NYCHA Tightens Screws on Tenants: Time to Call Caracas

Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit sent by Andy Pollack - Mar 8, 2006

The NYCHA announced yesterday a proposal to nickel-and-dime its way out of its fiscal crisis by charging poor residents for use of washing machines, fixing doors, etc. This because of a budget crisis caused by a) savage cuts from Washington and b) rising costs, especially utilities.

The actual amount the Authority would save from the new charges on residents are a tiny fraction of their projected deficit, and it's possible this is all a p.r. move to prepare the public for cuts on another big expense: NYCHA workers' pensions. (See graphic at Times link below for impact of utilities on the Authority's budget.)

But it's ironic (and instructive) that the Authority is having such problems with utilities so soon after the Bolivarian Revolution came to the rescue of some Bronx residents via cut-rate heating oil.

Now we could turn to Caracas for heating help -- or we could turn our fire on ExxonMobil et al. The very same day as the NYCHA announcement, Exxon was taking heat from Wall Street analysts for having too MUCH cash! After declaring the biggest annual profit in the history of the universe, Exxon, say analysts, still "had a 'cash problem' because it had more than $33 billion in cash and equivalents at the end of 2005."

(They want it to invest more but Exxon doesn't know where to put its money;

Instead of asking Caracas for subsidies for our brothers and sisters in New York City public housing, let's ask them for advice. To wit: tell us how you seized YOUR energy resources so we can do the same, starting with Exxon!-Andy

The New York Times - Mar 9, 2006

New York Asks Help From Poor in Housing Crisis

By JANNY SCOTT

The New York City Housing Authority, landlord to more than 400,000 poor New Yorkers, is facing a budget shortfall of $168 million and has proposed narrowing the gap by charging residents new fees and increasing old ones for everything from owning a dishwasher to getting a toilet unclogged.

The authority says its operating deficit stems from enormous increases in energy and pension costs while its federal financing for public housing has been cut. Since 2001, the agency says, it has spent $357 million from its reserves to close repeated budget gaps; this year, for the first time, it no longer has enough reserves to cover the shortfall.

So it has proposed charging tenants $5.75 a month to run a washing machine, $5 a month to operate a dishwasher, $10 a month for a separate freezer. Parking fees will rise to $75 from $5 a year on April 1.

The authority plans to raise existing fees for dozens of services, like fixing damage to apartments beyond normal wear and tear, and to charge, for the first time, for things like rescuing lost keys from elevator pits after hours. The authority would like to put the fee changes other than for parking into effect around May 1.

The Housing Authority board has asked its senior staff to come up with a plan to balance the budget while preserving basic services, minimizing the impact on the most vulnerable residents and finding what the board called "creative ways to streamline service delivery." The authority has also appealed to federal and city officials for help.

"The chickens are coming home to roost," said Representative Jerrold L. Nadler of Manhattan, who added that the federal government was taking less responsibility for public housing. "The Housing Authority has, by one ingenious means or another, been holding it together with spit and baling wire. This could be really devastating."

Continuing cost cuts are likely to have a profound effect around the country, with the nation's 1.2 million units of public housing in danger of deteriorating, housing experts fear.

New York's Housing Authority, the largest in the country, operates 345 developments around the city, including nearly 2,700 buildings and 181,000 apartments. Half of its operating income comes from its federal subsidy; most of the rest comes from rent from its tenants, whose average household income is less than $19,000 a year.

Arlyne Allen, who lives in the Amsterdam Houses on the West Side of Manhattan with her husband and three teenage children and provides day care out of her home, said of the fees: "It'll affect me a lot. You can't even afford what you have now." If she could, she said, she would move to Pennsylvania to find private housing that she could afford.

According to the agency, expenses have skyrocketed. Contributions to its employees' pension fund increased by 866 percent, to $62.6 million, between 2001 and 2005, in part because of market fluctuations and new state laws, a problem faced by scores of government agencies. Further, utility costs rose by 45 percent, health care costs by 42 percent and workers' compensation by 39 percent.

At the same time, authority officials say, the federal operating subsidy for public housing nationwide has remained flat, and the authority's federal operating subsidy has shrunk by $14 million. The agency is also responsible for 21,000 apartments formerly subsidized by the city and the state that no longer get any subsidy.

As a result, the authority has faced budget shortfalls every year since 2001. The total gap for 2006 is $182 million, which the agency says it has whittled down to $168 million through measures including proposed staff reductions, consolidation of functions and elimination of vacant positions.

Under federal rules, the authority is required to maintain a minimum of about two months' worth of operating expenses, or about $270 million, to weather changes in appropriation levels or delays in financing. In recent years, that reserve has dropped to $320 million from more than $800 million, officials said.

"It's big, it's really big," Howard Marder, a spokesman for the authority, said of the shortfall that the agency can no longer cover. "It's never been like this."

The tenant fees are expected to generate about $1.5 million in revenue. The authority says most of the "utility surcharges" on appliances have long been in place and have not risen in more than a decade.

Tenants say few fees were ever imposed. "Only in extreme cases where a door was bullet riddled or somebody kicked the front entrance door and it was not based on wear and tear," said Gerri Lamb, the citywide chairwoman of the Resident Council of Presidents, a tenant group. "And certainly not this amount of money. I've been in public housing over 35 years and there's never been a set listing of charges that was given to the residents."

Saul Ramirez, executive director of the National buttociation of Housing and Redevelopment Officials, traced the budget shortfall to "a steady disinvestment" in public housing at the federal level. "Obviously," he said, "there has been a decline that has gotten to a critical point in the area of operations."

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