We\u2019re starting to wonder if Mayor Zohran Mamdani has any real interest in promoting affordable housing in New York, rather than just posing on the issue: Why else would he ignore the thousands of public-housing units that sit empty for lack of funds to renovate?<\/p>\n
The city Department of Investigation just identified<\/a> 6,740 apartments now warehoused because the New York City Housing Authority can\u2019t find the cash to bring them up to code.<\/p>\n The cost is only an estimated $52,000 per unit, far less than Mamdani wants to spend on other housing plans: The Queens project he\u2019s asking President Donald Trump to fund<\/a> would cost hundreds of times that per apartment.<\/p>\n Indeed, he could help renovate tens of thousands of private units<\/a> now kept off the market for far less than that pipedream.<\/p>\n But back to NYCHA: The vacant units put other tenants in danger, as drug crews and vagrants seize them for illegal squats.<\/p>\n Indeed, squatters sit in hundreds of these apartments, while 165,000 law-abiding families languish on NYCHA\u2019s waitlist.<\/p>\n \t\t\tMore From\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPost Editorial Board<\/p>\n Mr. Mayor: You are the landlord to half a million public-housing tenants, with a duty to address their inhumane living conditions<\/a> \u2014 rats, dilapidation, lack of heat and hot water, poisonous mold and lead paint.<\/p>\n Bart Schwartz, the federal monitor overseeing the beleaguered agency since 2019, says NYCHA is<\/a> \u201cfraught with serious problems in structure, culture, and directions, and perhaps even worse.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\tGet opinions and commentary from our columnists\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSubscribe to our daily Post Opinion newsletter!\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\tThanks for signing up!\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n Mamdani\u2019s rent freeze and \u201crental ripoff\u201d hearings (where NYCHA tenants can\u2019t ask questions!) will do nothing for these New Yorkers \u2014 are they just not bourgeois enough for him?<\/p>\n