new york city (nyc) public housing 1934-present€¦ · 04/06/2010 · public housing in new york...

Public Housing in New York City: 1935-Today

By: Tania Branquinho, Elena Conte, Alyssa S. Gerber, Christopher Korwel, Alexis Rourk, Sabrina Terry

New York City (NYC) Public Housing 1934-Present


Philanthropic Public Housing

• New York City had the greatest concentra-tion of philanthropic housing projects in the United States

• Provided a strong traditional of model hous-ing for NYCHA to build upon

• Not considered low-cost

• Remains some of NYC’s most physically at-tractive housing for any class of tenants

• Hillside Homes is believed to have inspired many designs within NYCHA’s public hous-ing, such as, Knickerbocker Village(1934) and Queensbridge Houses (1940)

Hillside Homes (1935)


• 1934:MayorLaGuardiafilesacertificateestablish-ing the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA).

• NYCHA was a response to the cities overcrowd-ing conditions; especially those in the tenement districts as well as the private sector monopoly on low-rent housing during the Great Depression.

• NYCHA gained approval in a few ways:

• -Claim that public works would be able to address 75% of relief laborers of unemployment

• -Idealized visions of European housing projects would bring a more enlightened urban age.

• -Tenement districts would threaten the health and long-term welfare of the city as a whole.

• Opposition from real estate interests and private owners in regard to tenement reforms to renovate multiple dwellings to conform to adequate housing requirements.

1930’s


NYCHAcouldhavefilleditstowerswithwelfareten-ants but it chose not to. Instead, it developed a point system to evaluate applicants.

Point System had seven categories:

1.)Income -higher income within limits was looked highly upon -being debt free -havign insurance -savings accounts2.)Family3.)Employment4.)Present accomodations5.)Previous residence 6.)Rent habits7.)Social background

PointsystemreflectsEnglishinfluenceonthesys-tem

Remained intentionally ambiguous on race and ra-cial division until 1947. Used demorgraphic of area as a precursor to their proportions of white tenants to tenants of color.

NYCHA Tenant Selection


• Authority signs agreement with Vincent Astor to purchase a row of Old Law tenements at Avenue A and Third Street as the site for First Houses.

• Represented a new type of low-income housing

• Only 5 stories

• Was designed to look inexpensive due to NYCHA’s rush to get public housing started.

• Remains a popular small complex today

First Houses


Harlem River Houses (1936)• Harlem River Houses, one of two housing proj-

ects built in New York City directly by the federal government under the Public Works Administra-tion.

• Notion of superblock more apparent in design

• First building development above six stories


Williamsburgh Houses (1936)

• Viewed as a sharp break in with past designs

• Offered over 50 spaces for shops, unlike later designs that offer

• Featured a unique planning layout, that featured floatedstripsofbuildingsinopenspace.


Vladeck Houses (1939)Thefirstcity-aidedhousingdevelopmentandfirstslumclear-

ance project.


1940's• Slum clearance- a run-down area of a city charac-

terized by sub standard housing and squalor and lacking in tenure security

• Public housing in NYC looked very different than the rest of the country because:

• Ambitious goals• Mixture of Funding Sources• It sought to launch a European scale authority with

the funds and legal powers both to rescue the poor and to redevelop the city along modern lines

• Modernism perpetuated by cost concerns ( Vladeck and East River Houses)

-Well constructed high rise brick -Increased height -Minimum amenities• Still vested in greenery -New lawns, trees and playgrounds

• Led by Robert Moses

• Refused to believe that as the cities housing ser-vice it was responsible for social services


Thefirststate-aideddevelopment.

Whitman Ingersoll Houses (1941)


East River and Brownsville HousesEast River Houses (1941) Brownsville Houses (1948)


• Displacement caused by NYCHA’s own bulldozer approach

• Percentage of site tenants re-housed in public housing dropped

• The superblock had lost its careful composition of the early years and had become a technocratic solution to slum clearance

• Anti-social behavior within public housing devel-opments increased

• Discrimination in the private housing market made public housing in New York an important source of housing for the city’s housing for city’s minorities in the postwar years.

• By late 1950’s NYCHA began to focus on subtle improvements within public housing, so that all projects were upgraded to a better standard.

• Thelate50’salsodisplayedheavystaffingthatgrew into constant maintenance- many of the staff lived within the projects- they became “the eyes of the street.”

