{"id":55076,"date":"2025-11-28T21:46:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T21:46:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/55076\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T21:46:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T21:46:07","slug":"zohran-mamdani-can-save-nycha-if-hes-open-to-tapping-the-private-sector-for-help","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/55076\/","title":{"rendered":"Zohran Mamdani can save NYCHA \u2014 IF he’s open to tapping the private sector for help"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s too soon to know if Zohran Mamdani\u2019s meeting with President Donald Trump <\/a>will mean more or less financial assistance for the city, but the mayor-elect should certainly not expect a bailout for public housing.<\/p>\n

Team Trump plans to cut the Housing and Urban Development<\/a> budget, not boost aid to entities like the New York City Housing Authority, which faces a $78 billion repair bill.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fact is, only private investment can save the nation\u2019s largest public-housing system.<\/p>\n

Mamdani\u2019s campaign <\/a>promises include 200,000 new government-subsidized apartments, yet the existing stock of public housing is in dangerous condition.<\/p>\n

NYCHA is struggling desperately to maintain its 177,000 units.<\/p>\n

After the Mitchell Houses high-rise in The Bronx partially collapsed in October, for example, it took 12 days to restore gas service to residents.<\/p>\n

More than 71 buildings were without gas, while others lacked elevator service \u2014 no small matter in a system in which 45% of tenants are elderly.<\/p>\n

Mamdani\u2019s preference for government management notwithstanding, the only reliable way of rebuilding NYCHA is to use private financing and expertise.<\/p>\n

Good news: There\u2019s a proven model that can address the system\u2019s needs.<\/p>\n

Bad news: Not only might Mamdani resist it; in some cases, tenants themselves have already stood in the way.<\/p>\n

A Team Obama blueprint, the Rental Assistance Demonstration program, channels aid directly to tenants via a housing voucher, rather to the housing authority itself.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a bureaucratic trick that allows\u00a0private firms to borrow based on the vouchers\u2019 federal revenue stream, use the proceeds for major repairs and go on to manage the properties.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s artfully allowed hundreds of authorities across the country \u2014 in Chicago, Baltimore, San Francisco \u2014 to tap private repair funding.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s even working in some Gotham projects, too, such as the refurbished Baychester Houses in The Bronx, and the nearby Edenwald Houses, where $1 billion in private investment will foot the bill.<\/p>\n

NYCHA hopes to upgrade 62,000 apartments this way.<\/p>\n

But New York\u2019s approach to the program troublingly differs from how it works elsewhere.<\/p>\n

Driven by the\u00a0unfounded fear that private finance means full-scale, outright\u00a0\u201cprivatization,\u201d Albany insisted its version of RAD, called the Preservation Assistance Commitment Together, let tenants vote to accept the change \u2014 or stick with the status quo, relying on (unlikely) funds from the city or\u00a0Congress.<\/p>\n

Seven NYCHA developments have voted to date, and the returns do not bode well.<\/p>\n

Two (Throggs Neck Addition and Coney Island Houses) voted outright for the status quo: full-on NYCHA management, with the hope of a federal bailout.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Four others (Nostrand Houses, Hylan Houses, Unity Towers and Bronx River Addition) opted for an plan called the\u00a0NY Preservation Trust, in which private construction does the repairs \u2014 but NYCHA, its track record notwithstanding, continues to provide management.<\/p>\n

The Randall-Balcom Houses endorsed private finance and management, with NYCHA oversight.<\/p>\n

Mamdani\u2019s been silent on all this, even though he thinks public housing is a magical path to affordability.<\/p>\n

Though he vows to crack down on landlords not making repairs, he ignores the fact that NYCHA is the city\u2019s worst slumlord.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a little-known possible explanation for the counterintuitive NYCHA tenant votes:\u00a0Housing-authority employees comprise 22% of all NYCHA residents.<\/p>\n

That means some tenants are voting on whether to keep their own jobs.<\/p>\n

They have more reason than most to turn out in elections in which only only a small percentage of tenants cast ballots.<\/p>\n

Others are gaslit by scare tactics that private funding means they\u2019ll be evicted.<\/p>\n

An advocacy group, \u201cFight for NYCHA,\u201d works to keep private funding out entirely, in the fanciful belief that federal aid will somehow materialize.<\/p>\n

If Mamdani hopes to avoid more building collapses, he\u2019d be wise to get involved\u00a0in these local elections and support the practical, private-sector-involved approach.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, NYCHA, whose current executive team is impressive, should have the right to choose the best contractor and bid.<\/p>\n

Employee-residents needn\u2019t be shut out; they could team up with a private firm to offer their own bid.<\/p>\n

This model was used by Bloomberg Deputy Mayor Steve Goldsmith when he was mayor of Indianapolis to successfully\u00a0address infrastructure repairs there.<\/p>\n

The stakes are high. The initial seven votes are the just beginning of a process that will cover many more NYCHA properties.<\/p>\n

If they opt to keep the status quo, the system will miss its chance for the private funding and management experience it so desperately needs.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s no way to save NYCHA, invented during the Great Depression to replace \u201cslums\u201d but itself now the city\u2019s largest of them.<\/p>\n

Tenants have rights, but they don\u2019t own their public housing \u2014 any more than rental tenants in a private building whose owners choose who should do repairs.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the taxpayers who own public housing. And officials they elect, like Mamdani, have a duty to help decide the best way to rescue it from dilapidation.<\/p>\n

Howard Husock is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and author of the forthcoming book \u201cThe Projects: A New History of Public Housing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s too soon to know if Zohran Mamdani\u2019s meeting with President Donald Trump will mean more or less…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55077,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[3530,153,19962,609,2907,29601,9,24,55,54,56,305,299,30127,13316,307,30128,7978,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-55076","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-buildings","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-finances","11":"tag-government","12":"tag-housing","13":"tag-hud","14":"tag-new-york","15":"tag-new-york-city","16":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","17":"tag-new-york-city-news","18":"tag-ny","19":"tag-nycha","20":"tag-opinion","21":"tag-president-obama","22":"tag-private-sector","23":"tag-public-housing","24":"tag-slumlords","25":"tag-tenants","26":"tag-zohran-mamdani"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55076\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}