Zhuang presses on NYCHA budget for older adult centers
Zhuang says it seems NYCHA has nothing allocated to older adult centers in its budget. Trimble says OAC allocations are discretionary from elected officials, and NYCHA's priority is resident apartments. Zhuang says that contradicts earlier statements about repairing leaks at senior centers. Trimble clarifies repairs are different from capital improvements.
So in Niche's budget, there's nothing allocated to older adult center.
The older adult center allocations are the discretionary allocations of the elected officials.
We are focused primarily, our priority is to resolve conditions in resident apartments, and we are putting our funding towards those priorities right now.
So that doesn't make sense to me.
You said in the beginning of testimony, you said, well, we're going to do the repairs.
Like some senior center has some leaks.
Now you say, oh, we have money, we cannot.
Let me clarify, Council Member.
Repairs are different from capital improvements.
So the funding that you're talking about right now are primarily capital improvements.
The mold and leaks and the critical repairs initiatives are special allocations we received from this administration to focus on very old apartment conditions, and those are repairs.
And the other pots of funding you were talking about were capital improvements.
So we will continue to respond to repairs.
in older adult centers, when we get the work orders, we respond to them, but we don't have a specific funding source dedicated to that repair.
So you can do the repair for the older adult senior center, but you cannot do repair for Latimer Garden OAC.
But Latimer Gardens requires a capital improvement.
It's not about a repair.
But it's leaking.
Start with leaking.
It's leaking from the roof.
The roof needs to be repaired, and that's a significant capital.
We are working with funders right now to hopefully get funding for that roof capital project.
But if it's...
They have leaking, you repair it right away.
It should not become a huge issue.
That's always happening in OACs.
We get complaints all the time.
Yes, we have significant infrastructure challenges.
We will repair a leak, and the leak will come back in a different part of the pipe, or we'll patch up the roof.
But we're talking about a roof that's probably past its useful life and needs a capital...
A capital project, a new roof, not just continuing to patch and band-aid the old holes in that roof.
That is why the leaks keep coming back.
Okay, there's no plan, say, every 20 years or 30 years the roof have be updated.
Unfortunately, NYCHA's apartments, let alone their older adult centers, are not capitalized with ongoing funds.
So who is responsible for that?
The federal, state, or city?
I would say all of the above.
Okay.