Comptroller Stringer: NYC Public Housing Needs Repairs
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer said the physical conditions at New York City Housing Authority buildings have gotten worse over recent years.
Stringer released a report on Monday that looks at data from the city Department of Housing Preservation and Development and a U.S. Census Bureau triennial survey of housing. The data covers a period from 2002 to 2011.
The report finds that overall, almost all housing in the city was in structurally decent condition in 2011. But it says the public housing had seen increases in issues, especially in comparison to market-rate housing. For example, when it came to heating equipment breakdowns, 11 percent of market-rate buildings had problems in 2011, compared to 27 percent of NYCHA buildings.
LINK: Read Stringer's Full Report (pdf)
From 2008 to 2011, Stringer said heating equipment breakdowns increased by 73 percent and broken plaster and peeling paint increased by 111 percent.
"We've let this go on too long," Stringer told 1010 WINS. "We have some 600,000 people who live in NYCHA -- that's the size of the city of Boston -- and yet we don't have an overarching plan to deal with finances and will repairs in NYCHA."
Eleven percent of owner-occupied buildings reported the presence of mice or rats in 2011, compared to 19 percent of market-rate buildings and 37 percent of NYCHA buildings. And not only was the problem worse in NYCHA buildings than in other ones, it had gotten worse in NYCHA buildings themselves, the report found, with 27 percent of them reporting mice or rats in 2002.
"Housing conditions at NYCHA have become a laundry list of tenant frustration, from broken windows and peeling paint, to faulty heaters and scurrying rats,'' Stringer said.
Stringer says it's vital to get funding to improve conditions, especially from the federal government.
"While much of New York City's housing stock remains in good condition and asset values have increased, significant pockets of our City's housing are deteriorating,'' he said. "We still have much work to do to ensure that every New Yorker has a safe place to call home.''
Stringer said it will take some time to fix the problems.
"This is not going to be an easy journey, we're going to have to have all hands on deck, we're going to have to bring in the best finance people, we're going to have to reengage Washington, D.C.," Stringer said. "We're going to have to work collaboratively with the city and the state and I'm prepared to do that."
NYCHA released a statement reading, "This report, based on data from four years ago, echoes the calls the de Blasio administration has been addressing since day one. This administration has provided more support for NYCHA than any other in decades, easing the authority's financial constraints, streamlining repairs, advancing safety and resiliency upgrades and furthering vital efforts to preserve and maintain the affordable public housing that is home to half a million New Yorkers."
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