Why a Public Housing
Spotlight on NYCHA?
Once, public housing information, both NYCHA specific and other, more general tenant information, were this site's stock in trade. A few years ago, I had one of the only public housing sitesites, and we pre-dated HUD's entree into cyberspace.
However, that has all changed. After spendspending some time working at the largest public housing Authority/Agency in the country, the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA, or also referred to as the "Authority"), my thoughts on providing general information on public housing changed. I now believe that it is much more important to halt the corruption within NYCHA than it is to help others become informed on some vague housing rules or guidelines.
There are many issues of the Public Housing Spotlight on NYCHA available at this site. The Spotlight is a group effort by a cross-section of NYCHA employees, along with other folks who are interested in clean government.
Some of what you read is rumor. Without subpoena power, getting facts out of NYCHA and/or New York City's Mayoral administration is next to impossible.
But there is much factual information on these pages. And with the constant help of a dedicated group of people, we furnish much documentation to buttress our claims.
The Spotlight on NYCHA has been the focus of stories in City Limits Magazine and the NY Post. Most recently, the Public Housing Spotlight had been used as the basis of a 2 week series on NYCHA corruption in the Spanish language daily newspaper Noticias Del Mundo. Both the $100,000,000 lease on the Long Island City warehouse and the IG Investigation into corruption in NYCHA's Contract Administration Dept. (and interviews with some of the players) were featured in a 5 part expose by Polly Kreisman, an Investigative Reporter for New York's WWOR-TV, Channel 9.
If you are new to this e-magazine, I recommend that you begin with clicking here for the Special NYCHA Corruption Issue,. It is also available through the links at the bottom of each Issue.
After you've done some reading, please feel free to drop us an email with your comments. With any issue, but especially the Corruption pages, please let me know if you find something confusing. Thus far, I get comments from people who work at NYCHA saying that they didn't require some explanations, while those not involved with the Authority are sometimes requesting further explanation. (For example: There was some confusion regarding the efficacy of NYCHA's Financial Management System, or FMS. FMS DID track all checks that were issued to contractors for Security type contracts. That is what allowed me to know that your tax money was spent. Unfortunately, NYCHA's Contract Administration Department--CAD did NOT have any computer records tracking the work progress or any other normally monitored items on any of those "contracts." So, FMS told me that $50,000,000 was spent. But, we who were charged with certifying the work, and its quality, had no idea if any work was ever really done!)
Just click on the mailbox at the bottom of any Issue, and let us know your thoughts on any of the stories.
Thanks for stopping by!
© 1998 Public Housing Spotlight and John Ballinger. All rights reserved.
Issue links are at page bottom
or click here for a Directory page with Issue overviews.
Click on the mailbox to send us your thoughts!
Or Message/Fax us with info at 718/745-0170