Rental Assistance Demonstration Brings Hope to Far Rockaway Residents

More than 200 residents of Ocean Bay/Bayside Apartments and members of the Far Rockaway community attended a meeting held by Councilmember Donovan Richards and NYCHA on June 24 to discuss the benefits of HUD’s Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) program. RAD enables public housing authorities to convert a select number of their traditional public housing units to a project-based Section 8 funding stream.

NYCHA has recently secured HUD’s approval to convert approximately 1,400 units at Ocean Bay/Bayside through RAD. The conversion, which would bring permanent federal funding for the affected units, would enable NYCHA to rehabilitate and preserve the entire 24-building development with 1,389 apartments that are over 50 years old.

In explaining NYCHA’s need for additional funding, General Manager Michael Kelly remarked, “The path that NYCHA is on now is simply not sustainable for our residents or our organization. To overcome these challenges, we developed NextGeneration NYCHA, our 10-year strategic plan to ensure the future of public housing in New York and to create safe, clean, and connected communities.”

RAD is one initiative to help NYCHA attain financial stability as outlined in NextGeneration NYCHA. The federal funding stream provided by RAD for Ocean Bay/Bayside would reduce the Authority’s overall capital needs by nearly $90 million. Ocean Bay/Bayside will have capital needs of over $161 million over the next 15 years.

“We can’t afford to do nothing,” said Councilmember Donovan Richards, who thanked NYCHA for its efforts to secure additional funding for the development.

In addition to full rehabilitation of the development and a shift to a more stable federal funding stream, the Section 8 conversion will ensure permanent affordability for residents in the affected units, which cannot charge more than 30 percent of household income for rent.

Provisions of the program also ensure that rights of residents who choose to convert to Section 8 will remain in line with protections for public housing residents. Moreover, after one-year, all Section 8 residents have the option to relocate to any Section 8 housing in the nation.

“The residents seem to be receptive to the initiative because they know that it would bring a lot of improvements to the development,” said Property Manager Tabia Heywot. Residents have heard about the kitchen upgrades, bathroom upgrades, new building entrances and lobby renovations, she said.

The June 24 meeting is part of a series of recent meeting with Ocean Bay residents. Additional meetings are planned to discuss such topics as job opportunities for residents through capital and repair work and the nature of the Section 8 voucher program.

NYCHA already manages the nation’s largest Section 8 program, which provides approximately 220,000 people with federal Section 8 vouchers.