A hand up not a handout for public-housing tenants? NYC says no way

The New York City Housing Authority grapples with some obvious ills: Elevators break down all the time, crime and gang violence are common, and fixing up aging NYCHA buildings could cost up to $80 billion the agency doesn’t have.But some of the problems facing the nation’s largest public housing authority are less visible.The average time on the NYCHA waiting list is 46 months — largely because the average tenant has lived in the projects for 306 months, or 25 years.A significant number of residents, 31%, are “overhoused” — living in apartments with empty bedrooms — while others in need crowd into shelters. Only 34% of tenants are employed and report “wage income.”President Donald Trump wants to give New York City the tools it needs to do something about those problems.NYCHA is saying, no thanks.At issue is a new rule proposed by Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Scott Turner that would allow NYCHA and other public-housing authorities across the country to adopt some form of work requirements as well as time limits for tenants — something like the rules that apply to cash welfare.Housing assistance, says Turner, should “actively promote pathways to independence, upward mobility and long-term self-sufficiency.”More than 200 local authorities — including those in Philadelphia, New Orleans and Los Angeles County — have said they support the idea, joining what HUD has dubbed its Work and Dignity Coalition to push for the rule to become final.NYCHA, by far the nation’s largest housing authority, with 263,000 units of public or voucher housing, is a notable exception.It can’t stop the new rule from taking effect elsewhere — but it can continue its own status quo that lets 457,000 tenants stay for a lifetime, while the newly needy are locked out.HUD thinks a fresh approach can change that.But NYCHA sees only doom and gloom.It claims that Gotham’s housing shortage is just too acute to set an “up and out” goal — even one th...