Your guide to NYC's public proceedings.
PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Renee Keitt, President of Elliott Chelsea Houses
5:04:12
·
131 sec
Renee Keitt, President of Elliott Chelsea Houses, passionately advocates for preserving public housing and criticizes the current approach to NYCHA's challenges. She emphasizes the historical importance of public housing and calls for renewed political will to invest in and protect it.
- Keitt argues that NYCHA is not just affordable housing, but a model of social housing that represents a moral stance on housing as a human right.
- She criticizes plans for demolition and privatization, stating that NYCHA's $78 billion capital need over 20 years is a matter of political will, not resource scarcity.
- Keitt questions NYCHA's priorities in spending, calling for more investment in residents' living conditions and greater accountability.
Renee Keitt
5:04:12
Okay.
5:04:13
Thank you.
5:04:16
Good afternoon, council members.
5:04:17
My name is Renee Kitt, a NYCHA resident and the president of the Elliott Chelsea Houses.
5:04:22
Here on behalf of tenants fighting to preserve section nine public housing and to call out the real priorities this city should be upholding.
5:04:29
Let's begin with the truth.
5:04:31
NYCHA is not affordable housing in the modern sense of the term.
5:04:35
It is public housing, the foremost model of social housing in The United States.
5:04:39
It was built because the private market would not house working class people.
5:04:44
NYCHA wasn't just a solution.
5:04:46
It was a moral stance.
5:04:47
It said that housing is a human right.
5:04:49
Today, that moral clarity has been lost.
5:04:52
We're told to look to Vienna for inspiration, but let's look back at NYCHA's founding.
5:04:56
We once had the imagination and political courage to build dignified public housing without privatization.
5:05:03
We can dream big again, but first, we must stop the dream from being bulldozed.
5:05:07
Demolition is not innovation.
5:05:10
You cannot claim to care about environmental justice and simultaneous and simultaneously support demolition plants that will store up contaminated soils in communities already burning by environmental racism.
5:05:22
If the city wants to protect public health, it starts by protecting public housing.
5:05:27
Let's talk numbers.
5:05:28
The capital need of NYCHA is 78,000,000,000 over twenty years.
5:05:31
That's 4,000,000,000 per year.
5:05:33
Meanwhile, New York State reported a 6,000,000,000 surplus this year.
5:05:38
This is not a resource issue.
5:05:39
It's a political will issue.
5:05:41
We are choosing not to invest in the people who need it.
5:05:44
But NYCHA's board approved 15,000,000 to support the preservation trust.
5:05:48
Let's be clear.
5:05:49
Entities without money don't lend money.
5:05:51
NYCHA has money when it wants to.
5:05:53
So the real question is, what has NYCHA invested in us, its residents?
5:05:58
What have they invested in the interiors of our home, in the failing heat, broken elevators, water leaks?
5:06:02
Residents have already paid in rent, inpatient, and in our health.
5:06:06
We deserve an accountability.
5:06:08
Section three is another area where equity is being sidelined.
5:06:11
The current definition of low income, 46 to 90,000.
5:06:22
I'll send in the rest of my testimony.
Gale A. Brewer
5:06:15
Thank you for your testimony.
5:06:16
The timer has expired.
Justin Brannan
5:06:20
Thank you very much, Renee.