James Keivom
Some things in New York City are still getting better: Three Bronx public-housing complexes and one in Harlem have agreed to move to private management, allowing for renovations, repairs and progress.
Privatization via President Barack Obama’s Rental Assistance Demonstration program is the best hope for New York City Housing Authority buildings, as far too many NYCHA-run projects fall ever deeper into disrepair.
Cheers to the Bronx tenants at Boston Secor, Boston Road Plaza and Middletown Plaza, home to 1,600 residents, and those at Harlem’s Frederick Samuel Apartments home to nearly 1,300: All agreed to enter NYCHA’s RAD initiative, the Permanent Affordability Commitment Together program, or PACT.
It’s a major departure from city’s old public-housing model, as PACT converts NYCHA developments to Project-Based Section 8 complexes where private management conducts major repairs as the on-site property manager.
RAD unlocks twice as much federal funding for day-to-day operations (everything from maintenance to rent collection) while NYCHA continues to own the property and land.
One of the immediate benefits for residents: As of July, 83% of repair-work orders were completed on time in RAD complexes.
Regular NYCHA tenants must be jealous: The agency recently announced that it needs $73.8 billion over the next two decades to repair all of its properties.
With no sign of that cash incoming, some projects will face condemnation in the not-too-distant future — a major blow to the city’s affordable-housing stock that only faster privatization offers any hope of avoiding.
Some 37,851 NYCHA units are now in the PACT planning and engagement stage — with a goal of converting 62,000 by 2028 — that should bring an estimated $13.2 billion worth of renovations.
Faster, please: That leaves hundreds of thousands still at risk, plagued by iffy elevators, mold, vermin, uncertain heat and hot water and so on.
Mayor Adams deserves credit for keeping PACT moving; let’s pray his team can accelerate the process despite the distractions of all those investigations.
Most of the progressives angling to replace him, by the way, are allergic to the word “privatization.”
Count that as another reminder that the hard-lefties who dominate city politics care only about ideology and power, not the people.