The independent observer who has been monitoring the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) since 2019 issued a final report card on Wednesday, taking aim at the long-troubled agency’s continuing mismanagement and board committees that do nothing and have an aversion to real change, The City reported.
Bart Schwartz and his firm Guidepost Solutions’ five-year term as monitor ended Feb. 28. Although he applied for a second five-year term, federal housing officials and the Manhattan U.S. Attorney instead chose the law firm of Jenner & Block to assume the monitorship starting this month.
In a 101-page farewell critique of the housing authority’s performance, Schwartz focused on the failure of top managers, recommending that the chair of NYCHA's board, currently a volunteer position, be made full-time and salaried, and also that the chair make sure appointed board members stop acting as a "rubber stamp" in order to adequately police the bureaucrats running the housing authority.
“Funding is not the worst of NYCHA’s problems,” Schwartz wrote. “It is the lack of effective governance, ethics and accountability that prevents NYCHA from achieving comprehensive, sustainable improvements within its current financial restraints.”
