In City & State Budget Talks, Advocates Look to Fortify NYCHA Amid Federal Uncertainty 

With New York City and state lawmakers in the throes of finalizing new budgets, residents and advocates alike are pushing for billions of dollars in additional funding that would address public housing needs without privatization efforts.

For the 90-year-old New York City Housing Authority, adequate funding is at the top of the list for getting apartments in good condition.

Since 2023, NYCHA has estimated a near $80 billion in capital needs over the next two decades. The tab manifests itself into daily frustrations for residents, such as leaks from aging pipes, broken lobby doors and long waiting periods for work orders to be resolved.

Along with outstanding capital needs, NYCHA grapples with financial constraints. Each year, the housing authority says it receives an estimated $700 million from Congress for repairs through the Section 9 public housing program, which is only a slice of the greater demand. And rent collection, which accounts for one-third of NYCHA’s operational funds, consistently falls below the amount the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) requires.

To help bring in immediate investment, NYCHA turned to the Permanent Affordability Commitment Together (PACT) program, a federal initiative that transfers New York City public housing units from the current Section 9 model over to Project-Based Section 8, which has twice as many federal funds. After conversion, properties can be privately managed by a third-party. 

To date, PACT has brought $7 billion worth of capital repairs, and is expected to bring a total of $13.2 billion should NYCHA reach its goal of converting 62,000 units by 2028. Still, there are questions around whether the program brings true, well-rounded investment to public housing, with concerns such as the quality and longevity of repairs persisting.

With New York City and state lawmakers in the throes of finalizing new budgets, residents and advocates alike are pushing for billions of dollars in additional funding that would address public housing needs without privatization efforts. With a new administration in Washington intent on slashing federal resources for housing programs like Section 9, the stakes are even higher.

“NYCHA is confronting serious challenges. Rental arrears are at record levels while federal funding is not keeping pace with the ever-increasing cost of repairing and maintaining decades-old buildings,” said Lisa Bova-Hiatt, NYCHA’s chief executive officer, during a City Council budget hearing earlier this week. 

“Yet, we know NYCHA is a federal institution serving a vital role in our city providing decent and affordable homes for hundreds and thousands of New Yorkers and so it must be strengthened and preserved.”

Vacant units, broken doors

Despite these challenges, NYCHA remains one of the more coveted housing resources for individuals and families, with close to 180,000 hopefuls on the waiting list for an apartment. Meanwhile, there are currently just over 8,000 vacant units throughout the system.

At the recent City Council hearing, NYCHA Chief Operating Officer Eva Trimble explained that close to 1,700 of those empty apartments are temporarily off the rent roll as they wait for modernization or rehabilitation; another 600 are already matched to a prospective tenant slated to move in, and about 5,700 are vacant and available.

NYCHA turns over approximately 430 units a month for a new tenant to re-occupy, Trimble testified. “One of our biggest challenges is that 60 percent of the vacancies go to transfers,”  she said. “We also have a significant number of emergency transfers and other transfer needs.”

When a tenant who transferred moves into a vacant unit, another vacant unit opens up, she explained.

Beyond vacancies, city lawmakers questioned NYCHA officials on the funding needed to address other issues at its complexes. Manhattan Councilmember Gale Brewer cited safety and security concerns, especially around broken lobby doors.

“You break them, you fix them, you break them,” Brewer said during the hearing. “It’s about $70 grand, so what are we gonna do about that?”

Councilmember Kristy Momorato shared similar concerns about NYCHA campuses in her Northeast Bronx district. “It’s constant,” she said. “At one building, the door was broken three times in one week.” 

The concern about broken lobby doors was one example around property maintenance that unlocked questions about whether funding alone can solve the underlying issues within the housing authority.

NYCHA had more than 623,000 open work orders as of February, according to the authority’s metrics. Among the needs to be addressed are elevators, lead, leaks mold and rodents.

Though NYCHA says it’s making improvements in critical areas, like remediating lead in 10,000 apartments, it still struggles to maintain a state of good repair. Housing authority staff members point to gaps in funding, including unpaid rent, that delays response times.

Federal funding makes up two-thirds of NYCHA’s operating revenue while rent collection makes up the other third, Bova-Hiatt said in her testimony. NYCHA expects to receive $1.29 billion in federal operating subsidy this year, she said. The estimated rent collection for 2025 is $1.05 billion—just about $110 million under what NYCHA should be getting.

Rental arrears have increased at NYCHA since the COVID-19 pandemic, when public housing tenants were excluded from early iterations of the state’s rent relief program. An estimated 67,000 NYCHA households still owe rent, making up roughly 46 percent of the population, according to NYCHA. This amounts to $545 million in total arrears, even after $150 million from statewide rent relief funding allocated in recent years.

