Seniors Demand $500M Mayor Promised For New NYCHA Housing

NEW YORK CITY — Hundreds of seniors came and public housing residents rallied outside Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Upper East Side mansion Wednesday evening to demand he deliver on a promised $500 million NYCHA investment that never made it into his budget.

A city block’s worth of protesters gathered outside Gracie Mansion on June 12, exactly one year after de Blasio promised to spend a half billion city dollars and build thousands of senior citizen housing units on vacant NYCHA property.

“The indictment is in and the charge is betrayal,” said Brooklyn housing advocate Rev. David Brawley. “Bill de Blasio, you have betrayed the seniors of New York City ... step up or step down.”

Hundred of people are singing outside Gracie Mansion to demand @NYCMayor produce the $500M he promised to invest in NYCHA. pic.twitter.com/N1PM4alfnN
— Kathleen Culliton (@K_Culliton) June 12, 2019

But after 10 months of silence, the de Blasio administration quietly admitted in a letter to City Comptroller Scott Stringer that the money was not included in his budget, THE CITY reported, and the $500 million was just “an estimate of the total public resources needed to fund the City’s commitment to develop these six sites."

But protesters who gathered on East 88th Street and East End Avenue disagreed.

Carmen Santiago told the crowd housing shortages meant she was forced to share a small apartment in the President Andrew Jackson development in The Bronx with her 77-year-old and 83-year-old parents.

“My parents deserve privacy and dignity,” said Santiago. “This is making my parents sicker.”

.@NatividadConce2 says her neighbor, a nursing student, had to give her 7-year-old son to her mother to raise because of the black mold covering her Canarsie home. “While you run around the nation chasing a pipe dream,” she said to @NYCMayor, “We are living a nightmare.”
— Kathleen Culliton (@K_Culliton) June 12, 2019

Kenneth Stevenson, 67, said he came from the Robert Wagner Houses in East Harlem to protest because he’s tired of the Mayor’s silence on the issue as he waits months for basic repairs in his home.

"I’m aggravated, he’s never gonna step out and talk with us,” said Stevenson. “There ain’t nothing wrong with his place. His place is in good standing.”

New Yorker Evelyn Price said she joined the rally because “these are my people.”

“Mayor de Blasio refused to put the money in the budget,” Price said. “He just ignored us.”

Update (June 13): Mayor's Office Deputy Press Secretary Jane Meyer responded to Patch's request for comment with a Medium article by Housing Preservation and Development Commissioner Louise Carroll as well as the following statement:

“Our commitment is the same today as it was last June – we are developing six public sites with 1,000 homes for seniors. These developments are just a portion of our effort to serve 30,000 seniors by 2026, and we have financed over 7,000 homes for seniors to date. We recognize there was public confusion about the details of this plan, and we wish we had communicated better from the start – but we never backtracked on our commitment.”

Meyer also