NYC ALLIANCE TO PRESERVE PUBLIC HOUSING

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1 Chair Shola Olatoye New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) 250 Broadway New York, NY July 23 rd, 2014 Dear Chair Olatoye, Participants in the NYC Alliance to Preserve Public Housing submit the attached comments as a joint response to the NYCHA Draft FY2015 Annual and Five-Year Plan. The Alliance is a working collaboration of resident leaders/organizations, housing advocates, community and labor organizations, and concerned elected officials to press for policies to strengthen our public housing communities and extend housing opportunities under the Section 8 voucher program. We seek a stronger resident voice in government decisions that affect NYCHA communities, as well as greater openness and accountability on the part of the Authority. We acknowledge several positive steps already taken by Mayor Bill de Blasio and NYCHA in response to our past concerns: Granting NYCHA relief from the annual NYPD payment of over $70 million, Scrapping the previous NYCHA Infill/Land-Lease Plans and re-evaluating the approach, Reaching out, re-energizing NYCHA efforts to engage residents, Committing the city to upgrading and preserving public housing, as part of the Mayor s Housing New York Plan. This paper describes the key issues we have identified in this year s Annual Plan and forwards our recommendations. Major concerns include: Potential Impacts of the NYCHA Operating Deficit Ending the $100 Million Annual NYCHA Payments to the City. The Use of NYCHA Land for Community Redevelopment. NYCHA Repairs and Code Enforcement. Section 8 Voucher Cuts. Changes in the Public Housing Admissions Plan. NYCHA Plans for: Moving-to-Work (MTW); and the HUD Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD). Planning Town Hall Meetings and Public Hearings. This is a crucial time to plan for the renewal and preservation of our public housing communities and to make the best use of limited Section 8 voucher resources. We offer our perspective as part of a shared vision of a renewed, adequately resourced, and accountable New York City Housing Authority. Respectfully submitted, The New York City Alliance to Preserve Public Housing (participants listed on following pages) Contact: Victor Bach, Coordinator, vbach@cssny.org, (212)

2 Participants and Support The attached position paper on the NYCHA Draft FY2015 Annual Plan has the support of the following organizations and concerned elected officials (list in formation): Advocacy Organizations Citizens Committee for Children of New York Center for Popular Democracy Chelsea Coalition for Housing Community Service Society (CSS) Community Voices Heard (CVH) Families United for Racial & Economic Equality (FUREE) Goddard Riverside Community Center Good Old Lower East Side (GOLES) Housing Court Answers Legal Aid Society Local 237, International Brotherhood of Teamsters Real Affordability for All (RAFA) Real Rent Reform (R3) Tenants Political Action Committee The Black Institute United Neighborhood Houses (UNH) Urban Justice Center (UJC) WE ACT for Environmental Justice West Village Houses Renters Union Resident Organizations City Wide Council of Presidents, Inc. (CCOP) Alfred E. Smith Resident Association Amsterdam Houses Resident Association Baruch Houses Resident Association Clay Avenue Resident Association Johnson Houses Resident Association Polo Grounds Resident Association Vladeck Houses Resident Association Wise Towers Resident Association 830 Amsterdam Avenue Resident Association Government Officials/Community Boards Manhattan Borough President Gale A. Brewer NY State Senators Brad Hoylman Bill Perkins NY State Assembly Members Richard N. Gottfried Daniel O Donnell Linda Rosenthal NYC Council Members Margaret Chin Mark Levine Rosie Mendez Ritchie Torres Velmanette Montgomery Daniel L. Squadron Brian Kavanagh Felix W. Ortiz Corey Johnson Carlos Menchaca Helen Rosenthal Jumaane D. Williams Community Board 12, Manhattan 2

3 MAJOR ISSUES: NYCHA FY2015 DRAFT ANNUAL PLAN Background The issues identified and the recommendations forwarded in this position paper were developed in light of the ongoing pressures NYCHA and its residents face: An estimated $77 million public housing deficit due to inadequate funding at all levels of government. A $7 billion and growing backlog in needed major capital improvements to public housing, contributing to the ongoing deterioration of building conditions. A unprecedented, large waiting list for public housing, with fewer opportunities through turnover. The need to preserve public housing and Section 8 housing voucher resources in the midst of the city s growing rent affordability crisis. THE FY2015 OPERATING DEFICIT: HOW WILL NYCHA COVER IT? Although NYCHA estimates a $77 million deficit for the public housing general fund in FY 2015, the Draft Annual Plan does not include the estimate, nor does it describe how the Authority plans to close the gap. How much of the operating gap will be closed by drawing from operating reserves, by transferring capital funds into operations (and delaying improvements), or by reducing the NYCHA workforce headcount? How will these gap-covering measures impact living conditions and services to NYCHA s public housing residents? The NYCHA Annual Plan should include an estimate of the projected operating deficit both for public housing and Section 8 Vouchers. It should describe how the Authority plans to cover any such gap and the potential impacts on operations, living conditions, and resident services. NYCHA needs to be more transparent, more accountable for the ways it plans to address its financial stresses and the potential impacts on residents. NYCHA MUST RETAIN ALL OF ITS OPERATING RESOURCES As a divided Washington grapples with deficit reduction, public housing continues to be threatened by inadequate federal support for both operating and capital subsidies. Yet Washington is the only level of government that provides operating support while New York City is the only level of government that draws on NYCHA s limited operating resources: Over $70 million annually for special services from NYPD, under a 1995 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the city. To his credit, Mayor de Blasio relieved NYCHA of the payment this year, but the annual obligation needs to be revoked. NYPD provides comparable services free to private landlords under the Clean Halls program. NYCHA residents already pay for police services through their income taxes. 3