Slab Construction

1950's


Baruch Houses (1959)

Site Plan


Pruitt-IgoeWhat went wrong?

Modernist Architecture?

Or programmed Failure?

The utilitarian modernist design features were not contextualized to the needs of the residents:

• skip-stop elevators caused alienation instead of building a sense of community.

• windowed galleries were supposed to provide a public forum, but instead proved to be a haven for gangs and violence.

Yamasaki, one of the project architects, once said he would have solved the design problems for this proj-ect with single story or housing. So why didn’t that Happen? :

“ Political and social ambivalence to public housing resulted in a token housing program burdened by impossiblefiscalmanagementconstraints”


Pruitt-IgoeSt. Louis and New York Comparison

Living in a constant state of disrepair, sociologist Lee Rainwater calls violence and vandalism “an under-standable response” to Pruitt-Igoe housing condi-tions.

New York projects also fought vandalism, but by the 1970’s “NYCHA had 350 mechanics solely devoted to the maintenance of its approximately 3,000 eleva-tors…”

These repairmen acted as ‘eyes on the street’ while also keeping the NYC projects markedly more liv-able.


Pruitt-IgoeSt. Louis and New York Comparison

Oscar Newman suggested in Defensible Space that the deterioration in Pruitt-Igoe (built 1954) was a pathological response to the designed elements of the physical environment.

The Van Dyke Homes (1955) in NYC are “represen-tative of the lengths NYCHA took to keep its housing in passable condition. Van Dyke was saved in the 1970’s, but as in older housing developments such rescue demanded human and physical resources.”


Pruitt-IgoeConclusion

New York projects also fought vandalism, but by the 1970’s “NYCHA had 350 mechanics solely devoted to the maintenance of its approximately 3,000 eleva-tors…”

These repairmen acted as ‘eyes on the street’ while also keeping the NYC projects markedly more liv-able.


1960's• New York was well into decline as its suburbs

boomed and white, middle class residents de-parted.

• The Moses era was over as the Committee on Slum Clearance was ended. NYCHA moved to less destructive and monotonous design sys-tems.

• Early60’s-withrelocationgettingmoredifficult,there was a necessity for building smaller devel-opments.

• Many projects were smaller than 1,000 units but many still contained more than 500 units. Yet the authority still uprooted tens of thousands every year during the early 1960’s further undermining their claims of a new path.

• Most creative era• Architectural designs and landscape designs

won awards

• New York City accounted for 20 percent of all public housing in US.


1960's


Riverbend

Riverbend Site Plan Riverbend Inside Unit View


• 1970: Brooke Amendment provided that no family living in federally-subsidized public housing need pay more than 25% of its income for rent.

• 1972: Urban Family Center opens. Half-way house for families in severe distress.

• 1974:. Section 8 of Housing & Community Act creates massive leased-housing program utilizing private sector.

• Mitchell-Lama but growing need for low-income housing

• Fiscal crisis and stabilized rents

1970's


Borinquen Plaza I & II


1980's

• Housing and Community Development Act of 1981 establishes new rent levels for public hous-ing - 30% of income.

• Shift back to a sense of responsibility for provid-ing social services

• Attempts to control drug and crime epidemics

• Execution of contract for $3 million in funds for modernization of state-aided developments

• Rehab of existing housing stock

• Bushwick II & Hope Gardens


Bushwick II & Hope Gardens


Hope VI

3. Provide coordinated, comprehensive community and supportive services

HUD assumes that concentrations of poor people are the source of their maladies. Many low income communities create their own forms of social order through block associations, business incubators, churches and schools.

In the process of “revitalizing” HOPE VI sites, 100% of units do not get rebuilt in the new developments. Additionally, as of 2002, Nationally, only 14% of households from the original housing return to their revital-ized HOPE VI developments.

2. Build mixed-income communities/Relieve isolation and reduce concentrations of poverty

1. Revitalize the sites of severely distressed public housing and, as a result, improve the surrounding neighborhood.

Residents approved for resettlement are more likely to be employed and get a portion of their income from child support payments whereas they are less dependent on public assistance

In PracticeGoals


In the process of “revitalizing” HOPE VI sites, 100% of units do not get rebuilt in the new developments. Additionally, as of 2002, Only 14% of households from the original

housing return to their revitalized HOPE VI developments.

