‘Even NYCHA is fixable’: Public housing chief addresses challenges ahead

NYCHA Chair and CEO Gregory Russ. Photo via NYCHA

By Victoria Merlino

NYCHA boss Gregory Russ mapped out the difficult road ahead for the city housing agency at a breakfast event Tuesday, discussing how the public housing agency has worked with a federally appointed monitor and various consultants to rehab crumbling infrastructure, remove lead paint and improve the quality of life for hundreds of thousands of tenants. 

“Even NYCHA is fixable. It is a demand on the organization. It will be a demand on the city and the community as a whole. And we have to rise to that,” Russ said during a Crain’s New York Business breakfast forum in Manhattan. He took over as NYCHA CEO in August 2019.  

“You cannot rehab or reinvest in 174,000 units of housing without having a multiplier effect that extends through the entire city,” he continued. 

Russ said that NYCHA would need $42 billion dollars in its capital budget to rehab the authority’s 326 developments, including the 21 developments located in Queens. The estimated total is an increase from the $32 billion that NYCHA said it would need in 2017, a discrepancy Russ blames on previously unaccounted for compliance costs, such as the $2 billion needed to conduct lead abatement. 

Residents at NYCHA developments continue to face unannounced heat and hot water outages, mold blooms and pest infestations, among other issues. 

“Frankly, when you go to these properties, you are seeing things that in any other market, if the person had a choice, they would move out,” Russ said. “And we’re in such a difficult market here for families in these income brackets that that’s not a choice that is available to them. They deserve better service.” 

Russ also highlighted the use of Rental Assistance Demonstration, or RAD, as part of the solution for rehabbing parts of NYCHA. RAD is a federal program that allows public housing authorities to pass management of units to private companies while the authorities retain ownership of the land. Advocates of the program say that it keeps the units affordable for tenants while giving them faster access to repairs. 

Russ said he hopes to oversee the conversion of 62,000 units over the next decade.

Occupy NYCHA, a tenant advocacy group with a branch in South Jamaica, denounced the RAD program in August. 

“I am against RAD: it is called ‘real advanced displacement,’” Occupy NYCHA tenant leader and NYCHA resident Claudia Perez told the Eagle in August. “We’re the ones that are in these conditions, we’re the ones that know what’s going on in our apartments.”