Add it to the list: NYCHA needs $500M for senior housing, community center repairs

The New York City Housing Authority needs another $500 million for repairs to its senior and community centers.

James Scanlon, NYCHA’s vice president of capital planning and design, on Thursday emphasized the need for the financing for the agency’s some 250 community centers, daycare centers and senior facilities, the Wall Street Journal reported. For example, the senior center at Fulton Houses in Chelsea, which cooks and serves 42,000 meals a year, hasn’t been renovated since 1965. Ken Jockers, executive director of the Hudson Guild, which runs the senior center, said the facility needs new bathrooms and kitchens, as well as new electrical, heat and air-conditioning systems.

“Our federal dollars, quite frankly, have been focused on the residential units,” Scanlon told the Journal.

Overall, the agency needs an estimated $31.8 billion in repairs. Earlier this year, prosecutors in the U.S. Southern District of New York reached an agreement with NYCHA that will force the city to meet federal safety protocol and provide fixes and repairs to more than 176,000 units. Under the consent decree, the city is committed to spend $2 billion on repairs over the next decade or so. [WSJ] — Kathryn Brenzel