4 $29 million annually for PILOT payments (in lieu of property taxes), Many nonprofit housing providers and institutions including museums, hospitals, universities, houses of worship are exempted from property taxes. About $1 million annually for special pick-ups by the Department of Sanitation. At a time when NYCHA has difficulty sustaining basic housing management operations, as well as its community and senior center services, these non-expiring agreements need to be seriously reconsidered by the mayor for immediate termination. Termination of all NYCHA annual payments to New York City for NYPD services, PILOT payments, and sanitation services. THE USE OF NYCHA LAND FOR COMMUNITY REDEVELOPMENT To NYCHA s credit, the Draft Annual Plan does not include the 8 developments targeted last year for the NYCHA Infill/Land-Lease Plan and Section 18 disposition. But the Annual Plan envisions that NYCHA and the city will make use of available land in NYCHA developments for affordable housing (under the Mayor s Housing New York Plan) and related community redevelopment. Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen calls this an amazing opportunity, particularly for the creation of senior housing. Chair Shola Olatoye has begun to engage three public housing communities (unspecified) in a strategic revisioning process to map out future community development plans. Our recommendations are put forward in anticipation of these emerging planning efforts: Effective community engagement must be part of the planning process from the start. Affected resident organizations, community boards, and other key stakeholders should be included in mapping out a consensus vision of the future of the community. Resident leaders should have access to legal representation and independent technical assistance, rather than rely exclusively on NYCHA for information and advice. NYCHA must comply with the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP). ULURP is the prevailing city standard for community review of redevelopment plans. Given the density of city neighborhoods, any plan to redevelop NYCHA communities will also have significant impacts on the surrounding community that need to be addressed through ULURP. 4

5 Any residential redevelopment must, to the maximum feasible extent, be affordable to low-income New Yorkers (within 50 percent of HUD AMI) and give preference to current residents in leasing the new units. The appropriate balance will need to be struck by NYCHA and the community, based on feasible development options. Senior housing opportunities should be given priority, in order to reduce the number of under-occupied NYCHA apartments and provide space for larger households. NYCHA should hold special public hearings on all Section 18 disposition proposals, preferably at the affected developments. Each initiative deserves close attention, including its own special review and hearing process. Each is too important simply to be mentioned in a voluminous NYCHA Draft Annual Plan and crammed into a 3-hour citywide public hearing one night a year. CHANGES NEEDED IN THE PUBLIC HOUSING ADMISSION PLAN More than 54,000 New Yorkers including 23,000 children and 13,000 families sleep each night in NYC s shelter system. Of the families, estimates are that a third came from doubled up situations in public housing or Section 8. At least a quarter of the families are domestic violence victims. Yet for the past nine years, as a result of Bloomberg administration policies, no homeless families were admitted to NYCHA and last year, NYCHA excluded referrals from the Department of Homeless Services for homeless families and hid this change from the public. The only way to solve the homeless problem in NYC is to provide access to permanent housing at affordable rents. Public housing is one of the few options, given the shortage of Section 8 vouchers. Unfortunately NYCHA is proposing to admit only 750 homeless families a year to public housing, far less than the number allocated under Mayor Giuliani administration. The proposed allocation represents only 0.4 percent of all public housing apartments and less than 10 percent of vacancies. It will not be enough to reduce the shelter census. Additionally, NYCHA currently allocates most vacant apartments to its working preference, admitting many higher income households who do not have serious housing needs.. Since public housing is a scarce, affordable resource for low-income New Yorkers, it should be allocated to households who have a demonstrated need for housing: the homeless, victims of domestic violence, those living in substandard housing, or those low-income households paying more than 50 percent of their income for rent. NYCHA allocate 2,500 public housing apartments a year roughly a third of units becoming vacant to homeless families. 5

