NYCHA Public Housing 78 Billion Repair Bill: Is “Less Is More” The Only Hope?

NYCHA red brick apartment complex of several red brik buildings
IMG_4845 photo by Elvert Barnes is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
Robert Fulton Houses belongs to the New York City Housing Authority. The average cost in 2023 to refurbish a NYCHA apartment is pegged at $485,000

The New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) seems much like the person at the coffee shop counter, endlessly recalculating a handful of small change in hopes that sooner or later, it will add up to the price of a cup of coffee. It never does.

Five years ago, NYCHA was required to produce a 5-year financial statement that would, among other things, estimate the cost of bringing its roughly 177,000 public housing apartment up to liveable standards. USD$45 billion was the staggering estimate, made at least modestly palatable by explanations of the importance of NYCHA housing to the city.

Five years have passed. There’s a new estimate.  It has nearly doubled to USD$78 billion.

Meanwhile, the investor/developer wolves gather outside NYCHA’s doors, with their version of the only sane way to spend 78 billion dollars. Hand the problem over to the fund-raising and management skills of private investor/builders. Some — certainly not all — of the truly affordable rent-geared-to income housing will be preserved.

Under these free-enterprise linked schemes, some public housing must be lost. Free-market investors need to build and profit from additional free-market housing construction on sites that have been exclusively reserved for public housing. Until now. More housing may be delivered, but there will be less public housing than currently exists in 355 apartment complexes.

Yes indeed, less can be more housing. But not necessarily the ever more rare and increasingly precious rent geared-to-income housing. The following New York Times article announces the staggering new refurbishing estimates. The article also makes the case for how important the stock of public housing is to the city. The article is available only to New York Times subscribers, or those who have registered for occasional free reads. Read more: Almost $80 Billion Needed for Repairs to New York City’s Public Housing

For those without access to the Times, the following article gives more details about the repair list, while saying less about the importance of NYCHA”s public housing stock to the city. Read more in the Gothamist:  NYC public housing agency says it needs $78 billion for repairs