Today, New York Housing Conference, Community Service Society of New York, Coalition for the Homeless, Enterprise Community Partners, LISC NYC, Center for New York City Neighborhoods, Leading Age New York and the Neighborhood Preservation Coalition of New York State, wrote a letter to Governor Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio. We asked our State and City leaders to work together to immediately invest $500 million to NYCHA’s most pressing capital repairs as a down payment in a long-term capital strategy.
“With public housing under direct fire by the President of the United States in his budget request to Congress, which calls for the defunding of capital repairs and more than 35% in cuts to the operating fund, NYCHA residents and New Yorkers as a whole need to know that their City and State elected officials can cooperate to provide a long-term solution. Working together, you are each in a position to achieve this.”
We will continue to advocate for funding in Washington, but we also need our local leaders to act. Safe and decent living conditions for public housing residents is a pressing social justice issue that can no longer be ignored. It is unacceptable that more than 300,000 NYCHA residents, have endured heat outages this winter. We ask for cooperation between the Governor and the Mayor in working together to establish a City / State investment strategy to prioritize the most pressing capital needs.