Hearing Jamie Rubin speak about the housing crisis and the lack of funding NYCHA receives really brings into perspective how much work still needs to be done. Despite NYCHA having about 12,000 employees that help maintain the thousands of buildings being occupied, there are still countless maintenance issues that need to be addressed. However, addressing these issues requires funding that NYCHA does not have, costing them about $80 billion more than their current $5 billion budget, which is barely just enough to keep NYCHA running. During the interview, Jamie Rubin brought up the temporary federal funding freeze that shocked the nation. What was chilling to hear was that they calculated how the amount of time they could keep NYCHA running with their current savings, finding out they only had enough to pay NYCHA employees 2 weeks of labor until they ran out of money. If this were to occur the thousands of buildings NYCHA would be left without any maintenance, further deteriorating the condition of the buildings.
However, despite all these negative things Jamie Rubin shared with us a possible solution that would repair most if not all NYCHA buildings while keeping residents in their homes. The solution described would be to bring private investors to repair and manage the building, which is currently underway and they hope to accelerate this to repair as many buildings as possible.
That $80B number really stuck in all of our heads! You’re so right to reflect on the impact of the federal funding freeze, which puts the recent debate over a government shutdown in a new perspective for me. That is such an important aspect of policy discussion, to make it not just an abstract decision, but to see it in the fullness of how it will affect everyday lives. That’s the storytelling aspect of giving a policy proposal great strength when you go to influence people. Something for us to talk about in class when we craft our proposals for the presentation — the important of storytelling!