[music]

Female Speaker 1: Why do you continue to show up and fight for public housing?

Male Speaker 1: I think that affordable and public housing are essential to the stability of many families and the survival of the cities.

Female Speaker 2: Of course, I need a roof over my head and I have no other family to go to.

Female Speaker 1: What did NYCHA mean to you and your family?

Female Speaker 3: It meant a home. We had been living there for 20-plus years so this was a privilege. NYCHA was a privilege for us.

Female Speaker 4: I think it's one of the best laws ever written in the entire country, in the history of our country because it is so aggressive and it is so progressive. You have eviction protection, you have a right to mediation, you have a right to legal resources but for 30 years they've abandoned it and now it's at the point where it is a failure.

[music]

Kai Wright: It's Notes from America, I'm Kai Wright. Welcome to the show. We're thinking this week about home. The place where you go for comfort and safety. Where you settle down and unwind. Maybe share holiday time off with your loved ones. How much did that cost us, and how do we make it available to everybody? Because right now, it's not something you can take for granted. There's an official measure that determines when you can't afford the place you call home. Whether you rent or pay a mortgage, if you have to spend more than 30% of your income on housing, the Federal Government considers you cost-burdened and therefore at risk of losing your home.

Right now a record high number of Americans fit this definition. More than 21 million households. Nearly 12 million renters spend more than half of their income on housing and we wonder why so many people feel so insecure about money. Perhaps it is more than gas prices, yes. The problem is not that everybody wants an overly fancy place to live. On the contrary, over roughly the past decade or so there has been a dramatic decrease in the supply of affordable housing all over the country. Now there is a very old solution to this problem. It's called publicly subsidized housing and I want to start this week by hearing from a young woman, a 17-year-old in New York City for whom public housing has been a life-changing force.

Fanta Kaba moved around a lot when she was growing up because her family couldn't afford a place to stay. Public housing solved that problem but she and many others now fear that the resource that gave her stability will not be available to the next generation of families. She's been reporting on the future of public housing as part of WNYC's Radio Rookies program which is a program that trains people to tell first-person stories of what's happening in their communities. We'll hear a couple of reports from Fanta in this show. First up, she sets the stakes for our conversation. Here's Fanta.

[people talking]

Fanta Kaba: I have a big family so I barely get any privacy. When things get too loud or when my siblings annoy me, I just go to my room and shut the door. [door slams] All right, so this is my room. On the wall, there's a bunch of posters. One of them says, "Don't stop trying and life is fantastic." I love my room. It's my favorite place. It's the one place where I can get some peace and quiet. There's a poster of Jimi Hendrix and there's another poster for team Paula and another one is Rolling Stones. Then--

I do have to share it with my annoying little sister but it's way better than when I had to share one room with all five of my siblings, or when we lived with my grandparents and aunts and uncles. Imagine 15 people in a two-bedroom apartment. That was one of the places we stayed. Growing up we moved around a lot. Harlem, Queens, to Bronx. Even North Carolina for a while. My parents' jobs did not pay enough. My dad drove taxis and my mom was a home attendant. All right, so when you first came to America where did you first go? What was your first place you stayed at?

Female Speaker 5: When we first came to America we was living in Manhattan.

Fanta Kaba: Okay.

Female Speaker 5: Yes, Harlem.

Fanta Kaba: That's my mom.

Female Speaker 5: Live in Harlem.

Fanta Kaba: She and my dad moved here from Guinea hoping for a new life. What they didn't know is that finding a home in a place like New York City is almost impossible. When I was eight after bouncing around we ended up at a shelter. How did it feel to stay in a shelter with six kids? You know it's a temporary housing situation. How was it for you?

Female Speaker 5: It was not that easy but I was grateful at least I have a place to stay with my kids. It was okay.

Fanta Kaba: It was okay. We had a roof over our heads but the shelter never felt like my home. It had blank white walls and I didn't put anything up. I knew we were just going to leave again. I felt really uncomfortable there. Then the workers at the shelter helped my mom apply for a new apartment. A NYCHA apartment. That's what everyone calls the New York City Housing Authority or our city's public housing, the projects.

I know there was some stigma around living in the projects but my parents told us we were going to have a big new apartment with four bedrooms. They took us to Home Depot to pick out paint colors and they said this time, "We're not moving again." NYCHA gave my family stability and community. Out of everywhere I've lived, this is the only place I've ever considered home and I know thousands of New Yorkers can relate. Our buildings may not be the prettiest or the newest but we know our rent won't go up. Everyone pays 30% of their income in rent no matter how much or how little you make.

