Boro President, Tech Developers Offer Fix For NYCHA Woes
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) - Local leaders calling for transparency and accountability from the New York City Housing Authority say they have a modern idea to help if the agency approves.
CBS2's Reena Roy was in Brooklyn's Fort Greene neighborhood where residents recorded cell phone video showing a bathroom ceiling dripping water from a leak at the Walt Whitman Houses.
"It was hard, I was getting frustrated," said NYCHA resident Clara Perez. "Why should I live like this?"
Perez says despite multiple complaints to NYCHA, it took a month for workers to address it, forcing her and her children to shower at friends' houses.
"I had to be on top of them, putting a lot of tickets in," she said. "It's not right."
It's a situation many public housing residents often deal with.
Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams and tech developers are proposing a modern CompStat system to help expedite repairs by tracking them in real time - how they long take, how much they cost, and which worker does what - then using technology to analyze all that data for maximizing efficiency
"This is centralized way and documenting and ensuring you're getting the services you should be getting," said Adams. "We have to demand that NYCHA become more transparent."
While the agency does have an online portal, Adams says it's not enough and that workers should be held accountable.
In a CBS2 exclusive investigation earlier this year, a NYCHA employee himself agreed, claiming management ordered staff to fraudulently close out work orders if a tenant wasn't home, leaving jobs incomplete.
Adams says the idea was first proposed to NYCHA several months ago but nothing moved forward.
He's now hoping to set up another meeting with the agency and the tech innovators in hopes of getting the ball rolling.
