Updated 01/31/2013 12:57 PM
City Officials Plan To Tackle Backlog Of Public Housing Repairs
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The city has come up with a plan to clear the massive backlog of repair orders in public housing buildings.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg and New York City Housing Authority Chairman John Rhea announced a new system Thursday aimed at clearing a backlog of 420,000 repair requests by the end of the year.
In some NYCHA buildings, residents have waited years for repairs, but agency officials hope to only have about 50,000 remaining repair orders by January 2014.
The new system would speed up repairs by making sure the correct type of repair person gets assigned to jobs in the right order.
For the first time, the housing authority will also be required to provide quarterly updates online to the status of repairs.
"We've got to make sure that public housing is as good as it can possibly be, given the constraints of buildings that are aging and funding that doesn't arrive," said Bloomberg.
"They've not only deserve the best, the deserve the best that we can give them as a city, because they give the best to use as a city," said state Assembly Housing Committee Chair Keith Wright.
City officials said they are paying for the program with $40 million in administrative savings.