Kai Wright: That's Radio Rookies reporter Fanta Kaba. We'll hear more from her and her reporting later in the show. She's one of about half a million people in New York City alone who live in public housing that is homes subsidized by the Federal Government and managed by the City and State. With me in studio now is Tatyana Turner, who reports on public housing for the publication City Limits. Tatyana welcome to the show.

Tatyana Turner: Thank you. Happy to be here.

Kai Wright: I wonder about your reaction to this part of Fanta's story. This idea that public housing was life-changing for her in terms of having a home. Not just like a place to stay but a place to have a home. How often do you hear that idea?

Tatyana Turner: Absolutely. I would say I can't think of a source I've spoken with who did not say that NYCHA was a reliable stable source for them. Everyone that I have talked to who's a NYCHA resident it's their home. It's a sense of pride for them.

Kai Wright: Yes, which is contrary to our cultural conversation about public housing I guess. Talk about that difference for me and how we normally think about public housing versus what you hear people who live in public housing say about it.

Tatyana Turner: Absolutely, so as Fanta had mentioned you hear the term like, "Oh, it's the projects" and the stigmas around it. Maybe there's just poor conditions or it's poverty and just like these really negative connotations associated with public housing rather than it being a place in New York City to have a place where it's assured that your rent isn't going to go up past 30% of your income. I mean it's a rarity in cities like New York City but for people, it's a reliable source for many.

Kai Wright: What brings you to the housing beat? By the way, it's quite a wonky topic. I've done quite a bit of housing reporting myself. Why is it important for you? What brings you to this beat?

Tatyana Turner: NYCHA has history in my own family. It's seen as a foundation and I just wanted that to come out into my reporting. NYCHA's the first place I ever called home. As for my mom, she was raised in the Bronx at a housing development called Patterson Houses. My father was a few blocks down at Betances Houses also in the Bronx which I'll later go into. It's now under private management and my grandmother she was raised in Brooklyn at the Red Hook Houses so I got to see first-hand what stability really means for families and what it does to bring them to the next level.

Kai Wright: As a consequence, that's motivated you to be like, "I want to cover this."

Tatyana Turner: Exactly because I think that when it comes to NYCHA it's true, two things can be true at once which is are there repairs that need to be done? Absolutely but at the same time people want to see a reflection of themselves in their homes. I want that to come through too. That people can walk away when they see pieces of mine or just NYCHA in general, that they feel represented accurately and it's not just about the conditions of their home.

Kai Wright: I mentioned that Fanta and others are worried about the future of public housing. We're going to have to take a break soon but we're going to hear more from her about what the crisis is. To just get us started, what is the core challenge facing public housing right now?

Tatyana Turner: Earlier this year NYCHA announced that it needs an $80 billion need over the next 20 years to repair all of its developments across all five boroughs. Looking at that number, the housing authority is looking at two different initiatives. The first one is called the Permanent Affordability Commitment Together program known as PACT. In short, that's when a new developer comes in and they manage the day-to-day for that property. NYCHA will continue to own the land. The other one is preservation trust. Through the trust model, they can unlock new funds through bonds and mortgages. NYCHA handles the day-to-day management. I can get more into that later but essentially that's what you think of.

Kai Wright: Well, to back that up a step essentially, meaning they don't have enough money.

Tatyana Turner: They don't have enough money, yes.

Kai Wright: $80 billion is a lot of money.

Tatyana Turner: $80 billion, yes.

Kai Wright: Is that unique to NYCHA? You've been saying NYCHA and just for folks not in New York, again, that's the name of New York's public housing facilities. Is that unique to NYCHA, or?

Tatyana Turner: Throughout the entire United States, housing authorities are dealing with aging and crumbling infrastructure and they're seeing numbers like that and where they are, they may call it something different than PACT but they're essentially handing those properties to private management.

Kai Wright: Because again, there is not enough money. Well, we're going to take a break. I'm talking with housing reporter Tatyana Turner about the future of public housing in this country and about the broader affordable housing crisis that shapes so much about life in the United States. We're going to talk more about that and the privatization models in public housing but also we're going to ask you to give us a call later in the show to tell us about affordable housing in your communities in general. When we come back, we'll hear another report from 17-year-old Fanta Kaba from her Neighbors in Public housing here in New York. Again, later in the show, we're going to hear from you. It's Notes From America. I'm Kai Wright. Stay with us.

[music]

Protestors: Keep public housing public. Keep public housing public. Keep public housing public.

Male Speaker 2: One more time.

Protestors: Keep public housing public.

