NYCHA fundamentally flawed

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To the editor:

The Riverdale Press is to be congratulated on its timely and perceptive Nov. 27, 2014 editorial “Rethink NYCHA.” 

When NYCHA came before the Board of the New York City Housing Development Corporation during the prior city administration to press for more than $400 million (in what some might term off-the-books financing) for the stated purpose of repairing roofs, elevators and other essential elements, I challenged NYCHA leadership on its ability to promptly effect repairs and asked for  periodic progress reports. 

Marble Hill Houses and Fort Independence Housing were cited as examples of poor maintenance, though they were not alone by any means. No such reports have been forthcoming (though the limited staff of HDC has tried to police progress to the extent it properly can do so). Yet it seems likely that NYCHA will return for more money in the near future. It will find this HDC Board Member highly skeptical.

NYCHA has two fundamental flaws: (1) it no longer understands and hence is incapable of delivering on its essential mission — to provide and maintain decent housing at truly affordable rents for those who need decent shelter and can only afford to pay subsistence rents, and (2) a bureaucracy and structure that makes failure almost inevitable. 

For want of a light bulb the makings for a catastrophe were advanced at Pink Houses. For want of efficient elevator service, residents — including the elderly — are forced to mount stairs in inhospitable stairwells. The sordid story goes on and on as Comptroller Scott Stringer aptly noted.

I would correct The Riverdale Press in but one respect. NYCHA does not effectively or efficiently maintain the vast properties it now has (many of which it has long aspired to shed through “Federalization,” i.e., privatization). It is not qualified to search for, develop and maintain the additional housing so badly needed for what most planners agree will be a growing New York  population, including those who cannot afford even so-called affordable housing.  

The City must focus on that concern now and, in the process, rethink whether the solution begins with a wholesale revamping of NYCHA. Serious, insightful and committed planning for the housing needs of the oft-forgotten legions of struggling New Yorkers is long overdue, as is an entity committed to and capable of delivering on those needs.

Charles G. Moerdler
Member of the Board, NYC Housing Development Corp 

NYCHA, Marble Hill Houses, Fort Independence Housing, Charles Moerdler

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