Some Community Voices Heard members would say it’s not a moment too soon. In a write-up that was part of the tour packet given to Quinn, Roxanne Reid, the tenant association president at Castle Hill Houses in the Bronx, criticized the way tenant employment is carried out. “We have received money from the stimulus package for green light fixtures that will save energy,” Reid wrote. “I sent them 45 residents who had experience working with the contractors. But instead they brought in their own crew, even though they are supposed to hire residents. They only hired two of the residents I sent to them. Not only that, but they put the wrong light fixtures in the first time, and now they have to pay for contractors to come back and do it over again.”
Sounds like a situation ripe for oversight. So far there’s the NYCStat Stimulus Tracker, an online tool showing the local allocation of funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 in eight major categories; public housing comes under Infrastructure.
Back at the Grant Houses in Harlem, none of the 45 projects using $150 million in stimulus funds allocated thus far are taking place there. But superintendent Richard Dragos says major renovations are needed. It’s hard to keep up in a 21-story building, where a leak patched on one floor just means a new one opening on another floor. As the officials and residents parried in the courtyard, and one resident hounded him for allegedly fixing elevators just before the VIPs appeared, he stated the obvious: “We never have enough staff.”
For an in-depth look at the status of public housing in New York City, see the Winter 2009 issue of City Limits investigates, Last Stand.
