As Privatization Push Spreads, Queensbridge NYCHA Residents Appeal to Mamdani

“It can be only pothole politics and snow shoveling,” said state Assembly candidate Mary Jobaida at a recent rally asking the mayor to fund much-needed repairs. 

BY COLE SINANIAN

cole@queensledger.com

“Mayor Mamdani, you are a socialist,” said public housing organizer and NYCHA resident Stanley Morse, at a rally at the Queensbridge South public houses Thursday evening.

“So how do you support the privatization of NYCHA?”

Morse, who grew up in Brooklyn NYCHA housing and has dedicated his life to public housing advocacy, had come to Queensbridge to stand in solidarity with residents who’ve been facing gas outages since the early spring, and to call out elected officials for what he described as a failure to adequately engage with residents of NYCHA, the City’s public housing agency that houses some half a million people and whose buildings have faced widespread decay for years thanks to money troubles and bureaucratic mismanagement.

Morse and others also criticized Mayor Zohran Mamdani for his support of the controversial RAD/PACT program — in which the City partners with a private company that pays for repairs while pocketing residents’ subsidized rent — as a means to address NYCHA’s massive repair backlog, questioning its efficacy and criticizing it as contradictory to the Mayor’s ostensibly democratic socialist politics.

“The worst landlord is public housing, NYCHA,” Morse said, addressing the Mayor,  “so for you not to put that at the top of your priority, and for you just to talk about affordability and all of those things, and you’re not in the forefront as a socialist, about the fully funding and keeping public housing public—to me, it’s a betrayal.”

Mamdani, for his part, released his ambitious “Block by Block” housing plan in late May, which pledges $5.6 billion to NYCHA improvements over the next five years— what’s been described as the largest NYCHA investment in recent history. Though he has not visited Queensbridge since his inauguration, Mamdani has visited several NYCHA complexes over the past few months, including Woodside Houses in April — where he pledged to transition 20,000 NYCHA apartments from outdated fuel-based heating to more efficient systems.

The mayor proposed financing tools like RAD/PACT, as well as the Public Housing Preservation Trust — in which a public benefit corporation takes over NYCHA buildings — to address the Authority’s $78 billion repair backlog. 

As far as engagement, the Mayor’s “NYCHA in Your Neighborhood” event series — also launched in May — seeks to bring NYCHA residents together in neighborhood-wide discussions about the issues facing their buildings.

“We will deliver the transformative investments that public housing has long needed but not received,” Mamdani said at a press conference in May.

“NYCHA began as a testament to something great: that government can not only imagine a better life for those it serves, but that it can fulfill that vision,” he continued. “And yet that conviction has become a relic of the past. After decades of disinvestment, NYCHA tenants have come to expect that no matter who is in office, they will be overlooked. Their concerns will be ignored. That ends today.”

Still, attendees at Thursday’s rally expressed frustration that the Mayor had seemingly not given the same attention to NYCHA tenants as he has rent-stabilized tenants — hosting several “Rental Ripoff” hearings and getting involved in litigation with some of NYC’s largest landlords — while NYCHA remains the City’s worst landlord, with an average of about 560,000 open violations across its 177,000-unit portfolio. In attendance were about two dozen community organizers, Queensbridge neighbors and NYCHA residents. It was organized by State Assembly Candidate Mary Jobaida, a Bangladeshi immigrant and LIC resident who drew attention to gas outages at Queensbridge back in May, when a CBS news crew followed her as she toured several apartments.

“We want Zohran to come here and explain it,” Jobaida said. “He is the best at talking about the dreams of the city, but it cannot be only his pothole politics and snow shoveling. It should also be about how our NYCHA neighbors are living and the dreams that are dying here.”

Gas outages were first reported this year on March 19 at Queensbridge North, while outages at Queensbridge South were reported on March 30, per NYCHA’s outage database. NYCHA did not respond to the Ledger’s requests for comment by press time.

“I have nine people in my family that I’ve got to cook for every day,” said Gedeon Pierre-Louis, a Queensbridge resident. “It’s hard to do that on a hot pot, just one. It’s very difficult. I shouldn’t have to suffer like this.”

The City has long struggled to keep up with NYCHA repairs.  In 2024, an independent federal monitoring program led by Bart Schwartz of Guidepost Solutions released  a NYCHA report card, which attributed the agency’s troubles to institutionalized incompetence and mismanagement— not just  money problems.

“Funding is not the worst of NYCHA’s problems,” wrote Schwartz in his report. “It is the lack of effective governance, ethics and accountability that prevents NYCHA from achieving comprehensive, sustainable improvements within its current financial restraints.”

But despite increased investments brought by RAD/PACT, the program has been criticized for its apparent failure to totally address maintenance issues. A 2025 investigation by The City found more than 14,281 HPD violations across 25,000 NYCHA apartments that had been converted to RAD. In 59 RAD buildings, HPD had to hire third-party vendors to address repairs.

“I’ve been in several buildings that have been converted to RAD/PACT,” he said. “They’re worse. There’s no oversight on that whole entire program. The repair issues are still the same.”

He added that NYCHA’s publicity campaign to convince residents to vote for RAD/PACT privatization can be misleading.

“The way the story goes, NYCHA gives you all this stuff— do you want to stay the status quo?” Morse said. “Meaning, messed up apartments. Or do you want this beautiful oasis that they’re gonna create? Which is a lie.”

Lashawn “Suga Ray” Marston — a writer and activist who grew up in Queensbridge and now lives in Brooklyn — called on NYCHA residents to unite and organize  together to spur government action.

“Don’t be embarrassed that you may be going through it,” he said. “Somebody else in your building, on your floor, across the street, is having the same or similar experience. So, talk to each other, that is the solution to the problems.”