Message from the Interim Chair & CEO

Dear Colleagues,

I was extremely honored and humbled when Mayor de Blasio asked me to serve as NYCHA’s interim Chair and CEO. I knew it would be a challenging assignment – and yet one of the most fulfilling in my career in public service. In the last several months, I’ve had the pleasure to meet many dedicated colleagues, who work hard every day to make a difference, and I’m proud to have collaborated with you to improve the lives of the hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers who call NYCHA home.

We are making an impact through NYCHA 2.0, our long-term strategic plan. Our work to renovate apartments and invest in building upgrades for public housing residents is underway: By converting 62,000 apartments to Section 8 funding over the next 10 years, we are ensuring permanent affordability for residents while raising much-needed funds for repairs. We’ve seen the success of this initiative at Ocean Bay Apartments in the Rockaways and Campos Plaza I in Lower Manhattan, and I’m excited to see the seeds of this work at Fulton Houses, where we’ve begun engaging residents on how, together, we will improve their homes and quality of life.

We established three new departments – Compliance, Quality Assurance, and Environmental Health & Safety – laying the foundation for NYCHA to become a stronger, more effective landlord.

We kicked off our unprecedented $88 million initiative to test nearly 135,000 apartments for the presence of lead-based paint using high-tech XRF analyzers, which will set us on a path to eliminate lead-based paint and ensure NYCHA is lead free.

We’re rolling out Alternative Work Schedules (AWS), bringing seven-days-a-week janitorial services to our developments for the first time ever.

These are just a few examples of our work to transform this organization as well as NYCHA communities. It will not be easy – it will take time, hard work, and collaboration – but we are making progress.

You may have heard that Gregory Russ has been appointed the Authority’s new permanent Chair and CEO, effective August 12, 2019. Mr. Russ brings decades of leadership experience in public housing, most recently as the Executive Director/CEO of the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority. I know that Mr. Russ will carry this important work into the future. Please join me in congratulating him on his new role here at NYCHA.

I want to thank you again for your commitment to NYCHA’s residents. As the landlord for a population nearly the size of Miami, our work is critical to the success of our city. And in this pivotal moment for New York’s public housing, I am confident that we are moving forward in the right direction.

Sincerely,

Kathryn Garcia

Interim Chair & CEO