By Imani Robin Jasper

In the past century in the rich history of public housing, planners and political officials have struggled to implement effective planning schemes to improve the living condition of the residents of public housing (Hoffman, 2009). Reforms in “zoning, garden cities, public housing, urban renewal, or the integration of suburbs by income and race” have been defeated by parochial interest and/or local opposition (Hoffman, 2009). The New York City Housing Authority houses 400,000 residents in 334 housing units, with another 235,000 receiving subsidized rental assistance in the form of Section 8 vouchers. Many residents of these developments struggle with finding employment opportunities that are supposed to be provided by the housing authority as well as issues with proper maintenance of housing (City of New York, 2013). New York City Housing Authority has boasted on its website of clearing 268,000 repair work orders from its backlog. This would be encouraging if 155,000 work orders weren’t still open (City of New York,, 2013). If residents wanted to leave their homes and interact with their neighbors in the surrounding neighborhood, this might prove difficult (Kreisberg 1968).

In 2001, residents of NYC public housing and New York City Housing Authority were involved in a dispute over parts of the Housing Act of 1998. The part of the Act up for discussion was the clause that requires community service of public housing residents with some exceptions made for the elderly, students, disabled or full time employees. An unprecedented requirement in public housing projects, residents were up in arms over the requirement that a group of predominantly African American people work for free or be punished (Jones, 2001). The obvious racial overtones were not missed by the residents and protest occurred with people chanting “Section 3, not work for free!” Said a protestor at the time “Apparently when it comes to work, New York City Housing Authority expects residents to forego employment opportunities and stick to “voluntary” community service.” This statement refers to another item of controversy; Section 3 of the 1968 Housing Act (Jones, 2001). Section 3 of the Housing Act of 1968 has a “federal mandate to use HUD funds for job training and placement of public housing residents with New York City Housing Authority and New York City Housing Authority -hired contractors.”At the time, New York City Housing Authority had apparently ignored this provision while using the money granted to it by HUD (Jones, 2001). Since 2001, this issue has been resolved and New York City Housing Authority now describes itself as an economic engine in the city (City of New York, 2013). With various initiatives to preserving aging housing stock, increasing resident access to programs, and increase job readiness and training, NYCHA has progressed from its oppositional role against the residents it serves (City of New York, 2013). New York City Housing Authority also provides employment, health and community services as well as services in the fields of art, music, performing arts, recreation, senior services, sports, garden programs. The New York City Housing Authority also has fatherhood initiatives and family services. The first ever large scale urban farm was recently launched in NYCHA property in the Red Hook Urban Farm  and residents are currently engaged in developing a Land Lease Plan according to a NYCHA press release (City of New York, 2013).

Over the past decade, relations between the housing authority and residents of public housing in New York City have one from mainly antagonistic to cooperative. The antagonistic nature of New York City public housing is based in past distrust of the housing authority. In recent memory of the residents NYCHA has attempted to require residents to work for free while refusing to offer employment and job training services. For the relationship between NYCHA and tenants to move forward, there needs to be more trust between the two.

Works Cited

City, New York. New York City Housing Authority. 2013. <http://www.nyc.gov/html/nycha/html/home/home.shtml>.

Hoffman, Alexander von. “Housing and Planning: A Century of Social Reform and Local Power.” Journal of the American Planning Association (2009): 231-244.

Jones, David. “Public Housing’s Frontline Issues.” New York Amsterdam News 9 August 2001.

Kriesberg, Louis. “Neighborhood Setting and the Isolation of Public Housing Tenants.” Journal of the American Institute of Planners (1968): 43-49.