Thursday, March 18, 2010

NYCHA getting bailed out

From NY1:

Public housing is about to get a big boost from the federal government.

The New York City Housing Authority is set to announce $210 million in private funding, and another $65 to $75 million in annual federal funding.

The money will go toward renovating and maintaining more than 20,000 public housing units in 21 complexes.

As part of the deal, the 21 developments are being sold into a public-private partnership with Citigroup, reports say.

NYCHAS, which will still manage the developments, says the partnership was the only way to obtain the financing, and officials say they will remain low-income housing.

Critics say the move could be the first step toward privatization of the complexes.

25 comments:

Anonymous said...

Tear them down. Every other city in america has done that and the world DID NOT END.

Anonymous said...

I agree. They should be torn down and normal housing built in the place of most of those monstrosities, complete with a reconstructed street grid, since these projects are just megablocks that destroyed entire neighborhoods. And that was just to make room for them, and we all know what happened after they went up. Queensbridge Houses, for example, takes up more space than the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, a stadium used for the Olympics. I don't know if it's a good idea to build a football stadium on where Queensbridge Houses is now, but I'm definitely sure that the area would be a lot safer then than it is now.

Anonymous said...

"...I'm definitely sure that the area would be a lot safer then than it is now."

You're definitely sure of that, are you?
You're sure that the area would be safer when it's a no-man's-land 90% of the time - i.e. when no event is taking place - than it is now, when there are people there 24/7? Occupied housing at least means eyes on the street, or on the superblock or what have you.

Anonymous said...

queensbridge houses is prime real estate- with excellent subway service and water views

tear it down and let the people live in all the foreclosed homes in jamaica

Anonymous said...

All that money just so the residents can rip out the plumbing and piss in the elevator.

Anonymous said...

You're definitely sure of that, are you?
You're sure that the area would be safer when it's a no-man's-land 90% of the time - i.e. when no event is taking place - than it is now, when there are people there 24/7? Occupied housing at least means eyes on the street, or on the superblock or what have you.
----------------------------------
After you get your head out of the sand, could I have whatever it is that you are smoking?

Anonymous said...

of course Bloomberg wants to give the banks the people's stimulus money. this fucking crook get away with so much because people are so fucking stupid

Anonymous said...

"Critics say the move could be the first step toward privatization of the complexes. "


Of course it is. Does anyone at all think it isn't?

Anonymous said...

"You're definitely sure of that, are you?
You're sure that the area would be safer when it's a no-man's-land 90% of the time - i.e. when no event is taking place - than it is now, when there are people there 24/7? Occupied housing at least means eyes on the street, or on the superblock or what have you."

Yes, I'm damn sure of that, my bleeding-heart liberal friend. No public housing means a lot less crime is going to take place, since public housing creates the most ghetto, crime-friendly environments imaginable. Also, eyes on the street from occupied housing, or should I say, occupied public housing, is rendered useless as a result of the "stop snitching" fad. You didn't think that through, did you?

Anonymous said...

Tear them down. Most projects are drug havens. All these buildings do is create a criminal environment. They are an eyesore too. Stop spending our money on crap. Use the stimulus money for our infrastructure, i.e. electricity and sewer upgrades. We have so much overdevelopment, yet no infrastructure upgrades.

Barrack Hussein Obama said...

Not so fast!

Public housing is the bedrock of our country!

In fact, over 99% of the folks who live there voted for me!

Anonymous said...

They tore down Cabrini Green on Chicago's north side, where entire buildings were taken over by drug gangs. They spread the residents around the lower and middle class areas of the city with no problem, and built smaller, more manageble public housing units on the site of the former towers. They could easily do that here, although I would guess that the only difference would be that the Queensbridge site would be filled with luxury condos, considering its location and views of Manhattan.

Deke DaSilva said...

They spread the residents around the lower and middle class areas of the city with no problem

HA HA HA!

How many are you willing to accept into your condo tower?

Anonymous said...

I hope Mikey Bloomberg isn't reading this blog. The idea of tearing down the Queensbridge Houses would make a lightbulb go off in his head. Imagine his developer friends buiding luxury houses with waterfront views of the East River? It would tie in with all the other development in Astoria and LIC. I bet he's salivating at the thought right now.

Anonymous said...

How many are you willing to accept into your condo tower?
----------------------------------
My condo tower? I think not. Hey, all I am saying is that it wouldn't be so bad to start taking down these failures of social experimentation. Plenty of room for the residents of Queensbridge in Jamaica and Far Rockaway.

Queens Crapper said...

And then what happens when you tear down Jamaica and Far Rockaway projects?

Anonymous said...

