NYC mayor’s ‘Block by Block’ housing plan highlights NYCHA needs
Mayor Zohran Mamdani launched his official multi-pronged strategy to tackle the city’s crippling housing crisis last week. The proposed “Block by Block” plan lays out a vision for building more affordable housing, protecting tenants, and rehabbing New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) buildings.
“I think for too long, city government has looked at the scale of NYCHA’s capital needs and used it as a justification to do nothing, the argument being they need more than $80 billion. Anything we do is (consequential),” said Mamdani at a May 27 press conference in Brooklyn. “We cannot afford to wait any longer.”
The plan includes a total of $5.6 billion in the city’s five-year capital plan among existing funds, investments made in the preliminary plan, and the mayor’s first executive budget. The city is still holding hearings to determine a final budget as of this June.
“The Reagan administration’s decision that precipitated these cuts for public housing — that is a decision that has been maintained across both Republican and Democratic administrations. NYCHA residents have come to this feeling of being overlooked because of government at every single level,” said Mamdani. “We are excited now to start to walk on a path where we will tell every single level of government that the city is here and ready to finally be a partner in this kind of investment.” In Mamdani’s first few days in office, he signed an executive order directing city agencies to hold Rental Ripoff hearings across the city. NYCHA residents, who represent the largest group of tenants in the city — with a population that is approximately 42% Black and 45% Hispanic — were initially excluded in the hearings. They demanded an equal platform to speak about their living conditions and personal experiences.
The administration has since pivoted to a NYCHA in Your Neighborhood listening tour, as well as investing toward NYCHA in the mayor’s Block by Block plan. The plan aims to boost resident engagement and elections in NYCHA’s 200 resident associations; address longstanding issues such as mold mediation, leaks, and rats with urgency; and fund the Permanent Affordability Commitment Together (PACT) program, which converts properties from Section 9 to Section 8 via Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) and the Public Housing Preservation Trust.
Praise and criticism for the plan
NYCHA was created in 1934, and was primarily maintained by federal resources until the 1960s and ’70s. In 1973, federal funding for more public housing construction was suspended, ushering in the age of voucher-based funding under the Section 8 program the next year. By the 1990s, federal funding had declined steeply. Into the early 2000s, New York city and state had stopped financially supporting 20,000 NYCHA units. This led to a federal monitor overseeing NYCHA after a lawsuit was filed against the city, NYCHA, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and the Southern District of New York (SDNY) in 2019.
The city is now investing $256 million in capital funds and $118 million in expense funds through fiscal year 2030 to restore vacant NYCHA apartments.
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