Kai Wright: It's Notes from America. I'm Kai Wright. We're talking this week about the affordable housing crisis nationally and thinking right now about the role of public housing and solving that problem. Here with me in the studio is Tatyana Turner, housing Reporter at City Limits and we've been listening to tape collected by WNYC Radio rookie Fanta Kaba from a protest she attended where public housing residents are grappling with a difficult choice.

Fanta is a 17-year-old in New York City whose family found stability and security, a home, when they got an apartment in public housing after years of struggling to afford a long-term place to live. Public housing in New York and nationally has been underfunded for a long, long time now and the growing consensus is that public agencies that run these complexes just can't afford to keep them up. Fanta has been reporting on what that means for residents in New York's public housing and the difficult choice that they increasingly face. Here's Fanta again.

Fanta Kaba: NYCHA is notoriously slow when it comes to fixing things. Right now, there are hundreds of thousands of open work orders across the city, and it takes an average of 360 days for NYCHA to handle each one.

Jonathan Gouveia: As has been very well documented, we have not been getting sufficient capital funding for decades to maintain the buildings at the level at which they should be maintained.

Fanta Kaba: That's Jonathan Gouveia, NYCHA's Executive VP for real estate development.

Jonathan Gouveia: It is our hope that residents will see these opportunities as a way to bring the comprehensive renovations that they need and enhance the services that they deserve.

Fanta Kaba: Here's the opportunity NYCHA came up with, inviting private developers in to take over public housing because private companies do have money and they can take on debt to finance these big renovations. This public-private partnership plan comes from the federal government. It started 10 years ago in Green County, Illinois. Since then, about 200,000 public housing units across the country have gone under private management. In big cities like Los Angeles and small cities like Ypsilanti, Michigan.

Most of our tenant protections are supposed to stay the same but people don't trust these landlords to follow the rules and I can see why. A report from a nonprofit called Human Rights Watch says there's not enough oversight of these private companies. City officials in New York are investigating eviction rates in these buildings with private-public partnerships. Tenants here are scared and they're fighting back.

Female Speaker 6: What private developer do you know that gives a damn about low-income people? They don't.

Fanta Kaba: NYCHA's plan puts for-profit real estate companies in charge. They sign a 99-year lease, then they pay for all the renovations and bring in a private management company. They do everything from collecting the rent to cleaning the hallways, to handling leaks. I wanted to know, what does it really mean for families like mine?

Sanji Lopez: Hi, how are you?

Fanta Kaba: Hi.

Sanji Lopez: I'm Sanji. Nice to meet you.

Fanta Kaba: Sanji?

Sanji Lopez: Yes.

Fanta Kaba: Okay. Hi, my name is Fanta. Nice to meet you. Sanji Lopez grew up in Betances Houses which is a few blocks away from my housing complex in the South Bronx. When Sanji's Complex went under private management three years ago, Sanji's family thought the new company would come in and solve all of the leaks, mold, and pest issues in their apartment.

Sanji Lopez: They really showed us pictures of the before and after. Of course, that got everyone excited and riled up, seeing what could be, oh, they're going to remodel everything. They're going to take the cabinets down. Finally, these old cabinets that we've been dealing with for decades at this point are going to be removed and going to be replaced with better cabinets. The walls are going to be repainted. The bathrooms are going to be redone, so we were--

Fanta Kaba: She was so excited about this plan which is called PACT, Permanent Affordability Commitment Together. She even appeared in a promotional video NYCHA made. I found it on YouTube.

Sanji Lopez: I trust that PACT has the resident's best interest in mind.

Fanta Kaba: When did you realize that the renovations weren't all cut out to be?

Sanji Lopez: The pain was the first thing. The pain started chipping in a matter of days. I realized, oh my gosh, this wasn't really well done. I don't know if the contractor they hired wasn't good but there was still spaces where they didn't paint, spaces that were missing paint, spaces that were painted over improperly, spots that were chipping away so fast, and also it was incomplete in the bathroom. We had to complain about missing ceilings around the bathtub. Mold also, again, accruing even more than it did with NYCHA. Whenever I will tell the--

Fanta Kaba: Even though NYCHA usually takes forever to fix things, Sanji thinks this new system is much worse.

Sanji Lopez: It's just send the email, hope that somebody responds, follow up again two or three times, and then maybe they'll come.

Fanta Kaba: She says some things are better. The kitchen looks much nicer with dark brown cabinets and new countertops. Someone fumigates. There are fewer roaches but overall, she said, it feels like she traded one bad situation for another.