6 NYCHA eliminate the working family preference, which does not require a demonstrated need for housing. This will ensure that public housing serves families with the greatest housing needs. NYCHA restore priority for people in homeless and domestic violence shelters to the N-0 priority which existed for decades until the sudden change last year NYCHA give domestic violence victims already living in public housing top transfer priority T-0. NYCHA restore a priority to people with disabilities whose housing is a threat to their health. DEALING WITH SECTION 8 HOUSING CHOICE VOUCHER CUTS As a result of Washington funding reductions, NYCHA is continuing to cut the number of Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers in circulation: There will be no new rentals for the 151,000 households on the Section 8 voucher waiting list, with the possible exception of families willing to move into former city and state developments as part of the Section 8 Voluntary Conversion Program. (Only 3,300 of the 8,400 planned conversions from public housing to vouchers have been completed since 2008.) Turned-over vouchers will not be reallocated in order to reduce the number of assisted households and units. As of December 2013, NYCHA estimated 1,200 Section 8 vouchers will be eliminated this year. Households who had their vouchers revoked almost 5 years ago (in 2009) before they could use them will have to wait at least another year to receive a voucher. NYCHA and the City should press the State to immediately increase the shelter allowance payment for publicly-assisted Section 8 tenants in NYCHA buildings to the full levels now received by private landlords. This modest increase could significantly mitigate the consequences of the voucher cuts. NYCHA must press HUD for its fair share of the funds the agency has set aside to deal with the impact of the sequester on Section 8 residents. NYCHA presently holds about 5 percent of the 2 million Section 8 vouchers nationwide. REPAIRS AND CODE ENFORCEMENT In its Town Hall meetings, NYCHA reported progress in addressing outstanding repairs. From April 2013 to May 2014, the number of open work orders decreased from 274,000 to 78,000, average service time was cut from 108 to 4 days. The Authority is to be commended for accelerating its response to resident complaints after a long period of deferred repairs. Relief from the $70 million NYPD payment has, no doubt, contributed to increasing NYCHA s 6

7 capacity to respond. Given continuing resident complaints, it is necessary to ask whether the information NYCHA uses to monitor repairs can be made publicly available, and whether the figures and methodology are open to independent confirmation. Like any owner of a multiple dwelling, NYCHA must comply with the local housing maintenance and building codes. Greater transparency and accountability on NYCHA s part about the repair process, and about continuing serious violations in NYCHA buildings, is necessary if the Authority is to regain resident trust and public confidence. The city and NYCHA give serious consideration to ending the bifurcated code enforcement system, under which NYCHA residents are excluded from registering their complaints with the 311 Citizens Service Center where they can receive independent follow-up enforcement services. Residents are now required to contact the NYCHA Centralized Complaint Center, without recourse to code enforcement independent of their landlord. NYCHA residents should be given parity with other city tenants in the local code enforcement process rather than rely only on NYCHA in the recording of complaints, and in access to independent inspections. Outstanding code violations in NYCHA buildings must be included in the public data bases maintained by the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) and the Department of Buildings (DOB). Under current institutional arrangements, NYCHA buildings are excluded from these public records of outstanding violations. Residents and the public have a right to open information about these conditions. MOVING-TO-WORK (MTW): A BINDING AGREEMENT NEEDED This year the Annual Plan again registers NYCHA s intention to apply to HUD to become an MTW authority when and if that is made possible by legislation that has been moving slowly through Congress. The MTW program started in 1996, allowing a limited number of housing authorities to demonstrate how deregulation waiving federal laws and regulations could promote more effective public housing programs. MTW provided funding flexibility, allowing authorities flexible use of all HUD funds received, for public housing operations and capital projects, and for Section 8 vouchers. But MTW also conveys special powers to housing authorities: The number of assisted units public housing and voucher units combined can be reduced. If NYCHA allocated voucher funds to public housing operations, the number of vouchers available to current holders and waiting-list families would be reduced. 7

