Opinion

Governments make the lousiest of landlords

This month, four Democrats representing the city in Congress called for an overhaul of public housing.

Their instinct is exactly right. Alas, their prescription is completely wrong.

Reps. Carolyn Maloney, Jerry Nadler, Yvette Clarke and Grace Meng challenged incoming city Comptroller Scott Stringer to conduct a forensic audit of the troubled New York City Housing Authority. And that’s great, as far as it goes.

The problem is that our representatives in Congress want the audit so NYCHA can go ahead and spend — without first instituting fundamental structural reforms.

One key complaint is that NYCHA is reportedly sitting on a billion-dollar kitty that’s allocated for repairs.

“How can you be calling for privatization, contracting out, firing people, if you have a billion dollars that you’re not even spending?” asks Maloney. Easy answer, Congresswoman: That $1 billion is barely a drop in the bucket for the city’s public-housing problems.

As NYCHA’s real-estate head said last month, getting all its 2,596 buildings into a “state of good repair” would cost $17 billion.

The real answer is something anyone stuck in government housing would tell you: Governments make lousy landlords. The best thing you can do for people in need is to help give them the means to live in the same kind of private housing that the upper and middle classes live in.

There are many ways to do that, from offering vouchers that would give public-housing recipients more choice to other reforms that include bringing prices down by expanding the supply.

So, yes, go ahead with the forensic audit. Pour over all the books. But if you really want to help those priced out of decent housing, open up the market.