The New York City Housing Authority, which receives 50,000 new repair requests every week, reduced a backlog of around 350,000 resident work orders in March to 106,000 by the end of the year, nearly hitting the agency’s goal of 100,000.
Over the past year, the number of outstanding repair orders got as high as 423,000, according to NYCHA information cited by the Village Voice. And because the authority classifies 90,000 of its pending orders as “normal work in progress,” the number is actually even better than the official numbers suggest, NYCHA officials told the Village Voice.
“With open work orders now at 16,000, this is the equivalent to the number of work orders NYCHA creates in 12 days,” NYCHA General Manager Cecil House said in a statement cited by the Village Voice.
Improved response times were largely responsible for the reduction in outstanding maintenance requests, NYCHA said. For example, the waiting time for carpenters fell from 270 days to 80 days on average last year. And extermination and mildew removal requests have stepped up in the face of a tenant suit against the authority that demands complaints glean a response within 15 days. [Village Voice] — Julie Strickland