8 MTW authorities can seek waivers to existing federal laws and regulations, such as the Brooke Amendment (capping rents at 30% of income), and the HUD 964 resident participation regulations. Most current MTW authorities have received such waivers. MTW authorities have the power to impose new restrictions on residents. Some MTW authorities have instituted work requirements; others have imposed time limits on tenancy. NYCHA s express intention is to obtain the advantages of MTW funding flexibility, not to waive basic resident rights and protections, or impose new restrictions on residents. However, there is no assurance that NYCHA, once it becomes an MTW authority, will never use those special powers. Intentions change over time, depending on the NYCHA Board and the mayor appointing them, as well as on the HUD administration. In the last draft of the MTW expansion bill, authorities could revise agreements with HUD approval. There is a risk. The question is: What binds NYCHA to its original intentions under MTW for the foreseeable future? Any NYCHA proposal to become an MTW authority must include: A limit on the reduction in the total number of assisted public housing and Section 8 voucher units. A list of the federal laws and regulations that NYCHA will retain under MTW. A list of restrictions such as time limits and work requirements that NYCHA is prohibited from imposing on residents. NYCHA must hold a special public hearing on any MTW proposal or revision prior to submission to HUD, with 45 days for advance review of the written proposal. A local Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) should be signed, which binds NYCHA to its original proposal. No change in the MTW agreement with HUD can be made without a special local approval process to be specified in the MOU. NYCHA S APPLICATION TO THE HUD RENTAL ASSISTANCE DEMONSTRATION (RAD). The Annual Plan includes, for the first time, a specific proposal for NYCHA participation in the HUD Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD). In December, 2013, NYCHA submitted an application to HUD to convert Ocean Bay Apartments (Bayside, 1389 units) to the RAD Program. The application is not yet receiving active consideration, pending Congressional legislation to expand the program. Under RAD, the development will be transferred from NYCHA public housing to a private entity with a long-term, project-based rent assistance contract, which will enable the owner to finance needed capital improvements. 8

9 Although this is a single NYCHA development being proposed for conversion, it should not be taken or announced lightly. It represents a significant step toward privatization and potential loss of public housing. Major controversies have recently erupted in Baltimore and San Francisco, where RAD is being used for wholesale conversion of the public housing inventory. The Ocean Bay Apartments (Bayside) application has important implications for all NYCHA residents and the concerned public. What criteria were used by NYCHA in selecting the development? Which other developments how much of our public housing are potential candidates? The inclusion of this first-time proposal by briefly mentioning it in a 270 page Annual Plan, and hearing it in a 3-hour citywide session on a vast range of issues, fails to give it the attention it deserves. A special public hearing be held at Ocean Bay Apartments (Bayside), focusing on the NYCHA RAD application. A full copy of the RAD application be posted on the NYCHA website. TOWN HALL MEETINGS AND PUBLIC HEARINGS Afternoon Town Hall Meetings? Every year, NYCHA conducts Town Hall meetings on the Draft Annual Plan in each of the five boroughs prior to the citywide public hearing. Usually these meetings are scheduled in the evening from 6 to 8:30 pm. This year, for the first time, four of the meetings were scheduled in the afternoon from 3 to 5 pm., at a time when working residents and those enrolled in school are unlikely to be able to attend. In 2011, according to the NYC Housing and Vacancy Survey, most NYCHA households (about 57 %) had at least one working member; 60 percent of adults between ages 18 and 65 were either employed (46%) or seeking work (14%). About 66,000 residents were enrolled in high school or higher education. By holding afternoon Town Hall meetings, NYCHA is failing to engage a large and significant sector of its resident constituency in its annual plan process. And these figures do not include Section 8 voucher residents who also have an interest in the Plan. Three Hours for a Citywide Public Hearing? The 1998 Housing Act required all public housing authorities to prepare a draft Annual Plan each year and conduct a public hearing on the Plan. But NYCHA has a huge resident constituency. With 180,000 households living in 334 public housing developments and 93,000 voucher households, NYCHA-assisted residents constitute a sub-city of 800,000 people, larger 9

10 than some of the country s largest cities. This year s Draft Annual Plan is 159 pages thick, excluding supporting documents, and spans a range of critical issues and proposals. Three hours, one evening a year, is simply not enough time to for the nation s largest housing authority to obtain public input on a wide range of issues. At every such hearing, those who want to be sure to testify must arrive early because there are always many waiting to testify who are turned away when the hearing ends. A mix of firstcome-first served residents, elected officials, and concerned organizations do testify, but the time is not used well. There are no guidelines: for how many individuals from the same organization can speak to similar issues. Residents use their three minutes as a rare opportunity to describe substandard living conditions and demand repairs although they are ushered aside to be assisted by NYCHA staff, there are no guidelines for allocating the time needed to address concerns about the Annual Plan. It is conceivable that significant, controversial issues will get short shrift at the hearings, though they represent significant changes for public housing communities. If these proposals are to be included in the Annual Plan, they merit the time and attention they deserve. In the future, all NYCHA town hall meetings and hearings on the Annual Plan should be conducted during evening hours, for the convenience of working and inschool residents. NYCHA public hearings should allow all interested individuals to testify. Timelimited hearings that turn away potential testimony when the time runs out defeat the purpose of the hearings. If necessary, multiple hearings should be held. Guidelines on the number of testifiers from any one organization may also be in order. NYCHA should conduct separate hearings on mixed-finance and Section 18 disposition proposals, so that they get the time and attention they deserve. Preferably these hearings should be held at the affected developments. At each stage of proposal revision and development, the amended proposal should go through a similar review process written release, 45-day review, and public hearing. 10