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Mayor Bloomberg appointed a former Wall Street investment banker to head the troubled NYC Housing Authority. The NYCHA oversees over 177,000 apartments in 340 development in all five boroughs—the NY Times says this makes John Rhea, who used to work at Lehman Brothers and JPMorgan Chase, "in effect, the city’s biggest landlord." Bloomberg said, "John's experience makes him the perfect person to lead our efforts to create long-term financial stability at the Authority, and to ring in a new era of transparency and agency responsiveness to improving resident and community quality of life." However, some critics of the Bloomberg administration were upset with the pick: City Councilwoman Letitia James issued a statement questioning Rhea's lack of "experience in managing a low-income public housing authority of this size and scale...particularly at a time when private equity firms are purchasing under-performing housing developments, and converting them to luxury housing throughout the City" while Councilwoman Rosie Mendez told the Times, "All I see is a Wall Street person with an investment banking background and with no experience in housing management or development."
Bloomberg Appoints I-Banker To Head Housing Authority
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Wow, those bankers really are desperate.
Great idea - everyone loves an I-banker!
Cut to six months from now when this guy is offering his resignation after it's disclosed he gave his former i-banking co-workers sweatheart deals to privatize public housing units.
city hall is turning into citibank.
why didn't the mayor implement his 5 yr. plan 5 yrs. ago?
if he's so smart.
we don't need more millionaires in city hall, they are out of touch. mr. private jet and pilot.
he's beholden to money and moneymakers. make no mistake.
And, his discrimination suit starts today.
The first thing this guy needs to do is find out why NYCHA is incapable of leasing and renewing leases for storefronts it owns. Especially the storefronts at First Houses on Ave A. NYCHA didn't even renew the lease for neighborhood favorite Two Boots which had been a tenant for 20 years. Actually NYCHA didn't even give Two Boots the time of day. NYCHA is leaving money on the table. The next thing he needs to do is construct a program to downsize NYCHA. Start selling off some of the property NYCHA controls.
@blablanyc
I agree. The whole lottery system, income cutoff rules, self-reinforcing notions of entitlement, all reek of corruption and cronyism. Ask the vast majority of low income New Yorkers who (for one byzantine reason or another) didn't qualify for some or any public assistance and is now living in a slum lord's market-rate rat hole what they think of the fairness of the public housing system.
oh believe me, he'll sell the projects alright.
that's going to be his next election platform to get the base populist vote. (note, I have no idea what I'm talking about)
Bloomberg runs this city like a business and we do pretty well because of it. A businessman might be just the guy to go in there and clean up that mess. Maybe they should get someone like that in the MTA.
Why does the city have a Housing Authority?
Really? Do you think the city shouldn't be concerned about housing its citizen?
1. The city doesn't have citizens. It has residents, some of whom are U.S. citizens (and a range of others).
2. If the city were some kind of medieval fiefdom, then it would have to be concerned with "housing its citizens." In our modern context, I would prefer to think that people should be concerned with housing themselves.
3. The city has a Housing Authority as a direct result of slum clearance programs throughout the 20th century. The system today has next to nothing to do with actual needs in the present or future -- indeed, the NYCHA in its current form makes matters worse by concentrating poverty and constructing generational traps and self-reinforcing patterns of dependency.
If you were to meet John Rhea you would soon understand that he will do the job and do it well! Just because he was in the financial world does not mean he can't relate to people who are less fortunate.