NYCHA: Failure is not an option
What challenges face the New York City Housing Authority?
How will the NYCHA board and leadership tackle these challenges?
Major Challenges
Unprecedented financial crisis Families hanging
in the balance
Increasing reliance of NYCHA residents on community and social service programs
Aging buildings - many dating back to the 1930s and 40s
Financial Crisis
Since 2002, NYCHA has received $700 million less in operating subsidies than its federal funding formula requires.
NYCHA’s capital subsidies have been cut by a third over the past decade.
These crises have resulted in a structural operating deficit and a $13 billion capital shortfall through 2015.
Families
With vacancy rates in New York City remaining at an all-time low, the most impacted are low- to moderate-income families.
Nearly 161,000 families are on the waiting list for public housing, and approximately 125,000 families are on the waiting list for Section 8 housing.
21,936 applicants are on both waiting lists
Families
The turnover rate in calendar year 2011 for NYCHA conventional public housing apartments was 3.29%.
The vacancy rate of NYCHA apartments available for occupancy was 0.70% as of February 1, 2012.
Because of the varied need priorities that comprise a family’s profile and the low turnover and vacancy rates of apartments, it is virtually impossible to establish an average waiting time for a family to enter conventional public housing. Some applicants can be matched up with an available apartment in months, while others often have to wait years.
Reliance on Social and Community Programs
NYCHA’s programs and services are often a lifeline to residents, especially children, teens, single parent households, seniors, and families in crisis; thousands of residents use these services that directly cost NYCHA more than $75 million, only $12 million of which is funded by grants.
Aging BuildingsRecent years have brought unparalleled fiscal challenges for NYCHA as it strives to maintain and preserve its 178,000 units of affordable housing.
Budget deficits and continued underfunding have forced the Authority to cut 11 percent of its maintenance workforce since 2005. This makes it harder for NYCHA to keep up with the pace of needed repairs at its 2,602 buildings, most of which are between 40 and 70 years old.
More than 280,000 repairs are needed citywide with an average of eight pending work orders per apartment. NYCHA estimates it would cost approximately $500 million to make interior repairs to all NYCHA apartments’ most basic needs.
How does NYCHA recover?What is being done, and what more can be done to help?
Creating New Homes
The New York City Housing Authority is working in coordination with the City's Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) and Housing Development Corporation (HDC) to take advantage of the full complement of available housing programs to achieve the Mayor's goal of 6,000 affordable housing units on NYCHA property.
NYCHA's inventory of vacant land and available development rights provides NYCHA with significant opportunities: Underutilized public housing
property can be a catalyst for new affordable development including: Family or senior rental housing Homeownership housing Retail to meet local shopping
needs and/or Schools and other community
facilities Monies obtained for this
property will be reinvested to preserve existing public housing.
Expediting Repairs
NYCHA launched a repair task force in June 2011 grouping a team of skilled workers to help reduce significant the backlog in repairs and to reduce wait times. The team of workers targeted buildings with the highest number of work order repairs per apartment.
In just 6 months, the repair teams that includes carpenters, plumbers, plasterers and maintenance workers successfully completed nearly 40,000 repairs, in almost 10,000 apartments citywide. Because of this effort, there were more than 90,000 more repairs completed in 2011 than in 2010, a six (6) percent increase.
Community InvolvementNYCHA launched PlanNYCHA in 2011. PlanNYCHA is a call to action to the public meant to outline the challenges facing public housing, and inform on ways to assist NYCHA in resolving the difficulties it is facing.
“As NYCHA continues to grapple with Federal budget cuts we will seek innovative new financing structures to best leverage available
funding.”
– NYCHA Board Member Emily Youssouf
Nonprofit and private sector organizations can help public housing achieve fiscal stability and strengthen NYCHA communities.
Resources
http://www.nyc.gov/html/nycha/html/about/plannycha.shtml
http://www.nyc.gov/html/nycha/downloads/pdf/plan-nycha.pdf
http://www.nyc.gov/html/nycha/html/about/factsheet.shtml
http://www.plannycha.org/ http://www.plannycha.org/nycha-cannot-fail/ http://www.plannycha.org/the-plan2/major-challenges/ http://
www.nyc.gov/html/nycha/html/news/repairs-receive-rapid-response-from-new-nycha-taskforce.shtml
http://www.nyc.gov/html/nycha/html/preserving/repairs.shtml