STATEMENT FROM BRONX BOROUGH PRESIDENT DIAZ RE: Federal Oversight Agreement for NYCHA

UsaNewsOnline.Com Desk, New York : “The city’s proposed agreement to a federal monitor of the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) is both good and bad. While the problems facing NYCHA certainly predate the current administration, they have played their role in this ongoing crisis in a variety of their own ways, such as by failing to provide proper lead inspections, mold abatement and heat to tenants, while lying about the state of the city’s public housing.

“The city’s agreement with the federal government outlines a web of deceptions and lies that the agency has engaged in as de facto official policy since 2010. While the Bloomberg administration started the problem, the de Blasio administration allowed it to grow and fester. The current administration bares great responsibility for the position we are in today: the most progressive city in the world has been forced to abdicate the management of its most vulnerable tenants to the Trump administration due to its own malfeasance. Anyone who knowingly and willingly broke the law—endangering the lives of NYCHA residents—must be held accountable.

“I certainly welcome an admission from the administration that it was not properly serving the more than 400,000 city residents who live in a NYCHA development, and I am glad to see a $2 billion commitment to revamping and repairing NYCHA developments, though that much needed funding will be provided under duress. Still, I remain concerned that a federal monitor lacks the credibility to deliver the change our public housing system needs to move forward, given who is currently in charge of the federal government and the long history of federal disinvestment from public housing.

“Do President Trump and Secretary Carson have the best interests of NYCHA and its tenants at heart? We are about to find out,” said Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. Press Release.