LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Let's address NYCHA's deficits

Posted

To the editor:

(re: “Pinched for cash, NYCHA skimps on repairs,” Jan. 25)

I live in a large private apartment building, Century Tower, in Riverdale. It is well maintained.

Thanks for focusing your Jan. 25 issue on the dire situation at Marble Hill and other public housing projects where thousands of fellow Bronx residents live. You may want to report on the work of Lenora Fulani and her Committee for Independent Community Action, which is conducting a citywide campaign to address these conditions and to protest the city’s plans to privatize (rather than maintain) this vital resource, home to some 650,000 low-income New Yorkers.

Under the city housing authority’s NextGen plan, open spaces in various projects would be sold to developers to build “affordable” housing, which is not affordable by people who live in the “projects.” In addition, individual apartments would be sold as well.

This is billed as the solution to the authority’s operating and capital deficit. But the amount raised under the program will hardly make a dent in these deficits which, in the case of the capital budget, is estimated to be almost $20 billion — the amount needed for repairs and necessary renovation to roofs, boilers, etc.

If we want our city to remain diverse in terms of race, age and class, this situation must be addressed.

Harry Kresky

Harry Kresky

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