Sanji Lopez: Speaking to some neighbors on the same block, they've told me things, I've heard this quote twice. Same crap, different toilet.

Fanta Kaba: She laughs about it because sometimes that's all we can do, shrug it off. The reality is this is the plan that was supposed to make everything better and residents in her building don't have another shot at another plant. Their complex is under private management now for the next 99 years.

Sanji Lopez: Still we have issues with heat and hot water during the wintertime. That didn't go away. The issues didn't go away. We thought that privatization was going to solve all of our issues but it didn't.

Kai Wright: That 17-year-old Fanta Kaba reporting for WNYC's Radio Rookies program. She's one of about half a million people in New York City who live in public housing. That is, again, apartments subsidized by the federal government, managed locally. With me in the studio is housing reporter, Tatyana Turner from the Urban Affairs Publication City Limits. She has been closely covering the effort to preserve New York's public housing. Tatyana, let's first try to unpack this whole privatization conversation a little bit for people who are not familiar with any of this stuff. Fanta says it started in Illinois. That was the first place where this came up. When was that, and how did it emerge? Where does this come from?

Tatyana Turner: Peeling back, in the '90s, all the way up until 2010, there was a federal program called HOPE VI, and it was urban revitalization program. Essentially, what that did was it took housing developments that were in not good state, they were aging, like I said, a crumbling infrastructure and they will be demolished. These housing agencies would get this grant to go with the demolition, and then new structures were built. These new structures, what would happen is, only a percentage would be held for low-income residents, the rest was mixed income. It was no guarantee that people who had to move or be relocated would be able to move back to their homes.

The federal government was saying, this program doesn't work. It displaced thousands of residents across the nation. The next wave of urban revitalization was a program called the Rental Assistance Demonstration, and that's known as RAD. In New York City, that's known as the Permanent Affordability Commitment Together program, known as PACT. That's where it got started. It was just a second plan, like a plan B.

Kai Wright: Which is to say, in the '90s, as far back as the '90s now, there was a conversation about, "Oh, we can't afford public housing, what if we privatize it?" I certainly remember the coverage of that and the controversy at the time about the HOPE program, but it's interesting that it is not something you hear about often now. This is not a big part of our public conversation, do you think?

Tatyana Turner: It's not, but I will say residents do point to it when they do hear about PACT or when they hear about a possible demolition, they point to HOPE VI, and they'll say, "Oh, look what happened at Cabrini-Green, or the Magnolia houses in New Orleans."

Kai Wright: Cabrini-Green in Chicago.

Tatyana Turner: In Chicago, yes. They'll point to other developments across the country and say, "Look at what happened with the displacement." Just to give some figures for HOPE VI, 200,000 units were demolished, they were removed, and only 50,000 were for low-income. This is across the nation, but even with those 50,000, it wasn't guaranteed that those residents, or low-income residents were able to move back into those properties.

Kai Wright: Let me make sure I followed that. The outcome of the 1990s era privatization idea was that they tore down 200,000 public housing units, and then only 50,000 people moved back into public housing.

Tatyana Turner: Only 50,000 apartments were for low-income-

Kai Wright: When they rebuilt them.

Tatyana Turner: -when they rebuilt them. As for the number of residents, it's not 50,000 unfortunately, people had to get rescreened.

Kai Wright: The demand was much higher than there was supply.

Tatyana Turner: Absolutely.

Kai Wright: What is at stake here in privatization in terms of this trade-off between investments that are needed financially, and the rights of tenants? This is something that Fanta has talked about, that there's not enough money to do the repairs, and so they're doing privatization, and then that means you lose some rights. What does that mean? What policy change goes with moving from public to private?

Tatyana Turner: Like I said, with NYCHA, it's a sense of stability, your rent is not going to go up, that's guaranteed. Under private management, there are more question marks, there's no definitive that I can give because, with each developer, it could be different, the relationship could be different. Let me just break that down further, when I'm referring to PACT, each development that goes under the PACT program, they may each have a different developer. One development team may work better with a group than another might.

Kai Wright: Instead of having just the city or the state or the federal government as your landlord now, each complex has a different developer and we know what that's like, anybody living in private housing now. Sometimes you got a good landlord and sometimes you do not.

Tatyana Turner: Right, it's chance, and that's what residents are really pointing to. It could be great and I believe it was Sanji in Betances was basically like, we were told that this was going to be a great fix, and we were really believing these promises only to be let down.

Kai Wright: Where privatization has occurred if the trade-off is supposed to be more investment, in exchange for these question marks around stability, has the investment followed? Have we seen nicer countertops and paint that isn't chipped and all of the things that we heard Fanta report? Has that happened? Have we seen better repairs?

