No! I don't mean NYCHA is not broke but ...New York City’s Housing Authority (NYCHA) has been and is being mugged and robbed by Federal, State and City Republicans. NYCHA operates more than 2600 buildings with more than 180,000 apartments and many more than 400,000 residents. (It does a lot more, but for purposes of this post and the next, I focus only on its role as housing operator) As a result of planned policies federal, state and local subsidies for NYCHA have declined dramatically over the Bush, Pataki, Giuliani and Bloomberg years. As a result, cash for routine maintenance is drained away, fees and rents have increased and surprisingly, NYC continues, vampire-like, to suck hundreds of millions of dollars a year from NYCHA. (See the figures after the jump)

NYCHA’s GOP government-induced financial crisis was the subject of a fascinating forum a few days ago at the New School's Center for NYC Affairs. There Daily News columnist and editorial board member and former NYCHA resident Errol Lewis convened a panel of experts and officials and an audience of alarmed tenants and activists. The tales they told, the problems they debated and recent developments point to a NYCHA crisis which could, if not addressed, severely damage the largest single bloc of affordable housing in NYC – some of it imposed by Mayor Bloomberg right this minute.(Check out the forum here)

Public housing in NYC has for the longest time been housing for lower income workers. Under the Reagan administration, rules were revised which forced many workers out of NYCHA apartments. By raising the maximum rent from 25% of net income to 30% of gross, thousands left NYCHA because 1980s stabilized rents were lower. They were replaced by extremely poor families. (My Council-Member Rosie Mendez’s family moved in this period) The Reagan view was that NYCHA’s housing should be reserved only for the poorest and homeless. The instability and turnover this engendered in NYCHA communities has been partly reversed by a policy which encourages some balance between working and extremely low-income families. Is it too appalling to underscore the divisions this brings out between the advocates for homeless people (Mary Brosnahan , recently criticizd NYCHA’s failure to make more of its vacant apartments available to homeless families.) People who want to get into public housing get on a list and, like in the movie Casablanca, they, wait and wait and wait. Unless an applicant has a “priority” (domestic abuse victim, for example) the standard wait for a NYCHA apartment is 10 years, I am told by people who work with NYCHA residents and those seeking to move in (With an emergency priority, some get an apartment in as little as one year – essentially they jump the line, making everyone else’s wait longer.). One consequence of the appallingly long wait-lines is that people who are homeless move in with friends or family –doubling or tripling up. Joseph
Shuldiner, a former NYCHA General Manager guessed that the actual total of NYCHA residents could be as high as 550,000. The excess, underground population means NYCHA apartments get more than normal use and thus need more, not less maintenance.

Funding Is Failing. NYCHA has been funded partly by federal, state and city aid. Since George W. Bush’s first budget (FY 2002) in October of 2001, operating subsidies from the Dept. of Housing and Urban Development have not kept up with increasing costs -- $439 million has been lost in federal money. In 2007, the declining federal share of the subsidy amounted to $159 million less than had the subsidies been kept at their traditional rate. The gap may increase by $12 million more.

In 1998, thank you Governor Pataki, NYS eliminated $13 million for subsidies.

Mayors Mike and Rudy cut $25 million fro NYCHA begining in 2001.

That is a cumulative annual cut of $197 million in operating expenses. Do you wonder where the operating loss of $225 million per year comes from? Well, here is one very big answer but there is more.

NYC bleeds NYCHA for city services. NYCHA is an Authority, not precisely a NYC agency. Its board is named by the Mayor, its employees are effectively NYC employees but – unlike the NYC MTA (also an authority) it pays NYC hundreds of millions of dollars annually.

Yearly, NYCHA pays, NYC millions

Taxes “payments in lieu of taxes” $27
Police (NYCHA had its own) $71
Department of the Aging $ 2.9
DEP (Water & Sewer) $84
Sanitation (Bulk Pick Up) $ 1
Office of Labor Relations $ 1
-------------------
$186 Million

Once upon a time, NYCHA was seen as a cash cow for NYC. Its direct HUD grants were drained off to cover NYC operating costs. Now that HUD grants have shrunk, NYC, with billions in surplus continues to bleed NYCHA. NYCHA is paying and paying while its own workforce is depleted, its ability to maintain and operate its apartments diminished and its tenants facing increased rents and fees.

Coming soon, I hope, proposals to sell off NYCHA properties and some suggested political solutions like electing a few more progressive Democrats.