NYCHA CEO Discusses the Authority’s Mission and Transformation with Former HUD Secretary at Regional Plan Association Event
On May 2, as the keynote interview of the Regional Plan Association’s 2024 Assembly’s “Homes for Everyone” day, NYCHA CEO Lisa Bova-Hiatt joined Shaun Donovan – President Obama’s Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) from 2009 to 2014 and Commissioner of the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development from 2004 to 2009 – for a wide-ranging interview on NYCHA and its central place in the history and the future of public housing in the United States.
“Thank you for your service to our city and to public housing, Lisa,” said Mr. Donovan, who today serves as CEO and President of Enterprise Community Partners. “[This is] a great opportunity to help people understand just how important a resource public housing and NYCHA itself are, both to New York City and to the country as a whole.”
“More people need to understand just how important affordable housing is, not just to New Yorkers but to the entire country,” Ms. Bova-Hiatt noted. “If you don’t have affordable, stable, secure housing, nothing else in your life is stable. So [the importance of] public housing really can’t be overstated.”
Ms. Bova-Hiatt and Mr. Donovan went on to discuss a wide range of topics related to NYCHA, its history, and its current efforts to improve residents’ quality of life – they spoke about major housing preservation initiatives such as PACT, the Public Housing Preservation Trust, and Comprehensive Modernization; the Authority’s efforts to promote resident engagement as part of NYCHA’s transformation efforts; and the challenges involved with preserving this “precious resource” of affordable housing.
“[It’s] a really great time to be at NYCHA,” said Ms. Bova-Hiatt, who discussed how the Authority’s HUD agreement and collaboration with a federal monitor are helping to move the agency forward. “The more people that are focusing expertise on NYCHA, the more people helping us transform and do better, the better off the Authority is – and the better we can serve our residents,” she explained.
In response, Mr. Donovan said: “Those are the most fundamental responsibilities that NYCHA, and the city, has to our residents, to the city within a city that is NYCHA. Thank you for your leadership. I’m encouraged by NYCHA’s progress and look forward to working with you in so many of the areas that we’ve talked about.”
The Regional Plan Association, which hosted the interview as part of its 2024 Assembly, is an independent, non-profit civic organization which develops and promotes ideas to improve the economic health, environmental resiliency, and quality of life of the New York metropolitan area.
Watch the interview here.
