dustytoast

First speaker, from @Justice4AllQns: @ka_hackett explains RAD "RAD is the de facto privatization of public housing" Here's a quick summary of the terms:

NextGen NYCHA - de Blasios brand name for investing money in NYCHA PACT, Permanent Affordability Commitment Together - Use RAD to raise money RAD, Rental Assistance Demonstration - HUD program to convert public housing to privately managed section 8 https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/nycha/downloads/pdf/PACT-RAD-FAQs-2018.pdf …

@ka_hackett (KH) brings up two more components of Next Gen NYCHA: Build to Preserve - allowing private development on 'under used' public land, eg playgrounds - who defines underused??! Transfer to Preserve - Selling air rights at existing buildings https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/nycha/downloads/pdf/NYCHA-2.0-Part1.pdf …

Audience: "Who's gonna own it? Is it the billionaires?" KH: Thats a good pt. The city will say this is NOT privatization since we keep the deed KH: The city will say technically gonna EXPAND your rights Its de facto privatization if the City won't enforce your rights

Audience member: This sounds like a mess. Well we should let congress decide what's right and what's wrong and put in guidelines @ka_hackett : NYCHA decides what's right and what's wrong in this process Another person: "Well then we're fucked"

The next speaker is MC Stik-E, of "shake what ya mama gave ya" fame. @rocksdiscussion is his podcast! "It ain't just YOUR toilet, it ain't just YOUR stove. They are systemically trying to make you uncomfortable so you move"

MC Stik-E addressing the concern that NYCHA is intentionally letting units fall apart to force tenants to move to open the unit for conversion to private management under RAD Why is private management bad?

"Your rent is supposed to go to maintain your property, but they will take YOUR money and use YOUR money for their fancy high rises.... While they give you minimum benefits, minimum services " "It ain't about white and it ain't about it black. It's about rich and poor"

"There are 7k people who live in QB, 3,142 units. How many of y'all are paying rent at the market rate?" "Market rate apartment is $2500/month, now you times that by 3000 and thats 17 million dollars a month [sic]" "OF COURSE they wanna kick you out. The displacement is real"

"You are the biggest housing complex in the country. And you're right by the water. That's prime real estate" "Some things we can help ourselves. If you're gonna fix your toilet, how about you fix your neighbor's toilet too"

"You're the second biggest housing complex. The first was Cabrini. And look what happened at Cabrini." "when they couldn't move the people out, they knocked the building down and replaced it with NON affordable housing " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabrini–Green_Homes …

Where'd the people go? Where was your congressman? Where was the mayor? IDK You can help yourselves! MC Stik-E was VERY energizing

The emcee, Stan from @Justice4AllQns neatly summarizes: "The more expensive that apartment becomes, the less likely you're gonna stay in it. There's no controls, the market's the market."

The next speaker is @ilonaduverge from @mvmtschool who brings up that 400k ppl live across all of NYCHA - more people than in all of Miami

Ilona addresses NYCHA claims that can't make the repairs because they don't have money/capacity NYCHA has a provision called Section 3 Resident Owned Businesses which must get priority for contracts And 1/3 of NYCHA residents are in Trade Unions! https://www1.nyc.gov/site/nycha/business/section3-business-concern-information.page …

@ilonaduverge : If your Tenant Association president is not acting right, VOTE THEM OUT Here for this

@DR0DRIGUEZ, a @mvmtschool mentor: "The city just recently approved $11 bln to build new jails. They own $34 bln in capital needs. They care more about putting ppl in jail before building dignified homes"

"As NYCHA tenants, you OWN NYCHA As constituents, you OWN NYCHA Who is in power to make the change? We ARE! You can protest, you can rally, you can withhold your rent!"

The next speaker is @jokudasai from @JustFixNYC They make a tool that helps people file Housing Part Actions, or HP Action. An HP Action is a housing court case against your landlord for not providing essential actions https://www1.nyc.gov/site/hpd/renters/housing-court.page …

Their goal is to flood the court with HP Actions to force NYCHA to make repairs, stymieing their strategy to make life unbearable until folks move out Someone asked if they will face retaliation for filing a HP Action. They won't!

A person in the audience implored QB residents to file HP Actions: In her building of 1000 units, 30 residents were filing HP Actions.

The next speaker was Giancarlo from @CVHaction : "The only thing NYCHA does successfully is finding out how much you make so they can raise your rent" NYCHA rent is capped at 30% of resident income https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/nycha/downloads/pdf/Flat-Rent-Schedule.pdf …

"They're actively trying to make us complicit with being sold The problem is racism Entire cultures are being sold so that the rich can get richer Is this not the history of America? Make a group of ppl valuable, sell them, move on to the next group"

I guess the implicit conflict of interest is that RAD is a HUD policy ... so why would the federal monitor help interrupt efforts to push RAD?