Tatyana Turner: That has happened. There's one tenant I remember speaking with a couple of months ago, and I asked him, he's at the Baychester Houses in the Bronx. He was saying that he's happy with the changes. He said that there's more upkeep, better communication in place, more security, and he feels safer. He feels more pride not only within his unit but just the development as a whole.

Kai Wright: Interesting.

Tatyana Turner: On the complete opposite end, I've heard residents say that the relationship with the development team is not great, and they wish that they could go back to the traditional Public Housing Section 9 model.

Kai Wright: Again, Section 9 model meaning?

Tatyana Turner: In public housing.

Kai Wright: It is in public housing.

Tatyana Turner: In NYCHA.

Kai Wright: Again, so it's like sometimes it's worked for you, sometimes it doesn't. I guess I want people to understand or I want us to understand, why that's a bad thing then? How's that different than housing in general? That's life and housing, right?

Tatyana Turner: I think because of a sense of familiar reality. It might just for a resonance that's uprooting them from what they know, the people that they know, the management that they know, into other hands where you're just taking chances that you won't have.

Kai Wright: Again, the idea is that folks in public housing are there because they needed the stability because of housing insecurity. We heard Fanta talk about the tenant activism in New York around this. One change that officials have made here is to allow tenants to vote on whether they want to go private. That's a big deal nationally. Like the fact that that's happening. Put that in context for us, has that happened anywhere else? Is New York the first place that's happening?

Tatyana Turner: To my understanding, it's New York so far. On Friday, Mayor Adams had announced that the notion houses and Sheepshead Bay Brooklyn was the first development to go under a model called Public Housing Preservation Trust, but yes, that was the first development to ever even vote on what funding model they want for their future.

Kai Wright: How did that vote go?

Tatyana Turner: At the notion houses, just so walk it back a little bit, they found out earlier this year, I want to say in July, that there would be a vote. Between July and November, there was a 100 days of engagement period where NYCHA management along with organizations would go to Nostrand, speak with residents about this vote, the three options that they have, and the three options were to stay in Section 9, stay as is. The other one was Permanent Affordability Commitment Together program, PACT, or the Public Housing Preservation Trust, which is an untested model. That's the one where funds are unlocked through bonds and mortgages. That's the model that they chose, which was a Public Housing Preservation Trust.

Kai Wright: This seems like a lot first off. I'm having trouble following that. I can't imagine my housing being dependent upon me having to make that choice. Is this really a solution to have? That's a fairly high level of sophistication for you to have about a housing market to choose your road forward. Do you think this is the way to do it? If not, why?

Tatyana Turner: I think that it's still too early to talk. My hope is that it is a solution. From a financial standpoint, perhaps, but from a residential standpoint with people's experiences, I think it might vary.

Kai Wright: It's a lot to ask of a tenant. Listeners, we can take your calls as well throughout this hour. Studies say there are more households struggling to pay for housing today than ever before, beyond public housing, is that you? What's it look like where you live? We can take your calls and texts, particularly if you're living in public housing, we'd love to hear from you. You mentioned and we're going to start this and I have to get back to it after a break, but you mentioned that New York City, Tatyana, needs $80 billion to keep up. How did that number get so large?

Tatyana Turner: Well, by 2013, I want to say, there was 50% of federal disinvestment in public housing in general. I want to say it's also small repairs like a sink maybe that needs to be replaced. Those just don't get done. The average tenant in public housing, and at least lives in NYCHA for 25 years. All of that adds up, whether it's a small, whether it's a leak, or even mold, which I guess we could circle back to later and how that plays out in public housing. That usually gets painted over, but that's not a solution.

Kai Wright: Painting over mold is definitely not a solution to mold.

Tatyana Turner: No. [chuckles]

Kai Wright: I have had it in my home and that will not solve it. I do want to come back to that but we need to take a break. I'm talking with housing reporter Tatyana Turner from City Limits. We've been talking about the crisis in public housing specifically, and when we come back we want to broaden that to talk about the overall affordability crisis in housing in the country. Studies say there are more households struggling to pay for housing today than ever before. If that is you, what does it look like where you live? We'll take your calls after our break.

[music]

Rahima Nasa: Hi, everyone, my name is Rahima and I help produce the show. I want to remind you that if you have questions or comments, we'd love to hear from you. Here's how. First, you can email us. The address is notes@wnyc.org. Second, you can send us a voice message. Go to notesfromamerica.org and click on the green button that says start recording. Finally, you can reach us on Twitter and Instagram. The handle for both is NotesWithKai. However you want to reach us, we'd love to hear from you and maybe use your message on the show. All right. Thanks. Talk to you soon.

