Politicians Can't Back Sell-The-Projects Idea
Unsurprisingly, a group of legislators has a serious bone to pick with HUD regional director Sean Moss over his recent comments that selling some public housing developments might help solve New York’s affordable housing crisis. A letter addressed to HUD secretary Alphonso Jackson that was signed by 14 assemblymembers (including Joan Millman and Hakeem Jeffries)…
Unsurprisingly, a group of legislators has a serious bone to pick with HUD regional director Sean Moss over his recent comments that selling some public housing developments might help solve New York’s affordable housing crisis. A letter addressed to HUD secretary Alphonso Jackson that was signed by 14 assemblymembers (including Joan Millman and Hakeem Jeffries) makes the case that selling public housing is in no way a long-term solution for the city’s housing crisis:
At issue is the assertion that mass displacement of residents in one neighborhood, would benefit residents of another. At the very least, this assertion is misguided. The existing NYCHA developments are of much more value, to both the number of individuals which they provide shelter to as well as the diverse communities they help foster, than a short term budget windfall. Likewise, any purchase and/or development of affordable housing, short of new construction of full scale NYCHA developments, would be comparatively wasteful of the suggested sales proceeds and could by no means accommodate the same numbers of residents currently served by existing developments. In short, a sale of NYCHA properties would be a ‘one-shot’ deal, and would offer very few benefits for those in need of public housing extending past the year of the sale.
Full text of the letter on the jump.
HUD Official Speaks the Unspeakable: Selling The Projects [Brownstoner]
11:34 “These people don’t care about the lives of families they don’t see or know.”
Wrong – we see how poorly your efforts are working and demand a CHANGE. YOUR PROGRAMS AREN’T WORKING – THEY AREN’T WORKING – WAKE UP!!!! YOU’RE RUINING LIVES NOT HELPING!!! Your policies have created multigenerational poverty. So many of these people can care for themselves. Stop feeding them a fish each day. Give them the pole and push them out the door. It may shock you at how resourceful, competent, and self sufficient they are. You continue to underestimate them. Stop it!!!
I say we slowly fade out this subsidized housing – sell off the best locations first. You can still easily find apartments for less than $1,000/month within 30 minutes of Manhattan. The wealthiest tenants get kicked out first. The poorest should be placed in permanent housing (I understand some members of our society can’t care for themselves – I’m happy to spend my tax dollars and charitable donations to ensure they have a place to stay). But as a society we should either prove subsidized housing for every working person or no working person. It’s unfair otherwise. And it makes NO SENSE to provide $2M apartments for anyone.
Montrose;
Why don’t you feel some compassion for a working person who is paying taxes and trying to make it on their own? THESE are the people I tip my hat to.
You were indignant that I asked someone, who had benefited from subsidized NYC housing and then moved to Westchester, about their obligation to NYC and its taxpayers? This is nonsense, and exactly why these projects are so dysfunctional. The folks in the projects are under no obligation to society in return for the subsidy they are receiving from WORKING TAXPAYERS. This is exactly the philosophy of the old welfare system.
Well, as I’ve said before: these projects’ days are numbered. Just like the old welfare system came crashing down, so too will these vestiges of the days when socialism was rampant in NYC. It is inevitable, as they are running big deficits that no one (the federal, state and city governments) is willing to pay anymore, despite this “hats out” letter from these local hack politicians.
Benson
Montrose Morris:
“I am so sick of the pervasive attitude that poor people are somehow living soooo large in the projects, while “deserving” people like you are reduced to commuting. You have no idea what poverty is.”
Is poverty $150 sneakers, the latest iPod and cell phones, and shiny new SUV’s in the NYCHA parking lots? And don’t tell me it’s a small minority. The parking lots (free no less!) are full of late model cars.
These impoverished people seem to have a lot of disposable income.
10:56,
The starting salary for a rookie cop is NOT under $30,000. Cadets are paid $25,100 when beginning the ACADEMY. That’s right, while the rest of the world accumulates five- and six-figure debts to attain education and training, police officers are PAID to go to school. Upon graduation, pay is raised to $32,700. Within five years, the salary increases to $59,000. Not bad for a job that doesn’t even require a bachelors degree. Yea, yea, I know that 59K is less than in other areas, but it’s far better than the picture that Pat Lynch and the PBA love to convey ad naseam (even though they agreed to it during union negotiations).
I hate these threads on public housing. The vicious vitriol is disgusting. I would guess that at least 1/2 the comments are probably by 1 person.
1) Public housing projects are not ‘experiments’. They have provided hundreds of thousands/probably millions of people a decent place to live for decades and decades. And today still provide many working class, elderly and disabled a place to live.
2) Public housing has been very successful in NYC.
3) You have no historical perspective on condition of housing in this or other cities. Try a bit of research on early 20th century NYC.
4) These anti-poor people diatrabes only speaks to your total ignorance and your bitter personality. Very sad to think of what kind of life you lead.
11:51 – no it’s not a valid argument, it’s the whining of someone who hasn’t been in the city that long and can’t afford to live where he/she wants.
“They” simply moved into existing buildings built in areas that no one else was interested in, at the time. “They” were entitled to do so by the fact of being eligible for existing programs designed to provide basic shelter for the thousands of people needed to make this city work.
Most of “them” would probably much prefer to be wealthy enough to live elsewhere, perhaps in their own home or apartment, and not dependent on the city. Unfortunately, life isn’t fair on so many levels, is it?
I am so sick of the pervasive attitude that poor people are somehow living soooo large in the projects, while “deserving” people like you are reduced to commuting. You have no idea what poverty is. Be content with thanking whatever higher power you believe in, that you have the money to commute, and the job skills and abilities to do better, and achieve more. Envy of the poor doesn’t become anyone.
It’s amazing how quick people are on this board to completely discount poor people. I see some merits in selling some projects (and absolutely agree that they are a failed experiment) in the more expensive areas – but those of you who want to displace all of those residents to the far reaches of the outer boroughs are nuts. Maybe you want to live in an exclusively rich white city, but I don’t. That’s not, nor should it ever be, New York.
Any sale of public housing, and the following displacement of tax paying citizens, needs to be done with great care.
It never stops to amaze me how angry, short-sighted, and ignorant many posters here are.
Native New Yorker who owns a coop apartment in Clinton Hill.
further 11:51’s brilliant idea to remove all poor people from Manhattan, i have my own proposal: remove all wealthy people from Manhattan, bring the remaining indigent people from the boros in, and erect a wall around Manhattan to keep these undesirables out of sight and mind.
Phase II: Ugly People
Why does the city/state/fed have an obligation to provide housing to anyone?