Your guide to NYC's public proceedings.
PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Marquis Jenkins, Member of the Public
0:13:03
ยท
5 min
Marquis Jenkins testifies about transparency issues in NYCHA's RAD/PACT program, emphasizing the need for resident involvement in decision-making and better evaluation of the program's impacts. He criticizes the lack of information provided to residents and calls for more accountability for private developers involved in public housing conversions.
- Questions the $78 billion deficit projection and argues for increased government funding
- Criticizes the use of non-disclosure agreements with tenant association presidents
- Calls for independent evaluations of RAD/PACT conversions and physical needs assessments
- Raises concerns about potential foreclosure risks in converted properties
Marquis Jenkins
0:13:03
So I do wanna applaud and thank Salinas, Renee, Jackie, and the members of FEC, as well as Doctor.
0:13:26
Crawford who have been fighting this Herculean fight.
0:13:33
Going back and continuing what we discussed outside, we have a huge problem with transparency.
0:13:43
Everyone in public housing, everyone working with public housing residents wants to see the repairs done.
0:13:51
The question is how do we do it and how do we do it in a way where the residents are at the decision making table?
0:14:00
We have or the New York City Housing Authority has estimated a $78,000,000,000 deficit.
0:14:08
But what continues to get left out of that number is the fact that that is a twenty year projection.
0:14:15
And so, simple math.
0:14:16
When you divide $78,000,000,000 by twenty years, how much money do we need for public housing each year?
0:14:25
And, why can't we not get nearly $2,000,000,000 from all three levels of government?
0:14:32
Further, when we look at this $78,000,000,000 deficit, and we look at the amount of RAD conversions that have taken place thus far, the New York City Housing Authority has been mentioning the $78,000,000,000 for well over a year, and that number jumped from nearly two years ago.
0:14:53
So, how is it that we have all of these conversions, and yet the deficit is not going down?
0:15:02
When we also think about transparency, we're also talking about the access that residents have to the information, not just the information about the repairs that need to be done in their home and how much it costs to do those repairs, but the contracts that are being signed.
0:15:25
When tenant association presidents are being asked to sign nondisclosure agreements, that is a problem.
0:15:33
It goes completely against their role as tenant association presidents.
0:15:38
And when there is a block, something, a physical document that is blocking them from communicating what is happening in their development, that becomes an that becomes their inability to do their job effectively.
0:15:55
And so we need to put measures in to make sure that tenant association presidents are not signing nondisclosure agreements.
0:16:04
The other thing I wanna talk about is the evaluation of We only have one study of rad, and that is the human watch report.
0:16:16
New York City, with all the rad that has been conducted, there has been no evaluation of the overall program.
0:16:23
And, the New York City Housing Authority will tell you in their testimony that with each conversion, they have made changes.
0:16:30
So, that suggests that they have not created the ideal model of RAD thus far.
0:16:38
And part of that is because they haven't included the residents in a real way.
0:16:44
We have dozens of organizations all across the city that are perfect experts at community community engagements that they should be utilizing.
0:16:54
One more thing about transparency is today, we will hear from the New York City Housing Authority, but who we will not hear from is the developers.
0:17:06
So how much oversight do we truly have over these developers when our residents or when these developments cross over into their custody?
0:17:19
Thirty seconds to go, what we are asking for is we're asking for real resident engagement.
0:17:26
Residents, there's no one size fits all plan.
0:17:30
So there might be some residents who want RAD.
0:17:32
But if we are not army residents with the information that they need by conducting an actual evaluation of RAD, by conducting actual independent physical needs assessments of their development so that they can understand how much it costs to fix all the repairs and where they can get that funding.
0:17:50
And further, we need tools.
0:17:52
We need tools to be able to hold private developers accountable.
0:17:56
There should be an evaluation mechanism that's put in place to evaluate these private developers on an annual or biannual basis.
0:18:04
And finally, we need funding.
0:18:08
What the scariest part about RAD is that they are taking mortgages out on these properties.
0:18:14
And for the first time in history, public housing can fall a threat to foreclosure.
0:18:20
And in putting forth legislation like the Public Housing Preservation Trust, there was no conversation about what happens if there was a default.
0:18:31
If the city and the state thinks that this is a great plan, then why not back it up by saying, if there's a default, we will guarantee the funding to pay back the funding so that public housing does not go into foreclosure.
0:18:45
So thank you, and I apologize for going over.