REMARKS
Opening Remarks by Public Advocate Jumaane Williams
0:07:39
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4 min
Public Advocate Jumaane Williams addresses NYCHA's profound challenges, including systemic corruption, inadequate funding for repairs, and dire living conditions, at a city council hearing.
- Williams highlights the extensive issues plaguing NYCHA, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
- He underscores the recent indictments of NYCHA workers as indicative of deep-rooted corruption affecting residents and the organization's morale.
- The advocate criticizes NYCHA's persistent management failures in addressing critical repairs and combating corruption.
- Williams mentions a report by his office outlining NYCHA's hazardous living conditions and calls for improved contractor hiring processes.
- He emphasizes the urgent need for systemic changes to ensure safe, healthy housing for NYCHA residents.
Jumaane Williams
0:07:39
Good afternoon.
0:07:40
My name is Giovanni Williams, a public advocate of City of New York.
0:07:43
Thank you very much, CHA Bank, CHA 1, and Cheah Brewa and members of the committee on public housing contracts and oversight investigations for holding this hearing and allowing me the opportunity to provide a statement.
0:07:54
New York City has a shortage of affordable housing that's been exacerbated by the pandemic.
0:07:58
New Yorkers are subject to drastic increases in rent, territorial landlords, long waits for repairs and evictions.
0:08:03
Natural residents, unfortunately, are not exempt from such actions.
0:08:07
While bribery and extortion have been rampant in government and in New York City for a very long time, one of the famous ones, Tammy Hall.
0:08:15
The recent indictments of nitrile workers has led has had demoralizing effect on his residence.
0:08:21
It's ethical and trustworthy staff, which are many, and all New Yorkers.
0:08:25
Back in 2021, the Department of Investigation sent a letter to former secretary Greg Ross stating all the findings they found suspicious.
0:08:31
Nike was alerted multiple times, but refused the recommendations.
0:08:35
They had ample times to implement these or all the changes, but did not do so.
0:08:38
Every business organization or government agency must have measures in place to read our corruption and fraud nature's long standing chronic body deficit.
0:08:45
Is no excuse to not put measures in place and reassess those measures on a regular basis.
0:08:50
I've often said nitrogen needs money and better management.
0:08:53
Both of those things are huge problems from nature.
0:08:56
Management is something that nature can do better at.
0:08:59
Nature, we even without the money that is desperately needed.
0:09:02
Niges inability to eradicate mold and make timely repairs had notoriously made them the worst landlord for 6 years in a row.
0:09:09
According to the findings for 2023, there were 335 developments on the watch list with a 177,569 units with violations.
0:09:19
The average number of open work orders between January 2023 November 2023 are 618,310.
0:09:27
Ninety needs about $78,000,000,000 to resolve these necessary repairs.
0:09:31
Therefore, the corrupt behavior of 79 employees rub salt on the wounds of those residents who are waiting for repairs while critical dollars are being siphoned into the pockets of those employees.
0:09:41
These charges are clear and die indication of the extensive failure to make knee repairs and the failure to weed out possible corruption.
0:09:48
Nigel has consistently failed to create a healthy and safe living environment for his residence.
0:09:52
These indictments are a symptom of the larger problem of doing timely repairs.
0:09:57
It takes so long for repairs to get addressed that no one notice a disruption in the repair process.
0:10:01
Equally important, hazardous conditions are not addressed, not abated, and oftentimes escalates from an individual apartment to a building wide problem.
0:10:08
My office and I released a report on Nigeria called how the other half lives in public housing, highlighting the dangerous conditions of Nigeria developments that we witnessed during our 5 borrower tour in 2022.
0:10:20
They had frequent issues with molds, leaks, and rolling in fact invest infestation.
0:10:24
Residents are facing excessive filth in their homes with unsanitary conditions that can cause an unhealthy living environment that can lead to illness.
0:10:32
It's been one and a half years It has since we release it and has yet to be addressed in any meaningful way, such as the day of wastewater contamination and missing death from Legionnaire disease, just to there was about there were several recommendations that we had, but just ones that are very appropriate right now.
0:10:50
Which was number 3, the metric used to hire contractors should be improved.
0:10:54
Knight should develop a reliable list of contractors that can be used within the developments.
0:10:58
The current hiring system is unreliable, and Nigeria may hire someone who they know with the lowest price, which results in Nigeria's crippling housing infrastructure And therefore, NICE should develop a reliable list of contractors that can apply through the RFP process to do work with their developments We also discussed the Healthy Homes Act and Automatic Inspections.
0:11:17
As we've watched the legal process unfold, I hope to hear from nature, what approach it would take to weed out corruption, address much needed and long awaited repairs, while ensuring the protection of residents.
0:11:27
I I do have to say it feels just like another day in nature like we've been here before having discussion again.
0:11:34
I really hope something is gonna change.
0:11:36
This type of micro contracting, there's no way that anyone can look at it and not say without the proper Guard whales without the problem of off-site, something was gonna go wrong.
0:11:49
And in fact, someone did, the ORI did.
0:11:52
Why night 2 would not act on that?
0:11:54
Makes absolutely no sense and has nothing to do with the money that is absolutely needed for night 2, but has to do with somebody's incompetence in overseeing this.
0:12:02
Thank you so much.