NYCHA is the nation's largest and oldest public housing authority, overseeing 179,000 apartments in 2,700 buildings among 343 developments around the city, and housing at least 400,000 residents—or about as many people as live in Miami. It is regarded as the best-managed authority in the country; while projects in other cities succumbed to crime and vandalism, NYCHA's developments have remained viable.
However, the authority's capital program has occasionally shown weaknesses in the past. In the 1980s, two NYCHA contracting officials were jailed for demanding kickbacks from contractors, and organized crime figures were linked to the authority's window contracting operation.
This year, the authority has come under fire for the condition of its elevators after five-year-old Jacob Neuman fell to his death while trying to escape a stalled elevator at the Taylor-Wythe houses in August. The head of elevator repairs recently left the authority. NYCHA vowed to spend more on fixing its elevators, but said doing do would require shifting money from other parts of the capital budget—a budget already strained by the problems with the CM/Build program.
City Limits Investigates will publish a major report on NYCHA in late January.
