The New York Times reports this week on the nation's quandary of maintaining a vast portfolio of public housing that is over half a century old. Over the past 15 years, 150,000 units of public housing have been sold or torn down in other cities but New York City has uniquely held on to its stock. Since the New York City Housing authority has over 106,000 repair requests and no money, only 9,000 of those jobs will be attended to in 2012. A 2005 study estimated that $7.5 billion was needed to get all of the city's public housing repairs in order but NYCHA only has $1.5 billion in total. Solutions discussed (which all have their issues) include having volunteer groups help with repairs, financing private mortgages on the public buildings and land or switching to the voucher model instead of focusing on retaining existing buildings:
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This doesn't sound good at all.
ReplyDeleteHow about they sell off some of those free parking spots for funding?
ReplyDeleteI think it's time we abandon the capital-intensive model (i.e., maintaining giant, deteriorating towers of concentrated poverty) and redirect all future funds toward direct, means-tested housing support for those who truly need it (i.e., the voucher model).
ReplyDeleteSetting aside for a moment the utter calamity of social destruction and urban blight that was inflicted by the physical pattern of that capital investment many decades ago, the fiscal logic demands that we cut our losses and change gears if we truly care about providing housing to those in need. Unless we do this now, these crumbling monuments will become a financial black hole from which no marginally useful dollar of public funds will escape for decades to come. We'll be failing the people who live there, and also failing to provide anywhere near the level of support that our "housing" budget could, if allocated efficiently.
This housing model has proved itself to be a failure all over the USA, it is time to put these large ugly complexes out of there misery. This was supposed to be a "means" set up but has become heavily abused.
ReplyDeleteDemolish these monstrosities and start fresh.
@2:51 -- that's precisely what they've done everywhere else in the U.S. but in NYC...
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