MANHATTAN — The New York City Housing Authority's management structure should be scrapped in favor of a larger board controlled by the mayor, Borough President Scott Stringer said in a scathing report of the agency released this week.
NYCHA's board currently has four members, three of whom are salaried and full-time and one, a tenant representative, who is part-time. Stringer wants seven members appointed by the mayor and two tenant representatives. The chairman would be the only full-time position with all other members serving in a part-time capacity and receiving a "modest stipend," according to the report.
"Major overhaul of the NYCHA management structure is needed especially in light of recent reports that NYCHA has squirreled away $42 million for security cameras and nearly $1 billion in federal funding to undertake critical repairs and maintenance while tenants wait for months for basic repairs," Stringer said at a press conference at the Amsterdam Houses in Midtown West.
In his report Stringer referred to the current model as an "archaic and confusing relic from another time" blaming it for the nation's largest housing authority's string of recent failures.
It was revealed earlier this week that NYCHA has sat on about $1 billion since 2009 while three of its board members collected six-figure salaries. NYCHA also neglected to fix up the Prospect Plaza Houses in Ocean Hill, Brooklyn, despite moving out the buildings' residents and receiving $21 million from the federal government, accoridng to the Daily News.
