection is twofold: The landlord pays $18 million for basic police, fire and other municipal services, and an additional $65 million for specialized policing.



City Criticized for Fees Paid by Its Agency for Housing


The landlord is not a wealthy private developer, but the New York City Housing Authority, the struggling agency that manages 343 public housing complexes that are home to 406,000 low-income and moderate-income residents.

The Housing Authority’s payments to the city have become the focus of new scrutiny in recent weeks, after the agency threatened to close hundreds of community centers, senior centers and resident programs to help close a $170 million budget gap.

Tenants, City Council members and advocates for public housing say the payments have contributed to the agency’s financial problems and reflect a double standard in the way the city treats the Housing Authority compared with its treatment of private landlords and other large agencies.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I understand it is a matter of time before these buildings become privatized.

Anonymous said...

A project across the street from where I worked in East Harlem went co-op a few years back.

Anonymous said...

I love that story they tell me about how Queensbridge went along with that Suna Silvercup landgrab that will permanently reflect noise back on the projects, block the sun, and make traffic on Vernon impossible.

He had a wiennie roast and a few days later the kids came to a community board meeting to tell everyone how much they loved the Great Benefactor of the community.

People in Queens get played like a violin by the politicians.

We Light Up Queens said...

I'm on the fence with this public housing issue. On one hand it would probably be beneficial to a neighborhood to turn a public housing building into privatized condos or something along those lines. On the other hand only a smaller percentage (30%?) of the people who live in public housing are on welfare. So that leaves a whomping 70% that are the working poor and the disabled. The way I see it theres nothing wrong with hard working people.

Anonymous said...

No public housing in NYC has ever been privatized.

Commenters #1 and #2 are simply wrong.

Anonymous said...

I understand it is a matter of time before these buildings become privatized.

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Rumors I heard from people living in the projects. After Mitchell Lama and StuyTown and undermining rent regs, its only a matter of time.

Oh wait, there are groups like Acrorn and the Queens group that use the churches to plump for affordable housing.

No, no, they only want massive NEW construction.....

Anonymous said...

People in the projects are not exactly the best sources for commentary on long-term city housing policy.

There has NEVER been a formal proposal for privatization of even a single unit of NYC public housing.

Stuyvesant Town is a regular apartment complex. It has nothing to do with public housing.