doing a programme about the night in new york city housing authority we're joined by victor botches a senior housing policy analyst for the community service society and by our member madeline innocent his chair of our public out of task force she is a member of the community board and she is a lifelong resident the upper west side and activist at frederick houses  b seven is dedicated to preserving protecting and creating new affordable housing presently we have about seventy seven thousand five hundred units of night so housing on the upper west side that's where we hope you'll be able to help your residents understand what is happening in new york city and their housing as you know the condition of public housing across the country is a real national emergency new york public housing residents are not  long term federal under investment in the housing it created the situation is a difficult one nighter is you know has just had a federal monitor appointed to see that if it takes care of basic property management operations which have been failing around lead paint issues around heating and to bring its developments up to par and restore decent living conditions to its residents thirty two billion yeah it has a plan is there a land line two point zero that will raise its mission really is to improve conditions and opportunities for low income new yorkers i'm part of a department that the oas with policy research and advocacy we have a housing team of three people but there are other colleagues in other areas of policy as well and it's a large agency a very old one i think over one hundred seventy years old i have to tell my younger colleagues that i wasn't there at the time so other question is we've been hearing a lot about something called rad act yes well let me start with rad and what it means for public housing given the by the housing authority to private ownership so it is a form of privatization and what not to press to call a public private partnership niter continues will continue to play a role as these properties of the rod conversions are are moved into private ownership and management it will continue to own the land it's just it's leasing under a long term lease leasing the development to a private owner it will be in charge of filling any vacancies from nights is waiting with it and it will be a partner in the process so it's not as  authority will vanish from the picture but it will essentially be under private ownership and management for a long term period pact is more complicated  is planned which was just announced a few months ago is to convert sixty two thousand units of public housing that's over a third of its stock  public private partnerships and it calls that program and vicious program pact pact will involve several different kinds of conversions let me try to explain one will be some will be converted under rod the which is the gold standard hod program others will be converted under something called section eighteen disposition that's another one hundred program that provides greater rent streams and subsidies so it's very tempting to use as much of that as possible and in the third case for buildings like wise timers which were originally financed by the state or by the city and are not eligible for any federal programs or subsidies those are called unfunded year and that's basically a night she will project based section eight vouchers from out of its existing five tour pool and in order to convert them to private hands i hope that's clear if it isn't let me irish pain clinic sixteen other projects there is a manhattan bundle of projects that are now have just started the conversion process night your staff are talking  residents consulting with and they are of peas the requests for proposals for the conversions will be coming out in the next month why it's towers is not a rad conversion because it was originally state finance public housing so it's not eligible for federal subsidies of any kind it's among the unfunded units and then wise towers occurs the project based or will remain with the unit and the next person on the waiting list is waiting list will be brought in so but it does absorb it does displace section eight vouchers that normally go to waiting list households that want to look for an apartment in the open market so what we're concerned about them it's a little too early to get the full feedback night his first conversion is that ocean back in far rockaway and generally the feedback the anecdotal feedback is positive  there's of course from what i can see of residents point of view there are some who are eager to have their developments included because it means that the  twenty year capital need will be taken care of within the next two years once conversion takes place otherwise they will have to wait decades for that to  happen the wise but there are residents who are concerned perhaps madalyn can register that as well concerned about privatisation none of us likes it but it's the only federal medicine available at this point in but whether that means falling into private market hands i think there are a significant i personally think there are significant protections in place those developments will not be vacancies will be filled by households on the nights of waiting lists but there are a lot of fears and suspicions that are registered by residents and i have to acknowledge them and given their experience and the conditions they're living with right now i don't blame them for being fearful and suspicious so speaking of fears and suspicion i'm sure there are many residents that are watching this show now what can you tell them calm their fears and their concerns about all of this stuff that's going on right now that's a good question and one that's hard to answer as far as rad is concerned we are along with the legal aid society and enterprise community partners put together a resident handbook it's a guide to knights who goes about rad conversions that's just it's it's an independent piece not we're not selling red but we're trying to put in one place all of the information that residents need to make their own