How To Save NYC Public Housing

Greg Russ, the chairman of the New York City Housing Authority, has asked the Legislature to OK the transfer of twothirds of NYCHA developments to a new public-private corporation to protect the agency’s at-risk ability to fund badly needed repairs. Tenants deserve fast approval.

The new arrangement would ensure that units badly in need of renovation get the work they need in rapid order.

The city’s public-housing stock is in serious decline, with some $13 billion worth of emergency repairs urgently needed.

The de Blasio administration has committed $2.2 billion in capital funding for NYCHA over the next 10 years, and Gov. Cuomo released $450 million to fix elevators and replace boilers. Yet that’s drops in the bucket of

NYCHA’s total $40 billion repair hole.

Hence the drive to use the Rental Assistance Demonstration program, created by the Obama administration, to shift buildings to private management. It’s a major step away from the public-housing model so long dominant in New York City — the model that saw so many NYCHA buildings decay horribly.

After years of public-housing neglect, tenants are beset by intolerable conditions — lead exposure, mold, leaky roofs, broken elevators and bouts of no hot water, heat or cooking gas. Russ’ plan is public housing’s last best chance to survive.

State legislative leaders must do the right thing and grant NYCHA the authority to go ahead with the plan — or find a way to fund the repairs themselves. The clock is ticking.