The Accountability Crisis in New York's Project Based Rental Assistance Program

"Tenants living in federally subsidized housing projects in New York City are given the runaround when they complain about their rent and repairs. Contractors, state, and federal agencies pass the buck on who is responsible for enforcing the rules. After Vivian Colado spent several months in the hospital recovering from a stroke, she returned to a rent bill of over $20,000."

""That day when I received the letter, my blood pressure went so high I had to go to the emergency room," Colado told City Limits in Spanish. Her Washington Heights apartment was federally subsidized-she was only supposed to pay 30 percent of her income in rent. Colado, 65, was living on social security payments of just $794 a month at the time. So how did her back rent, in under a year, skyrocket?"

"When her property manager did not hear from her to do her required annual income recertification because she was in the hospital, they terminated her federal housing subsidy and started charging her market rent-nearly $2,000 a month for her one bedroom. Unlike other federally subsidized tenants who work with government agencies like NYCHA to renew their vouchers, Colado's subsidy is managed by a private state contractor, a firm called CGI, which in turn oversees property managers at hundreds of privately-run buildings like hers."

Tenants in New York City enrolled in the Project-Based Rental Assistance Program face repeated bureaucratic failures that remove subsidies and impose market rents. Private contractors and property managers control recertifications and can terminate subsidies when occupants miss paperwork, including during hospitalizations. State and federal agencies, contractors, and managers shift enforcement responsibilities, causing long delays obtaining income verification from agencies like the Social Security Administration. Terminated subsidies produce soaring back rent and eviction notices that can exceed $20,000, while tenants on fixed incomes and health crises struggle to correct paperwork. A private state contractor, CGI, oversees many buildings and complicates accountability.

Read at City Limits