The scandals surrounding the New York City Housing Authority have focused, appropriately, on the terrible physical conditions in the nation’s largest public-housing system. The fact that housing built to replace slums has become among the city’s most dangerous and dilapidated has led to federal intervention and calls for funds to address the estimated $32 billion repair bill for the 334 NYCHA developments.
More money may help — but it’s far from the only or even the best answer to what ails NYCHA. It needs radical reform.
NYCHA’s federal monitor, once named, should consider creative approaches for the system, which was originally expected to be self-supporting. Here are a few that should be on the table:
Commercial development:
In contrast to private affordable-housing such as Co-op City, New York’s public housing includes little or no retail development — a choice made in the 1940s by super-planner Robert Moses who thought the NYCHA “campuses” should be like parks. But some 180 of NYCHA’s properties are located in areas classified by the city as “underserved” (i.e., having less than 3 square feet of supermarket floor space per capita), with some large NYCHA properties located more than half a mile from the nearest supermarket.
New commercial space on NYCHA properties could improve access to fresh food for low-income residents and bring in new revenue. New streets on what are now dangerous open spaces would improve public safety.
Tenant buyouts:
According to the feds, 26 percent of all NYCHA tenants are actually “over-housed” — meaning they have more bedrooms than they need. Often this means older tenants have become empty-nesters but continue to live alone. That’s because the average NYCHA tenant has lived in her apartment for just under 19 years, which means that those trying to get into the system face a long waiting list (averaging almost four years) while many of the city’s new poor are locked out; there are far fewer Asians in the system than their poverty rates would predict.
“More money may help — but it’s far from the only or even the best answer to what ails NYCHA. It needs radical reform.”
NYCHA needs to push for turnover — and could do so by offering longtime tenants cash payments to move out — based on how long someone has lived in a unit. Just as empty-nesters in private homes downsize to save on property taxes, NYCHA tenants would pocket some cash — and make room for newcomers. Those newcomers, in turn, should sign a time-limited lease so the same situation is not repeated.
Changing the culture of NYCHA to one of up-and-out would be a change for the better, as well.
Public-private competition:
The looming NYCHA maintenance bill is so high not just because conditions are so poor; its union labor contracts inflate costs, too. NYCHA can reduce costs by asking union labor to bid against private construction contractors for the same jobs. If union labor is better and cheaper, it will keep the work.
This isn’t a fanciful approach. It’s been tried and proven elsewhere — notably in Indianapolis, where former Mayor Steve Goldsmith (later deputy mayor to Michael Bloomberg) used just such an approach for that city’s public-works projects.
Selective building sales:
Many of NYCHA’s properties are located in areas far from jobs and transit and where land values are consequently low. But many other public-housing projects — on Manhattan’s West Side and near the Brooklyn waterfront — stand on what has become valuable real estate.
NYCHA could sell such properties to private developers for hundreds of millions of dollars, and use the funds to create a public-housing trust fund to help repair a still-vast system. Again, tenants could receive a cash buyout to help them make the transition, just as private developers do with rent-stabilized tenants in buildings they plan to redevelop.
Some will find some of these ideas acceptable and others beyond the pale. But the broader point is this: The original idea of public housing — which was for it to depend on rents to maintain the buildings — has failed. We’re long past time for tinkering with the system. The time for bold action is here.
This piece originally appeared at the New York Post
______________________
Howard Husock is Vice President for research and publications at the Manhattan Institute.
This piece originally appeared in New York Post