Senator Montgomery and members of the Senate Democratic Conference call on Governor Cuomo to invest $500 million in capital funding for NYCHA

Senator Velmanette Montgomery

March 6, 2018

Senator Montgomery joins Senator Joseph P. Addabbo, Senator Jamaal T. Bailey, Senator Brian A. Benjamin, Senator Neil D. Breslin, Senator Leroy Comrie, Senator Martin M. Dilan, Senator Michael Gianaris, Senator Brad Hoylman, Senator Brian Kavanagh, Senator Kevin S. Parker, Senator Roxanne J. Persaud, Senator José M. Serrano, Senator Gustavo Rivera, Senator James Sanders and Senator Toby Ann Stavisky to call on Governor Cuomo to invest $500 million in capital funding to help address the critial infrastructure needs of the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA).

NYCHA was created in 1935 to provide affordable housing for low-and moderate-income and elderly New Yorkers. Today, NYCHA is the largest public housing authority in North America and is home to 1 in 14 New Yorkers. There are 176,066 public housing apartments in 2,462 buildings in 326 developments throughout the five boroughs. For decades, NYCHA has suffered chronic underfunding from the city, state and federal governments to address their massive infrastructure needs.

Members of the Senate Democratic Conference are urging the Governor to invest in NYCHA to help fix the boilers; and other critical needs like leaks, mold, lead remediation, roofs and security which require attention all year round.

We write to express our disappointment that the Executive Budget you proposed on January 16, 2018, includes no new funding to meet the dire needs of more than 400,000 New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) residents, many of whom live in substandard and sometimes hazardous conditions in large part because of the perennial failure of the Federal, State, and City governments to provide adequate resources for maintenance and repairs.

Prolonged disinvestment in NYCHA has resulted in and frequent failure of critical services like heat and hot water in extreme weather conditions. To ensure New York State’s commitment to providing access to safe, affordable housing to thousands of constituents, we respectfully urge you to join us in supporting meaningful capital funding for NYCHA by allocating $500 million. These funds would be in addition to reallocation of capital funding from prior budgets.

Despite NYCHA’s efforts to operate efficiently by implementing a preventive maintenance program and improve management, it struggles to conduct necessary maintenance of its aging boilers. NYCHA estimates 43% of boilers are in critical condition, meaning they are failing or obsolete and need to be replaced urgently. During the coldest temperatures this winter, residents in public housing developments often have not had adequate heat and hot water due to failing boilers. Since October 2017, an estimated 80% of all residents have experienced an outage.

the State has a responsibility to improve living conditions in its public housing. The City in recent years has made substantial investments to begin to offset many years of underfunding. The State’s commitment to date has been minimal. Adequate housing as well as access to heat and hot water are basic rights that every New Yorker is legally entitled to, regardless of income, and it is our job as elected representatives of NYCHA tenants to ensure that.

To read the full letter, download the PDF.

To learn more about NYCHA, visit http://www1.nyc.gov/site/nycha/index.page

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