Who says you can’t find decent public housing in this city?
Just ask the mayor. This week, we learned the West Elm furniture outlet donated $65,000 worth of furniture to help the city’s First Family refurbish Gracie Mansion.
The city’s premier public housing has been much improved with the private sector’s help. First by a generous, $7 million renovation courtesy of then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg, even though he never lived there. Now, via the help of West Elm.
It makes for a striking contrast. In a new report, the Community Service Society said the New York City Housing Authority — which runs the largest public-housing program in the nation — “may also now qualify as the city’s worst landlord.”
The report cites several factors, most notably funding, but the money line is this: Conditions in units run by NYCHA are at “far worse levels than conditions facing low-income tenants in the private market and other subsidized rentals.”
Question: Anyone really surprised that the government does such a cruddy job?
We’ve never understood why poor people should be warehoused in buildings built and operated by the government. We’d save much more taxpayer money and improve lives for these people if we simply gave them vouchers to choose their own apartment buildings and neighborhoods.
Vouchers won’t come with the $65,000 worth of furniture the de Blasios got. But tenants would surely get better landlords than the city government — and the ability to move elsewhere if they’re not satisfied.