A tenant advocate’s take on Block by Block

We asked Ramona, who leads the advocacy group SaveSection9.org what she thought of the Mayor’s plan, and this is what she sent us.

Resident leadership across the city has made it clear that we expect NYCHA to be restructured. Instead Zohran wants to add additional layers, offices, and executive vice presidents. It is waste. It is fiscally irresponsible. It overlooks the demands for transformation that tenants have been making since 2019. NYCHA delivered a re-organizational plan in 2020, tenants turned out against it. Since then the housing authority has become top heavy; salaries of those at the top have ballooned while our quality of life has declined. We are told that there isn’t money for Section 9 while NYCHA hires “policy advisors”. We, the tenants, are the best policy advisors. And we’ve been submitting our policy proposals regularly.

Our developments are poorly staffed in the areas that impact quality of life for tenants. In our citywide solutions a coalition has called for strategic hiring that focuses on trades such as plaster, painters, plumbers and carpenters. We have also asked for a new organizational plan that reflects NYCHA’s promise.

The changes within Block by Block, created with no tenant oversight, are proof that PACT is a failure, and that NYCHA fails to uphold tenant rights post conversion. These additional bureaucratic layers will create new “vice presidents” within NYCHA but they will not deliver comprehensive changes when it comes to how we experience privatization. If Zohran wanted to center tenant experiences he should be investing in Section 9, adopting the citywide solutions for public housing, replacing NYCHA’s CEO and COO and cleaning out the Real Estate Office.

PACT can’t be fixed. 
The private market can’t be reformed. The private market will never provide what is a human right: dignified housing. This is what Zohran proved via his rental ripoff hearings. Tenants in the private market are demanding truly affordable housing, tenant rights and a role in management. Those of us lucky enough to live in Section 9 public housing already have these things. We also have economic empowerment benefits and resources. Zohran wants every tenant to have what we have, except those of us in public housing! And to deliver on this promise Zohran is willing to take over privately owned buildings and make them public. So why is he okay handing over our publicly owned homes to the same slumlords?

Zohran’s proposal to use over $2.8B to prepare buildings for private takeover is not only fiscally irresponsible it is unethical and rooted in the racist rhetoric that has surrounded public housing. He has a choice.

Zohran can be the mayor that rebukes the idea that public housing is a failure. He can be the mayor that invests in Section 9 and changes the country’s opinion on public housing and our community.

Or he can fall in line and keep feeding a program, and a housing authority, that harm us.

Tenants and allies can make this choice for him. Call your councilperson and demand that “all monies be allocated to Section 9 public housing comprehensive modernization”. Let them know that we don’t need more oversight, we need more Section 9. You can read our citywide solutions and adopt these by visiting www.bit.ly/nycitywidesolution