Finding support for housing concerns is often an uphill battle—especially for the thousands of New Yorkers living in public housing. But there's power in community.
“You know when it rains? It was raining in my apartment like it was outside.”
That’s how Karen, a long-time resident of Brooklyn’s Red Hook Houses, described a leak in her apartment. At 69 years old, she took the case to housing court and explained her situation to a judge, who ordered a repair. Before long, maintenance staff came to patch up her ceiling and the parts of the walls that had suffered water damage.
Nobody should have to go through court to live in a safe, comfortable home. But even that process is inaccessible to far too many of the almost 530,000 New Yorkers living in public housing. One of the main reasons Karen was able to get the repair, she says, is because her neighborhood has something many don’t: a community justice center.
“If I didn’t have them to give me the education, I’d still be fighting to get stuff done.”
Our community justice centers in Red Hook and Harlem feature housing resource centers co-located with landlord-tenant courts right in the communities they serve. They’re sources of much-needed stability for tenants who are often made to feel helpless and unheard. Residents can drop in to get help with all things housing—maintenance issues, trouble paying rent, harassment by landlords, looming evictions.
Those issues are daily concerns for many New Yorkers, and finding support is often an uphill battle—especially for residents of public housing. Yet having a stable place to call home is a cornerstone of safety and well-being for individuals, families, and communities as a whole.
Who gets access to safe, stable homes and who doesn’t has been shaped by a long history of racism in the United States’ housing system. Redlining carved up maps along racial lines that dictated where money and resources would flow. Government policy reinforced and even mandated segregation in the first public housing developments. And discrimination in the housing market has locked people of color, especially Black families, out of many opportunities offered to white renters and homeowners.
Decades of government disinvestment in public housing have continued that legacy. New York City’s public housing system, where 90 percent of residents are Black or Latino, stands in need of $80 billion worth of vital repairs.
Karen’s story echoes a sentiment felt by many of her neighbors: “Nobody wants to hear what you got to say.” Seeking a repair means navigating a confusing, often unresponsive system—with an average wait time of over two months for requests that aren’t considered emergencies. When those repairs don’t come, many people withhold rent to assert their rights. That can lead to another worry, though: mounting arrears and, at worst, eviction.
Original research by our Red Hook Community Justice Center and the Columbia Justice Lab found widespread disparities in living conditions and access to justice for New Yorkers living in public housing, highlighting the need for local, community-driven approaches to achieving safe and stable housing.
These inequities underscore the need for local supports that position tenants to access the justice and accountability they deserve. As our housing teams show while they help residents exercise their rights to safe, healthy housing, there’s power in community. If someone is struggling to get a repair, the team makes a call to NYCHA. If someone needs help filling out a form, they lend a hand. If someone loses their income, they get them what they need for a rent adjustment.
Our housing resource centers also go above and beyond those immediate needs to ensure people can find more lasting stability, even before they’re facing an emergency. That can mean helping residents build financial literacy, file their taxes, and apply for public benefits. It can also mean supporting people with understanding and asserting the rights they have as tenants.
Unlike residents of private housing who can dial “311” to receive a city inspection, public housing residents have to take their case to housing court by filing a Housing Part action, or HP action for short. It’s a long and burdensome process; but many residents, like Karen, find it’s the only way to get their repair issues addressed.
“We’re going to teach you how to advocate for yourself,” says Marissa Williams, who works at Red Hook Community Justice Center’s housing resource center. Red Hook’s neighborhood-based housing court is one of precious few where residents are empowered to file cases themselves, with guidance from our housing team. That’s a far cry from typical housing courts, where virtually all cases are initiated against tenants by landlords.
Despite their local focus, our housing resource centers in Red Hook and Harlem helped tenants file 218 HP actions last year to get critical repairs. That’s 28 percent of the 771 HP actions that residents of public housing filed across the city.
When people walk into our housing resource centers, they’re often greeted by their own neighbors. “I do this work because I was born in Red Hook,” says Williams. “This is not just a job, this is something I care about. I'm always going be here to advocate for my tenants, my friends, my family. Whoever walks through this door, they know I'm here for them.”
The challenges of guaranteeing stable, affordable housing for everyone are complex, and so are the solutions. But those solutions have to involve the communities closest to the issues, who have the right and—given the resources—the ability to make their voices heard. Change starts with listening.