Today, after inspecting New York City Housing Authority developments in all five boroughs earlier this year, New York City Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams has released a new report, How the Other Half Lives in Public Housing, highlighting the deplorable and often dangerous conditions at NYCHA and calling for several key changes in the nation’s largest public housing system. Recalling the 1890 book of the same name by Jacob Riis which took readers inside the city’s tenements, this report shines a harsh spotlight on the conditions faced by hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers. It details what the Office of the Public Advocate witnessed at the developments across the city, and offers recommendations at the city level to bring relief and support to NYCHA tenants.
“Over a hundred years ago, Jacob Riis shocked New York City when he exposed the conditions that children and families were living under in tenements throughout lower Manhattan,” said Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams. “Today, our report shines a spotlight and a camera flash on the conditions that tenants across our city face in public housing. It shows how the other half a million live, and how New Yorkers who form the backbone of our city are often confined to unacceptable and often even dangerous living situations. Every New Yorker deserves a safe, deeply affordable home, and I’m calling on my partners in government to make the urgent and systemic changes NYCHA needs to again be the best public housing in the United States. No one who has witnessed the conditions documented in our report can deny the need for immediate investment and reform.”
The report first documents longstanding dangerous conditions at several different NYCHA developments leading to debilitating health conditions, unsafe apartments, and untenable quality of life. In Brooklyn, the Office of the Public Advocate met with a woman whose apartment was so overrun with mold, ACS forced her to enter a homeless shelter with her six children – then removed them from the shelter and told them to return to the infested unit. On Staten Island, a pest infestation had been allowed to fester for years and infect residents with rodent-based diseases.
Across the city, elevator outages plagued thousands of residents; water damage destroyed walls, ceilings, and floors; and heat and hot water disappeared in colder months. The Public Advocate met with dozens of tenants paying rent for uninhabitable homes.
During visits to six different developments, the Office documented living conditions that were unsafe, untenable, and inexcusable. NYCHA’s tenants – including the thousands of children who call NYCHA home – deserve better from public housing, and New York City can and must make long-needed improvements.
Throughout the touring process, the Office of the Public Advocate heard a familiar story from tenants – that upon learning of the office’s imminent inspection, NYCHA conducted last-minute cleanups and papered-over, temporary “repairs.” This is an unsustainable and inexcusable “system” of support. Repairs should be conducted based on tenant needs, not inspection schedules or media attention.
How the Other Half Lives in Public Housing also prescribes major changes at the local level to ensure that New York City’s public housing is safe, secure, and habitable. Among others, the report recommends that:
- NYCHA should hire a proportional number of live-in supers to make repairs as needed
- NYCHA should create an administrative process for residents who believe their work orders have been closed without repairs
- Complaints to 311 must immediately trigger a city inspection process for NYCHA apartments and buildings
NYCHA has repeatedly been named the overall worst landlord in the city on the Public Advocate’s annual watchlist. How the Other Half Lives in Public Housing is a roadmap of where we are, how we got here, and what we can do to fix it; New York City can again have world-renowned public housing, and this report can be a key catalyst in that fight.
Read the full report on fixing systemic failures and urgent NYCHA issues here.
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