[music]

Kai Wright: Welcome back. This is Notes From America. I'm Kai Wright, and I'm joined by housing reporter Tatyana Turner from City Limits. We're talking about the affordable housing crisis in America and public housing in particular. A growing number of cities that cannot afford to pay, or say they cannot afford to pay, to continue the upkeep of that housing stock so they've begun to turn to private developers to take it over.

We can take your calls and text messages. I'm particularly interested in hearing from you if you live in public housing. Maybe you have a question for Tatyana or your own experience maybe can add to our understanding of the challenges that residents are facing, but we can also hear from anyone struggling to find an affordable place to call home. What's the cost of housing like where you're hunting?

Tatyana, before the break, we were talking mold. I was going to ask you about some details for what we mean by lack of repairs, but that's a striking one that they've been painting over mold as opposed to removing mold for these years.

Tatyana Turner: Yes. An example of that is maybe a redone bathroom or a redone kitchen. Like, "Oh, there's new facades or new paint." It looks pretty, but there's something underneath that can make people really sick, and that's mold, asbestos.

Kai Wright: Which is wildly expensive to remove and that also. What about the divestment part? I get that how we got to $80 billion in New York is this idea that they've been painting over mold for decades, and so it just gets worse, but is it also about less money going in in the first place from the federal government, and if so, where and how did that start?

Tatyana Turner: I just also want to introduce this part too in terms of management, because I think the finances is one piece, but it's also how fast repairs just get done in the first place and how fast apartments get turned around. For instance, in the New York City housing system, I think it takes 412 days just to turn an apartment around, just to get it ready for the next resident to come in. It's that too. It's the lack of funding and not enough staff maybe to even do the repairs that need to be done.

Kai Wright: That makes me think about it. I used to know the stat about the length of the waiting list to get into public housing in New York. Do you know that still? How long is the waiting list just to get a unit in public housing?

Tatyana Turner: The longest I've heard was 11 years.

Kai Wright: 11 years?

Tatyana Turner: Yes. This is a last-year stat, 278,000 people on the waiting list for a NYCHA apartment.

Kai Wright: Oh, wow. Again, what does that look nationally? Do you see those same kinds of numbers in other cities?

Tatyana Turner: Same stats. I know in Chicago, I want to say the waiting time is about seven years for an apartment.

Kai Wright: Wow.

Tatyana Turner: In public housing.

Kai Wright: Does the privatization piece answer that part of it in any way?

Tatyana Turner: In some ways, one might say it can make it more complicated, and here's why. When a public housing development goes into RAD or PACT or any private management, it takes it away from the public housing portfolio. That means less developments and less apartments available for those who are on the waiting list.

Kai Wright: I think I follow that.

[laughter]

Kai Wright: When they move to privatization then those units, they're still technically public housing. They're still federally subsidized units, but you can't apply for those if you were already on the waiting list for public housing?

Tatyana Turner: No, you can't move in. It's also a struggle to transfer if you're within, say you're in NYCHA, you can't move from one NYCHA development to a PAC development. There's complexities there that I can break down, but in terms of people on the waiting list, no, you can't.

Kai Wright: Let's take some calls. John in Brooklyn, New York. John, welcome to the show.

John: Hi. Can you hear me?

Kai Wright: Yes, we can.

John: Great. My name is John Lava and I live here in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn. I just want to give a different perspective. This affordable housing crisis in New York City it takes different forms for different people. We've lived in this building here for 30 years. 63 Tiffany, you can see our website, save63tiffany.com. We have a whole campaign around it. After 30 years, now the LIHTC agreement's going to expire and they want us all to move out, I guess, so they can go to a fair market rate.

It's a horrible situation. We've lived here 30 years. The people that moved in here when they were a lot younger, 30, 40 and 50, are now 60, 70 and 80. I even have a 92-year-old couple, a Korean war vet, and now they want all out so that they can rent it out to more affluent neighbors. When we first moved in here, this was a desolate area. I'm sorry, go ahead.

Kai Wright: John, what will that mean for you? I hear that you are fighting it, but if you are unable to stay, what will that mean for you?

John: I'm priced out of New York City. I'm totally priced out. The average rent now is what? $4,000, $4,200 for a one-bedroom? I need a two-bedroom. I have a severely autistic teenage son. I don't even know. There's no plan B option here. I don't even know.

Kai Wright: Thank you for sharing that, John, and I hope you win the fight. Let's go to Jose in Illinois. Jose, welcome to the show.