decisions about whether they want it or not again that will vary from development to development and we're of course available to give briefings to residents so ca should and again independent of night show we're not part of niter and very often we disagree with  but we think that right is a worthwhile program for for residents to consider and decide what they what they themselves think about it and frankly it's one of the only available option around some level and you've been a valuable member of board seven and we want to ask you some questions that living it felt like that was it but first i'd like to talk about c b seven so tell us a little bit how you got involved  fast and i couldn't understand i have never been involved in anything resident engaged in politics so you know you have nothing to get a definition of what you need to do  what is the problem so i went to a four board meeting and a familiar face gave me the courage to join that join the board plus additional groups and ordered to and do another and that victor was a big problem with a lot of residents because they don't have any information you get ten different explanation of why something is happening vict hear what somebody saying like the kids were earlier they were saying a voice you have to hear something reading and you have so many obligations that you never have time to sit down so that part was one of my problems when you you have so much around you so i figure let me join a group and see how i can get the community involved and it worked out well for me so the task force has been going on for and said it would be a good idea to have this task force i had no idea what is going to entail but it was it was it was a struggle to where we are now and being interviewed and speaking at different city council meetings speak with different elected officials that's what i wish the residents more so would do would get him but i understand i don't have any kids and i'm not going to put any resident down it does but it's important to have someone to support what you want or support your living conditions or to support your child being exposed to lead those things are important i understand they need to make a living but i think it's so important that they get involved and i'm going to say a movement of public housing because if we don't we're not going to have cause most of the  all elected that i feel could come together and it might be a process but we all need to come together and relate to one another and find the truth not what might just  talk a little bit about what we thought there i don't want to make it simplistic but it was cordial i found the residents i met the resident association there they seemed to be together in collaboration making their environment better it was a cold day so we didn't see many people at the residence outside i wanted to see that engagement how they related to one another what i found in the people that  y tell them what problems are you having go to any civic engagement groups that people in public housing are afraid to speak up which i was one of those but when something happened in my building it forced me to get a get engaged and i think we as a people and i mistook my public as a people we're the people we wait until something happens to get involved but then it's not it's not that it's too late but then it's more work  o i stress to public housing students sorry public housing residents to get involved in any civic group are talk to me whenever we can do something together it's so much out there and i had no idea so i thank you community board because you're all of you and specially your burner you have taught me so much about how to deal with different agencies different people different techniques  and i think that would give the residents power if they have more knowledge but are you sitting there getting second third hand for fan responses when you wait for someone else to give you the information confidence and getting things done in public housing speaking of working together this past winter there were no there was no heat and hot water what was done to assist the elderly in the end tenants come few minutes later we had heat but this is my point it shouldn't be about who you know exactly and i don't and i've always said i don't like about well you know that's why i find myself even though it serves a purpose but these people pay rent are right public housing has a stigma of people low income public assistance whatever the case may be they're human beings there and that's what mike knowledge begin to deteriorate at douglas you've been there a long time yes however i moved out for about three and a half years and it was fine when i moved it was an eighty seven and it was fine when i came back my mother became ill and i came back to i accept what happened she couldn't tell me so it was a lot of investigating and just observing talking to people we want to find it they just took away money it's like ok we've got to take away this money we're going to have a lot of public housing to teary eight these people are going to be in shelters oh on the streets that's that's the way i saw and that's what a lot of residents are seeing that income people living in private rentals or in other subsidized housing were pretty much on an even keel but nine truth conditions in my trip partment were rapidly deteriorating from then on partly because they stayed in the wouldn't go for serious infrastructure that would go for second order improvements playgrounds appliances right and so on there was a dispute over the  in the wall but otherwise i've known people who had fires in the am part me because of faulty wiring they do it as a need and need not even a need apartment they think if they don't complain they won't lose their apartment and i think that store a way to go i was there i'm not going to fault them i was to say when i kept quiet i wouldn't complain about something in my house breaking down i would try to fix it myself that's what a lot of people do or they don't do anything at all because we have a management office in each development and at that time we had a management