While the city and state play political football over NYCHA’s $17 billion budget deficit, and with the city moving to lease valuable Wyckoff Gardens property for development in the rapidly gentrifying Gowanus neighborhood, one of Wyckoff’s longtime residents has a solution that many low-income people have been utilizing to stretch their money for years – put the debt on layaway.
Charlene Nimmons, who has been living in Wyckoff Gardens for 27 years and who recently stepped down as president of the Wyckoff Resident Association after 12 years, says the answer is for the city and state to each put a $1 billion line item budget in their annual spending plans for the next 10 years to shore up NYCHA’s finances.
“The city has a budget of around $80 billion and the state budget is about $140 billion, and the same way they put aside or dedicate money for green space, they can dedicate $1 billion each a year towards NYCHA. In 10 years you will not only wipe out the $17 billion budget but there will be a $3 billion surplus,” said Nimmons.
Nimmons’ solution comes just weeks after Mayor Bill de Blasio and NYCHA Commissioner Chairwoman Shola Olatoye paid a visit to Wyckoff to flout the administration’s NextGen proposal that would see the city lease the Wyckoff Gardens parking lot and some of the green space to developers for market rate housing with some affordable units.
Nimmons said de Blasio’s plan is a repeat of the same plan former Mayor Michael Bloomberg unsuccessfully tried to float. Leasing NYCHA property will not give us the substantial amount of money to bring us out of debt, whereas having the city and state give a line item $1 billion each for 10 years will do that, she said.
“At the meeting they told us they only way to resolve the financial NYCHA financial crisis was by leasing off property to private developers. It says something about how they really feel about low-and very-low income people. It’s like they don’t even have a heart,” said Nimmons.
Nimmons also pointed out that former City Councilman David Yassky and current City Councilman Stephen Levin already allocated over $2 million for security and other improvements in the development, and they have $1.3 million left of that money which is for a planned expansion to their community center.
That money is supposed to be set in stone and now it seems like the mayor is using it as a bargaining chip that we won’t get it unless we go along with his plan, said Nimmons.
Nimmons also dismissed last week’s call from Teamsters Local 27 President Greg Floyd and Assemblyman Keith Wright, (D-Harlem) for Gov. Cuomo to step up and put NYCHA into a receivership..
“Moving from one level of government to another is not going to solve our problem and the state needs to stop acting as if they care about public housing,” she said. “It can be resolved no matter which branch of government does it because it’s public housing. You might as well do it under the city administration.”
