Public Housing Crumbles as Public Workers Left Homeless

About the 178,426 units of housing managed by NYCHA, New York City's largest landlord, the Gotham Gazette says

Declining government subsidies along with soaring operating costs have put New York’s massive public housing projects into what Daily News columnist Errol Louis has characterized as a “civic emergency.” Today, residents complain about the elevators being “out of service,” garbage going uncollected and broken intercoms. In many of the projects, conditions may be worse than those in comparable private housing.

As rent-regulated and market-rate tenants alike know, that's saying something. Meanwhile, the Chief reports that

Almost four months after District Council 37 discovered 300 city workers living in homeless shelters, more than 100 of them are still languishing without permanent housing. An effort to craft a special program for municipal workers did not materialize.

And amNY trumpets the latest latest crumbs tossed to us by City Hall:

Five hundred low-income housing units across the city will be repaired after the City Council restored $14 million in funding that the federal government had slashed, officials said Monday.

Try thinking about that while spending a minute or so staring at this.

"Every dollar we can get for affordable housing is crucial," [HPD press secretary Seth Donlin] said. "When you talk about preserving 500 units, that's 1,500 New Yorkers who get to stay in the city who would otherwise be forced to leave."

Yes, but with what our government spent murdering Iraqis, this city's taxes could have instead built - not repaired - 136,500 new units of affordable housing.