1. Revitalize the sites of severely distressed public housing and, as a result, improve the surrounding neighborhood.

“Park DuValle Revitalization Project” Louisville, Kentucky

1273 households relocated1116 units demolished150 previous households scheduled to live in the new community, but by the time of a quarterly report, 69 families reported (5%).

298 (23%) households evicted (lease violations, non payment of rent, drug involvement)351 families relocated to other Public Housing projects158 relocated to Section 817 purchased homes73 moved to better housing17 Rent late20 Left city 17 Illness19 Rent too high44 Dilsliked regulations92 Moved without notice178 Other

Data indicate that over half of residents are no longer receiving housing assistance and that the majority of Public Housing residents relocated by Hope VI project failed to experience increased opportunity or homeownership.

Hope VI


Hope VI“Park DuValle Revitalization Project” Louisville, Kentucky

Before After

Park DuValle

Downtown Louis-ville

4 miles (minimum)


Hope VI2. Build mixed-income communities/Relieve

isolation and reduce concentrations of poverty

Residents approved for resettlement are more likely to be employed and get a portion of their income from child support payments whereas they are less dependent on public assistance

In a study done on an anonymous HOPE VI project, of the original residents approved for relocation to the new development, almost a third, 30.3%, was unemployed and received income from government programs or child support while only about 1 out of 10, 9.6%, of the current (new) residents depends on unearned income for their support. This clearly indicates a preference to readmit working heads of households to the rebuilt HOPE VI housing project.

3. Provide coordinated, comprehensive ��community and supportive services

HUD assumes that concentrations of poor

people are the source of their maladies. Many low income communities create their own forms of social order through block associations, business incubators,

churches and schools.

The quantitate data verify the geographic and economic isolation of the HOPE VI DuValle development; the area lacks nearby employ-ment, commercial areas and accessible transportation: Downtown Louisville is over 4 miles away.

Many residents living in public housing or using vouchers reported relatively high levels of problems with crime and disorder. Resi-dents who returned to the HOPE VI site also reported surprisingly high levels of crime in their HOPE VI neighborhood.

While residents living in the revitalized HOPE VI sites report relatively high levels of interaction with neighbors, those who left (voucher holders and unsubsidized households) made a trade-off, gaining better neighborhood conditions while losing easy access to social networks.


• NYC’sfirstHOPEVIfundedproject

• First New York City Housing Authority building ever slated for demolition

• Originally scheduled to be completed in 2005, none of the new housing has been built as of yet.

• 368 apartment owners forced to relocate between 2001-2003.

• Supposed to lead to construction of 128 new apartments in three-story townhouses, 88 of them owner-occupied and the remainder rentals, on the site just north of Eastern Parkway.

• The eventual plan was to demolish one of the four tall structures and renovate the other three.

Prospect Plaza


1990's

• 1993: $300 million in appropriations for funding of a Public Housing revitalization

• Program - HOPE VI.

• 1994: Newly elected Mayor Rudolph Giuliani makes safety and security in public housing the highest priority NYCHA.

• Some new construction – mainly in LES

• Demolition of towers for low-rise

• 1996: HUD eliminates rule requiring 1 for 1 re-placement of every apartment unit demolished.

• NYCHA uses Section 8 voucher plan to relocate displaced families to the private rental market.


2000's

• Modernization & preservation

• Green Initiatives

• HOPE VI

• Operation Safe Housing

• Economicrecession&fiscalcrisis

• What’s next?


2000's370 affordable------------------------------------> 270-mixed homeowner & rental


2000’sWhere is public housing and how is it distributed?


2000’sWho lives in public housing?


2000’s


2000’s

17% of public housing households are linguistically isolated

Immigrants are underrepresented in public housing


2000’sPhysical Segregation

28% of NYCHA residents live more than a ½ mile away from a rapid transit source


Whats Next?• A public partnership is seeking to create 6,000 new

units of affordable housing on land owned by pub-lic housing

• 77 million square feet of unused development rights exist citywide

• Considerations for the program:

• Some new units are market-rate and not afford-able; is this appropriate?

• Decisions are made project-by-project, without a comprehensive policy or vision

• Process for decision-making and public participa-tionisnotrobustorwell-defined

• Leasing land or development rights is better than selling, in order to preserve long-term opportunities for revenue and affordability

• Services and facilities for residents should be inte-grated into the effort

• Long-term funding issues cannot be resolved by one-time actions


End

new york city (nyc) public housing 1934-present€¦ · 04/06/2010 · public housing in new york...

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