Assemblymember Michael Blake - Statement on Monitor Barry Schwartz's Damning Report of NYCHA

Today’s report released by NYCHA monitor Barry Schwartz further confirmed that NYCHA is an absolute mess that requires dramatic and transformational change to help Bronxites and New Yorkers finally have quality public housing. The report is a damning indictment of an organization that in the Monitor’s own words, has a “history of cover-ups and false statements”   and without “a sufficient focus on integrity” .

 

A humanitarian crisis continues within NYCHA.  I have long stated that people need to be fired and held criminally liable for their neglect.  There must also be a serious consideration about a federal emergency declaration to effectuate a dramatic overhaul of NYCHA.  Bronxites and New Yorkers are the priority, and, we must put people first. 

 

Monitor Schwartz makes it clear that NYCHA is making little progress ensuring every day and life saving improvements are made at scale.  Whether it be the lack of transparency around lead paint inspections to overall mismanagement, he called "NYCHA an organization fraught with serious problems in structure, culture, and direction and perhaps even worse"

 

Mr. Schwartz calls NYCHA staffer's work “often incomplete, imprecise, and/or inaccessible”  and  “creating an inaccurate perception of NYCHA’s performance".  Sadly, his comments cannot be surprising given NYCHA’s blatantly lying about the status of elevator and power outages, which happen all of the time within our district whether it be Morris, Jackson or Morrisania Air Rights or regularly closing out ticket orders before providing maintenance repairs, if they even occur at all. 

 

However, the utter disregard, carelessness, and negligent habits formed by the agency that is tasked with helping some of our most vulnerable citizens is probably most evident in regards to the epidemic of lead paint throughout NYCHA housing.

 

NYCHA lied to Bronxites, New Yorkers and federal housing authorities about compliance towards federal regulations, while by its own “smoke-and-mirrored” data. This inhumane reality is compounded by not only failing, since 2010, to do the mandated biennial testing for apartments but also going five years without doing visual inspections in ALL of its apartments as mandated by law. 

However, even if NYCHA conducted these tests, no one at the agency could “identify who is in charge of and accountable for properly addressing lead paint matters.”  Simply put, there is no clear decision maker.

 

The Monitor’s report explicitly stated what those who have to deal with it on a daily basis already knew.  That too many people within NYCHA are failing us with corrupt, and ineffectual lack of service, which is a flagrant disgrace towards the residents that they are purported to serve. We need better, we deserve better, and to truly #BelieveintheBronx, we need to be able to live, breathe, learn, and grow in public housing that will not harm us, and work with agency staffers who actually cares. 

 

 

Sincerely, 

Assembly Member Michael A. Blake