Jose: Hey, how's it going? I just wanted to say real quick. I'm Puerto Rican, grew up on the west side of Humboldt Park. I saw slowly the gentrification happening. My parents wanted me to keep the house, but I couldn't afford that time. That was in the 90s when a lot of the factories were gone. My dad retired, and so they moved out to Oswego when my dad retired, and I was stuck out there. That's about 60 miles away west of Chicago.

Out there, there was no internet, no nothing, no way for me to even get a job out there. It was a boonies for real. I was trying to finish school. Long story short, my dad tried to help me get a house here in Broadview, Illinois, so I can be next to the Veteran's Hospital because he needed cancer care. A month later after we closed, he passes away. I went through LUCHA to try to get a loan. None of them would give me a loan. They tried to take my dad's money, my mom's money. They were looking at all types of income. Always rejected all the time.

Right now I got this house. During COVID, I got a job teaching at CCC and I also teach at Triton College, but if the income is low, they're not paying me what I need to do. Puerto Ricans are the canaries in the coal mine in terms of gentrification because you can even see our island being gentrified. I'm in a struggle. I'm going to be nonstop-- 50 years old I'm constantly going to be in the struggle trying to catch up with this market, this neoliberal market that the only reason is there is to make profit. That's all I want to say. Thank you.

Kai Wright: Thank you, Jose. Gentrification. Tatyana, when we talk about gentrification mostly it's a cultural conversation I feel like. It's very often people talking about the changing faces of a neighborhood. Jose's talking about something much more concrete. How does that show up in this conversation for you?

Tatyana Turner: From what I've heard from the tenants that I've spoken with, gentrification does come up. It's something that people have questions about especially in terms of privatization, because people want to know what the intention is, I guess, for taking over certain properties. This is just like a very NYCHA-specific answer, so I apologize, but people just want to know what the intentions are, if it's truly to better their personal lives or if it's for financial gain or to better the neighborhood and to push them out of it.

Kai Wright: Which is to say in the context of this kind of rapid development of neighborhoods, I could see why you would be skeptical of like, "Oh, now you're going to privatize this building. Is this going to be just like the other ones?" Let's go to Mike in Saffron, New York. Mike, welcome to the show.

Mike: Hi. I have two questions if you have time. The first one is why didn't they do a trial period on the 99-year situation, and if it's not working out, why can't they rescind the contract?

Kai Wright: That's one question. Tell me the other one real quick. I'm going to take them both at the same time.

Mike: Oh, the other one is, I've heard great things about Vienna's Public Housing. Why can't we have something like that here?

Kai Wright: Vienna's Public Housing. Two good questions. The 99-year contracts that people are signing this is, again, NYCHA-specific, New York-specific. It's a 99-year contract for these privatization companies. Why is it 99 years, and can they be canceled?

Tatyana Turner: That's a really great question. As for why they're 99 years, the short answer for NYCHA is that it's for stability purposes and to ensure that the units, even though they're in the private market, that they stay affordable. That's the short answer on the 99-year lease, but there are many more complexities and questions about that too. In terms of will they be able to back out of that, and I think that's still to be determined, I don't believe so though.

Kai Wright: That it's a seal.

Tatyana Turner: That is that's it, that's a seal deal.

Kai Wright: They've got them, and they're doing them for good. Then this question, are you familiar with being this public housing?

Tatyana Turner: I'm not. I want to hear more about this though.

Kai Wright: All right, I should have kept Mike on to tell us more about Vienna's Public Housing, but there are public housing models all over the world as part of the point and why couldn't we learn from some of them. We have a text from someone who asked, why can't people help themselves get together and fix the stuff themselves? What is your response to a question like that? Some tenants I imagine do

Tatyana Turner: They do. There are residents who are between a rock and a hard place, and they're coming together, they're unifying. If I can, I want to bring us specific development that's coming to mind. It's the Fulton and Elliot Chelsea development in Manhattan. It'll be the first PAC development to go under a demolition and rebuilding. When tenants hear that, they're rallying together to even answer each other's questions and to support each other through this scary process for them. I've seen more tenants just rally together in terms of privatization, whether it's the demolition, whether it's the vote. I've just seen tenants just kind of-- NYCHA already has a sense of community where tenants are just interwoven, but now more than ever I've seen them work with each other.

Kai Wright: Which is to say people help themselves by organizing.

Tatyana Turner: By advocating, yes.

Kai Wright: Advocating for their rights. Let's go to JP in Chicago. JP, welcome to the show.

