Locals Meet New NYCHA Commissioner Shola Olatoye

Locals met the new New York City Housing Authority Commissioner, Shola Olatoye, last night at a town hall meeting organized by City Council Member Laurie Cumbo in the Ingersoll Community Center.

Last week, NYCHA residents from the 35th District – including the Ingersoll Houses, Farragut Houses, Atlantic Terminal Houses and the Walt Whitman Houses– gathered to discuss quality of life concerns, such as public safety, and timely repairs. Cumbo said that the forum was an opportunity for residents to present these concerns to Olatoye, who was appointed by Mayor Bill de Blasio in February.

“It’s a new administration and an opportunity to begin new and fresh,” Cumbo said, who described the meeting as part of an “on-going conversation” between residents and NYCHA officials.

Olatoye said NYCHA has reduced its backlog of repair work orders, but finding qualified labor remains a problem. “Plastering is a dying field, and the open orders are largely painting and plastering.”

Residents also questioned the NYCHA policy of rightsizing, which transfers occupants out of under-occupied apartments to make room for larger families.

“A poor 75-year-old diabetic woman shouldn’t be asked to move to another development,” the Reverend Mark Taylor of the Church of the Open Door said. “Some exemptions should be made on a case by case basis.”

Some locals thought the meeting was a good first step for the new commissioner.

“I thought it was very productive,” said Marion Bailey, a resident of the Farragut Houses. She said she was most concerned about violence in public housing.

Others were not as convinced.

“The answers were as expected,” Le-Nora Jones McBeth, a local who grew up in the Gowanus Houses, said. “There was no plan of action.”

She said she was happy to see new leadership, though she said more work needs to be done to improve communication between NYCHA officials and residents.

“The sense of community is really kind of lost.”

“I’m all for giving the new chair a chance,” Tyree Stanback, president of the Lafayette Gardens residents’ association, said. “But it’s the same story as the last five chairs.”