State Senator Julia Salazar and St. Nick’s Alliance were joined by community leaders and public housing tenants in a tense discussion over the state of New York City Housing Authority at the Brooklyn Public Library DeKalb Branch on July 24.

The morning of the event, Senator Salazar sent out an email stating, “NYCHA residents deserve the same right to quality housing as everyone else, but too many of our community members face problems like life-threatening mold, environmental lead, inadequate heating or cooling, or broken elevators.” 

With 326 developments, NYCHA is the largest public housing authority in the country. The problem is many of these project buildings need millions of dollars of repair work. After years of state and federal disinvestment, NYCHA now needs over 30 billion dollars for capital repairs.  The authority’s aging apartments has left more than 800 children tainted with lead, exposed tenants to life-threatening mold, and failing boilers amongst other issues.