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As we’ve mentioned before, rumors about the privatization of certain public housing projects in parts of rapidly gentrifying areas of Brooklyn have been circulating for a couple of years. Most recently, we wrote about the theory that the Ingersoll and Whitman Houses in Fort Greene were being emptied in anticipation of such a move; it’s also not hard to imagine something similar happening at the Farragut Houses, given their close proximity to Dumbo, the most expensive neighborhood in Brooklyn. Given what a politically and emotionally charged issue this is, however, no public official has ever said anything in its favor, as far as we know. But, on Tuesday, Sean Moss, the regional administrator for the federal Housing and Urban Development Department, went out on a serious limb. In light of the New York Housing Authority’s dismal financial position (an annual shortfall of $200 million), he said, selling public housing buildings in the most upscale areas could make sense. “It may displace some people, and that is a concern,” Moss said. “That is not necessarily a bad thing if you can create more housing [elsewhere] with that.” We’ll see whether political pressures force him to backpedal in the coming days.
Feds Eye NY Building Sale at Housing Projects [NY Daily News]
Bye Bye Public Housing, Hello Luxe Condos? [Curbed]
What’s Really Going on at the Ingersoll Houses? [Brownstoner]


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  1. I don’t know where people are getting the idea that the Chicago public housing “transformation,” as they called it, has successfully resettled ex-residents into good homes and neighborhoods. The research out there suggests that residents have flocked to private housing (using their Sec. 8 vouchers) in neighborhoods with similar income/race/crime/etc demographics than the ones they left, and if anything skew those stats downward by their arrival.

    http://www.nhi.org/online/issues/138/chicago.html

  2. 1.08;

    You are yet further proof of my point.

    You hypothsize about what will happen (and assume that the folks in these units cannot possibly ever make it on their own).

    I again state: talk facts and data!! WHAT has happened in Chicago and Newark? Can you demonstrate where this has happened, when the projects were torn down.

    Keep trying to play on our emotions, rather than talking policies and results. Keep trying to defend failed experiments of the past. The more you do so, the more it will become apparent that there is no longer a basis for keeping these monstrositis intact, and they will be torn down, as has happened in Chicago, Newarrk, Detroit, jansas City, St. Louis and elsewhere.

    Benson

  3. Selling the units to current residents, obviously in highly subsidized terms, is insane and unfair to all the other low-income people out there who were not able to get a unit in the building.

  4. If you sell the apartments to the current tenants – those tenants who are “trapped in multi-generational pathologies” will be unable to make the maintenance payments, repair their units and will be tempted to mortgage the units in dangerous and risky ways. Ultimately they will end up without a buck and without an apartment – which helps no one.

  5. Montrose;

    FYI: I grew up in a housing project (Red Hook projects) and my grandmother lived in one for 39 years.

    You are factually incorrect on many points. There are no NYCHA projects in Brighton Beach. The closest project in near Nostrand Ave and Ave. V, and they are NOT full of immigrants, Russian or otherwise. They are full of folks trapped in multi-generational pathologies, as are the vast majority of projects.

    What will happen to them if this policy is implemented? Instead of asking hypothetical questions,why not go to the many cities where it HAS happened? has there been mass deprivation in Chicago since they’ve started to tear the projects down? Are poor folks IN NY better off because of these monstrosities?

    Let’s talk facts and data. All you are trying to do is to use emotion and scare tactics to defend failed policies of the past.

    At the time they were built,the projects were noble, and well-intentioned, experiments. Time has shown, however, that they do not work, in many ways. It’s time to move on.

    As the NY Sun suggests: sell the apartments to the present occupants, and be done with it. Everyone will win: the folks living there will make a buck and break the trap of dependency, they’ll be integrated into the mainstream, and the city will benefit.

    Benson

  6. PLEASE please stop overdramatizing the issue and making it so melodramatic. Many have cited the Chicago experiment, and it has worked very well. Why not use successful models and build on them?

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