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Chair Russ at Crain's Breakfast
April 2022 NYCHA Leadership 

NYCHA Chair Russ Discusses Housing Preservation at Crain’s Power Breakfast

Michael Corwin

On April 6, NYCHA’s Chair and Chief Executive Officer Gregory Russ was interviewed by Crain’s New York Business Editor-in-Chief Cory Schouten as part of this year’s first “Crain’s Power Breakfast.”

Approximately 150 business and nonprofit executives and government leaders attended the event, including Jessica Katz, the City’s Chief Housing Officer. Chair Russ discussed how a new approach is needed to raise revenue to repair NYCHA’s aging buildings, considering the decades of underfunding from all levels of government for public housing – that is, the creation of the New York City Public Housing Preservation Trust through State legislation.

The legislation would create a new public housing entity within NYCHA that would act as a trust and allow NYCHA to access additional federal subsidies to make long overdue improvements to residents’ homes. The trust would also allow the Authority to​​ make these repairs faster.

“This trust is the future,” Chair Russ said. “This is a chance, and we’re not going to get too many more. When you look at the funding figures and think about the families, about high-schoolers and kids in our buildings, there is an entire generation who deserves an opportunity to grow up in a better environment, and we can make that happen.”