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Dear John,
Yesterday, my office released a major new audit [[link removed]] of the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA). Our team of auditors set out to determine NYCHA residents’ satisfaction with repairs and maintenance, and to evaluate the agency’s oversight of contractors.
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After more than two years of engaging with residents, the establishment of the City’s first-ever Resident Audit Committee [[link removed]] , and dozens of surveys, the results of our audit were not particularly surprising…
We found maintenance request records incomplete and in disarray, some even moldy. We also found a sore lack of mechanisms to properly monitor contractors. This is even as NYCHA allocated more than $413.5 million for contractual services in Fiscal Year 2024, and the agency faces $80 billion (and growing) in capital needs.
And, overwhelmingly, our audit found extremely low resident satisfaction with the way NYCHA vendors are handling repairs and maintenance – from fixing broken doorknobs to painting and tiling. In one survey of NYCHA residents, thirty percent of those who rated the work performed by contractors gave a rating of “poor,” and less than half rated the work performed as “good” or better.
Our city’s more than 520,000 NYCHA residents deserve more. And what better way to hold vendors accountable than to give residents the ability to rate them?
As outlined in the audit’s accompanying policy report [[link removed]] , a participatory and resident-driven approach to vendor oversight is urgently needed. NYCHA must embrace resident engagement and innovative technology tools to manage their properties more effectively.
What is a simple solution to this? Give NYCHA residents an opportunity to rate their vendors with a real-time “vendor scorecard,” if you will.
Creating an easy-to-use, accessible, and multi-lingual Yelp-like contractor evaluation tool would provide residents with the opportunity to rate vendors at the completion of every work order and before the vendor gets paid.
In fact, my team mocked up what that very tool could look like. Check out the "vendor scorecard" mobile app in action and see what it could look like if adopted by NYCHA. [[link removed]]
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A "vendor scorecard" app would allow residents to see individual reviews on contractors and allow NYCHA to systematically aggregate ratings and use those ratings in their procurement decision-making. And, most importantly, it could improve residents’ satisfaction with maintenance and repair requests.
John, when it comes down to it, NYCHA residents are the experts of day-to-day life in their developments – but currently do not have systematized ways to translate their concerns about contractors into real change.
Creating and implementing the recommendations outlined by my office, including a "vendor scorecard" mobile app [[link removed]] , would provide greater accountability, transparency, and effectiveness to property management for thousands of New Yorkers across the city.
Read our audit here [[link removed]] and policy report, “Repairs, Reviews, and Resident Voice,” here [[link removed]] .
Thanks,
Brad
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Office of the New York City Comptroller
Our mailing address is:
Office of New York City Comptroller Brad Lander
1 Centre Street
New York, NY 10007
United States
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