“Considering the limited federal funding available, we are pursuing innovative programs that are bringing top to bottom renovations and repairs to a significant portion of our portfolio,” said Bova-Hiatt. “With the increased needs and continued rent arrears, an annual deficit is expected in the coming years.”

‘The best we can with the funding that we have’

City Councilmember Chris Banks, who chairs the Council’s Committee on Public Housing, questioned whether funding was the only component fueling substandard conditions. “Some of these issues are going back years and years, of NYCHA just not dealing with them,” Banks said.

“And not being historically funded,” Lescott-Martinez countered. “Historically, we have been underfunded by our federal partners, so we have tried to do the best we can with the funding that we have…we are doing the best we can with our $5.4 billion budget.”

The housing authority’s 2025-2029 Financial Plan shows $561 million in state capital funding for the current Fiscal Year 2025, which is leftover from a previous $1.25 billion allocation from the state. 

There’s currently no additional state funding earmarked in the Financial Plan from 2026 forward, though it is expected to see an infusion of $1 billion that Gov. Kathy Hochul pledged to provide for NYCHA repairs as part of the City Council’s negotiations over the mayor’s City of Yes for Housing plan.

Annika Lescott-Martinez, NYCHA’s chief financial officer and executive vice president of finance, testified that the housing authority is seeking $500 million from the state to rehabilitate NYCHA properties. The state budget is due April 1. 

“We really do believe that an additional $500 million from the state could help us make meaningful progress,” she said.

To combat the financial strain, NYCHA continues to look to the PACT program to raise revenue; it now has more than 38,000 units in its portfolio. 

But there is a demand among many NYCHA tenants across the city to keep public housing public, and to fund properties without conversion.

Earlier this month, public housing tenants across the state joined organizations including Citizen Action of New York, Community Voices Heard and Community Service Society* and boarded buses and vans to Albany to demand more state dollars.

“A large portion of New York City’s funding comes from the federal government, year after year we would go up to Albany or even the City Council advocating for more funding for NYCHA,” said Jesse Koklas, the New York City regional director at the Citizen Action of New York. 

“Now, especially since that’s less guaranteed than it was before from the federal government, it’s more important now than ever that the state prioritize public housing in their budget and protect it and preserve the public housing that exists,” Koklas added.

Among their demands is a push for a commitment of $5 billion over the next five years for public housing authorities across New York, with $4 billion going to NYCHA. The funds would be used to repair and preserve 15,000 public housing units in the city and 25,000 upstate, according to a document prepared by Iziah Thompson, a senior policy analyst with the Community Service Society. 

Sandra Anthony, a resident at the Polo Grounds Towers in Harlem and a member of the organization Community Voices Heard, said it was her first time participating in “lobby day.”

“To some people that might sound like a lot of money,” Anthony said of the groups’ funding requests. “But if you see the pictures of some of the apartments that some of the residents are living in where there’s literal holes in ceilings that a grown man could crawl through…that’s not a lot.”

The role of private management in public housing

NYCHA isn’t alone in turning to the private sector to fill funding gaps. PACT is New York’s local version of  the federal Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD), implemented in 2011 under the Obama administration. 

Under RAD, public housing authorities funded through the Section 9 program convert to another federally funded program with twice as many federal dollars called Project-Based Section 8. After conversion, a third-party management company can take over the operations of the properties.

In New York City, the RAD program was introduced in 2016, and is now known as PACT.

The program has drawn skepticism since its inception nearly a decade ago, with questions around the performance of the private management companies that take over, longevity of repairs and the level of tenant involvement during the selection process.

“What we hear a lot is that people wish that they had a say in it,” said Koklas. “There are some developments that have had a vote but the process is very opaque in terms of why some developments get a vote and why some don’t, and we just want a little more clarity, a little more transparency in this process and for residents to really have a genuine say in it.”

In her testimony at the recent Council budget hearing, Anna Luft, a project director of the public housing justice project at the New York Legal Assistance Group (NYLAG), emphasized that the well-being of NYCHA is tethered to the rest of New York.

She pressed the City Council to increase NYCHA capital funding to $1.5 billion annually, up from $779 million in the previous year’s budget, according to Luft, and to “ensure an equitable distribution of funds” between Section 9 and PACT developments. 

“With the Trump administration’s policies and priorities, and its slashing federal spending, it is unlikely that the federal government is going to fund public housing meaningfully,” Luft testified. 

“We also strongly urge the City Council to ensure specifically that NYCHA Section 9 developments are funded and not rely on privatization through PACT to save the future of public housing in New York City.”

*Community Service Society is among City Limits’ funders.

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