I hope Mikey Bloomberg isn't reading this blog. The idea of tearing down the Queensbridge Houses would make a lightbulb go off in his head. Imagine his developer friends buiding luxury houses with waterfront views of the East River? It would tie in with all the other development in Astoria and LIC. I bet he's salivating at the thought right now.
-----------------------------------
And you don't think that isn't already in the works?

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...

They tore down Cabrini Green on Chicago's north side, where entire buildings were taken over by drug gangs. They spread the residents around the lower and middle class areas of the city with no problem, and built smaller, more manageble public housing units on the site of the former towers. They could easily do that here, although I would guess that the only difference would be that the Queensbridge site would be filled with luxury condos, considering its location and views of Manhattan.
________

Well if you look or have lived there you would know that failed miserably and now theres crime all over the north side of Chicago in neighborhoods that were once pretty good. Is anyone commenting realizing how many people live in those public housing units and how spread out smaller buildings would be to replace that?
And no it did not work in Chicago at all. Look at the luxury buildings right next to whats left of Cabrini in the small buildings where crime is still persistent.
People relocated to the North side have brought the gangs with them and their lack of education and bad up bringing.

Anonymous said...

marcy stand up! now we know what jay z was doing at the white house.

Anonymous said...

Some of the ignorant comments on this thread are baffling. There's a pervasive view that residents of public housing are inherently criminal and should be relocated to improve some sort of heinous agenda of "beautification." A real, just solution is needed, and privatization or relocation are not the answers.

Anonymous said...

"Some of the ignorant comments on this thread are baffling. There's a pervasive view that residents of public housing are inherently criminal and should be relocated to improve some sort of heinous agenda of "beautification." A real, just solution is needed, and privatization or relocation are not the answers."

You sound way too much like one of those social "engineers" who thought up that hideous idea of large-scale public housing in the first place. Don't you ever get that with public housing projects, there's always a criminal element that follows along, especially for lack of any way of screening tenants (thank you ACLU)? Of course you won't, they're supposed to be perfect, right? Are you going to sit there and deny that the criminal element even exists? Also, what's so heinous about beautification? I guess you want those neighborhoods to remain permanently blighted, avoided by anyone who can help it. After all, it's too cruel and may hurt your feelings if someone tried to turn those neighborhoods around.

And what is this "real, just solution" that you speak of? The status quo? Anything that will involve continuing to provide for people who refuse to get a job or make any sort of living? What the hell is so wrong with relocating public housing tenants, when there is normal housing stock available, as well as ample empty lots for additional normal housing to be built, like in the South Bronx, the Rockaways, and East New York, not to mention the previously-mentioned idea of building normal housing stock on the sites of the public housing projects themselves? Do you want to keep them in welfare housing forever, doomed to continue living in intergenerational poverty? I guess so, so lefties like you can feel sorry for them, pretend to care about them, and have a solid Democrat voting bloc for a similar period of time.

Anonymous said...

I work for NYCHA. The two biggest problems are the low-life tenants who destroy their own homes, children and neighborhood and the jerk-offs in management who allow them to do it and who jump for these vermin because they are afraid of being called racists.

If you are a tenant in NYCHA, you can move your bowels in the elevator on the way up to your home/crackhouse and then call 311 and somebody will go up there and mop it up, eventually, probably after it ferments for a few hours.

I never ceased to be amazed out how utterly disgusting some tenants can be.

To call them animals is an insult to animals. Remember, a building is only as good as the people who live in it, low-life people = low-life neighborhood.

You want to know why they wont be torn down? Nobody wants to flood the streets with scum. Ha-Ha

Anonymous said...

Citi-Corp now owns the projects. Along with the Federal Government they are doubling rents for the working class who who by the way do live in NYCHA. Look at Chelsea Houses. They've sold the parking lot. Broke every promise; Low to middle income apartments will now be middle to high-income.The buildings original height has grown by six stories. Garbage from this new complex will be stored on the remaining NYCHA property. For a one bedroom apartment you will have to have an annual salary of atleast 150K. Any area that the banks, universities and so-called Not For Profits want are subject to Eminent Domain. Watch that your area isn't targeted.

Anonymous said...

Some of the people who comment do not live in public housing.. as a resident of amsterdam addition it is appalling to see how the building is treated by a good 1/4 of the tenants who creat all the havoc.. you would THINK it was the whole building.. try to say something and you get assaulted or driven out.. for 10023 all of the losers and crackheads should be driven out period.. most of us work hard and just cannot afford the 2000 plus rent that equals a mortgage with n option to buy... now QB is another story and a gutter culture that glorifies no education crime and whores has a lot to do with it... my 2 cents

Anonymous said...

"tear them down"?? how many of you actually live in a nycha housing development?
However dangerous or ugly they are, they are affordable. "Normal housing" built in its place? Okay. Tear down all the projects in NYC. All the people displaced will come knocking on your door when they can't afford that "normal housing."