JP: Hi. Thanks. I was just wondering, I know New York has rent control, but in Chicago, we don't have anything like that, that I'm aware of. I know San Francisco's having a housing crisis too, and I'm wondering, is that the sort of thing-- does that need to be on a ballot for people to vote to have rent control? How does something like that go into effect?

Kai Wright: I know the rules in New York for how we get rent control. I couldn't tell you, it's state-by-state law. Tatyana, I put you on the spot to see if you know Illinois rules.

Tatyana Turner: I don't. That's a great question though. I'm only familiar with New York.

Kai Wright: In New York, there is a state law that you have to have a housing emergency declared, because of that, then there's not enough available units. If you meet that definition, then your locality can opt itself into a writ control program, I know, because a town I live in right now, Newburgh is going through this debate and it tends to be quite heated indeed. Let me take one more call before we move to something else. Let's go to Joe in Burlington, Vermont. Joe, welcome to the show.

Joe: Hi, there. Thanks for taking my call. I'm an economist and I study housing affordability. I think one of the things that we see in the data is this proliferation of private investors in the market. I think that's one of the things that's underlying this entire conversation. I think as a society, we don't think about housing as a human right as much as we should. If the private market is supposed to fix this problem, when the private investors go in there, they need to make profit. They're not there to fix mold necessarily. They're there to turn a profit.

We hear a lot that like, we don't have enough houses, we don't have enough houses. That's surely part of the story, but the data also bears out that when we see an increase in houses, prices go up. We've seen in Burlington, Vermont, and in Vermont in general this massive increase in investors. This is normal mainstream economic model of how we're going to fix it through more housing and privatization, I think is just the wrong way, and we need to return to thinking about housing as something everyone needs.

Kai Wright: A basic human right. Thank you for that, Joe. What about this idea of housing as a basic human right? How much is that part of the political conversation around the public housing period right now?

Tatyana Turner: I think that one question that I do hear often is, especially with this $80 billion figure, is how come the NYCHA can't raise that money and just keep all properties under the traditional Section 9 model and without having private developers involved? I'll leave it just as a question because I think it's a great one that's raised. Like I said, if we go into that, we'll need a whole nother half hour but that is something that is talked about.

Kai Wright: In New York, housing is a fundamental right in our constitution. I do wonder about nationally, the idea of housing as a fundamental human. That might be asking too much for our current political climate.

Tatyana Turner: For sure, I can point to what a couple of other cities are doing, and this is as of the past couple of weeks. Some cities are looking at abandoned homes that may not be in the best condition, similar to NYCHA in a sense units that are not in the best condition but have been unlived in because of mold and asbestos and so forth. That's happening in other cities too, even in the private market. What they're doing, I know in Baltimore, they're trying to invest, I want to say $8 billion to revitalize those homes and in Chicago, $13 billion to revitalize homes that have been abandoned or just not in good condition that could serve as a roof over someone's head.

Kai Wright: We don't have much time left, but I did want to ask you, so you mentioned Baltimore, you worked in Baltimore as a housing reporter, and your beat was defined as covering working-class Black neighborhoods, which is such an interesting way to think about it. In these 60 seconds or so we've got, why was it framed that way? Why was that the way you were covering it?

Tatyana Turner: For sure. It was Black neighborhoods, and in Baltimore, Baltimore is more than 60% Black. We wanted to have a beat that just looked at what these different neighborhoods offered and what made them distinct. There's one neighborhood that I just want to bring up. It was called Ash Burton. I guess it's in Baltimore. It was 90% Black, and just seeing what that meant to that community, like I said early on in the show, housing is a reflection of someone personally. I think that's what I saw out in Baltimore. There was just a lot of pride and community and love there, and it was a reflection of themselves.

Kai Wright: A beautiful thought to leave it on. Tatyana Turner is a housing reporter for City Limits. She's covered housing in New York, Baltimore, and Chicago. Thanks so much for this time.

Tatyana Turner: Thank you so much.

Kai Wright: Notes From America is a production of WNYC studios. Follow us wherever you get your podcast, and on Instagram @NotesWithKai. This episode was produced by Rahima Nasa and Carolina Hidalgo, who leads WNYC's Radio Rookies program, special thanks to her and to Radio Rookie, Fanta Kaba. Mixing and music by Jared Paul, Juliana Fonda was our live engineer this week. Our team also includes Regina de Heer, Karen Frillman, Suzanne Gabber, and Lindsay Foster Thomas. Our executive producer is Andre Robert Lee. I am Kai Wright. Thanks for spending time with us.

[music]

 

Copyright © 2024 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.