Policy from the Ground Up: Jobs and Justice in NYC Public Housing

Policy works best when shaped by the people it directly impacts. For too long, public housing residents in New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) developments have been excluded from discussions that affect their communities while their developments have faced chronic underfunding and disinvestment at every level of government over the last few decades

Our approach to public housing policy centers on listening to residents’ voices. A few months ago, the Community Service Society and Red Hook Initiative organized a panel and workshop involving public housing residents, elected officials, and advocates. In our discussions, we explored the ways that unemployment, workforce development, and criminal justice policies and programs are impacting residents of public housing in Red Hook and across the city.

The event, "Policy From the Ground Up: Jobs and Justice in NYC Public Housing," grew out of a recent CSS policy brief, “NYCHA’s Working, Except When It Comes to Young Men of Color.” This brief examined unemployment among NYCHA residents before, during, and after the height of the pandemic. It also looked at racial and gender disparities in employment opportunities.. The report found joblessness and over-policing to be endemic amongst young men of color in public housing and put forth recommendations to address the crisis. 

During the event, we heard from the people behind the numbers. What do the people who have worked within the system that administers these programs and those who have been on the receiving end of them really think? Here’s what we learned.

Shaping Policy Through Community Dialogue

71% of residents at the event supported the expanding the Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP) to be year-round and universal. Multiple residents commented on the importance of expanding SYEP, but also mentioned specific critiques of the program.

1. The program should be connected to internships and other programs that advance young folks’ career opportunities. 
2. SYEP jobs “are not created equal.” There is a limited amount of good job opportunities in the program. How do we bring in more positive opportunities? 
3. The organizations that connect participants with these opportunities need much more financial support to successfully carry out this recommendation. 
4. SYEP needs a mentorship component. 
5. The application period for the SYEP program is too short. Youth need more time to apply. 

A comment from one resident effectively reflected the perspective of younger, more recent SYEP participants:

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Another younger resident shared a valuable and distressing insight:

Residents were suspicious of a city-chartered study on the out-of-school, out-of-work youth population. They worried that although it would answer questions, it might not lead to any action or change for the communities “who need it most.”

Half of residents at the event opposed the state and city simply investing $50 million in Jobs-Plus. The main concern was that while the program has shown success, money alone wouldn’t solve the underlying issues.  

Residents alluded to a mismatch between job markets and what’s available in many existing workforce program. One resident said that “investment needs to be in areas of interest.” Another resident questioned why it seemed like the only opportunities were for “service industries or hard labor” especially in a city with so many burgeoning sectors all around us. 

The second-biggest concern raised was the duplication of services, mentioning Jobs-Corps, Jobs-Plus, WF1, Career Pathway, and CBOs with their own specific programs. Residents expressed a need for a more centralized strategy around workforce development, not a spattering of different, confusing programs. 

And crucially, residents stressed that jobs mean nothing if residents mental and physical health were not centered. That notion is reflected best by this comment:

84% of residents at the event agreed that the Section 3 program should be expanded and reformed to involve NYCHA residents in the work that will be done to address the overdue repairs and upgrades needed in public housing developments.

Section 3 requires that contracts and employment opportunities generated by HUD-funded projects prioritize low-income individuals “to the greatest extent feasible,” particularly those residing in the public housing development where the work is being done and resident-owned businesses. To comply, at least 25 percent of the total number of labor hours worked on a site during a fiscal year must be either public housing or local low-income residents. 5 percent must be public housing residents or employees of a resident-owned business. 

Residents pointed out that NYCHA has not met this requirement for years, especially as more work has been done. A major theme in residents’ responses was the need for accountability. The federal, state, and local government provide no “enforcement mechanism,” one resident wrote. While many attendees were excited about the prospect of expanding the program, residents generally recognized a need to “put one foot before the other.”

One resident’s sticky note summed the sentiment up succinctly:

Approximately half of residents at the event wanted Mayor Adams to issue an executive order to city agencies to disregard convictions older than 7 years for employment background checks. This would make sure that hiring at city agencies followed laws already on the books. The remainder wanted specifics about which convictions would be disregarded.  

Meanwhile, 80% of residents at the event wanted NYCHA to amend its annual plan and occupancy rules to expand and formalize the prison reentry program. 

We asked residents—especially the youth—for their thoughts at various stages, including giving them a chance to tell us what are the important things that are being overlooked and what they want policymakers to be aware of. Here are their responses:

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Taking Action: A Platform for NYCHA From the Ground Up

The point of this event was not just to have another panel or listening session. Instead, we aimed to turn the wisdom and expertise of the people who are directly involved and impacted into an actionable policy agenda. The resulting platform is as follows:

1. Reform and expand SYEP

The Summer Youth Employment Program is currently reaching only a portion of those that need it, and people that have worked in the program consistently say that access to the beginnings of a career path—not just jobs—are rare. SYEP must be expanded to become a year-round program and require that all positions include a mentorship component.

2. Create an actual Workforce System

Having so many different programs with different processes and eligibility was the most consistent issue facing those looking for work. Residents, employers, and service providers are forced to navigate an extensive network. A cursory look at the government’s offerings include:

• the Mayor's Office of Youth Employment and its:
  • Career Ready NYC
  • Disconnected Youth Task Force
  • several programs connected with colleges and universities
  • Federal Job Corps, Jobs-Plus
  • Opportunities connected through NYCHA’s Office of Resident Economic Empowerment and Sustainability (REES) and Human Resources Department, which connect folks to the mentioned programs and initiatives, as well as community partners which provide a host of services via “REES Zones” 
    • Some NYCHA developments are served by onsite community development corporations that provide programing but also help residents find the opportunities listed here. 
• the Mayor’s Office of Talent and Workforce Development and its:
  • Action Plan for Young Adult Career Success
  • NYC Workforce Development Board
    • multiple industry specific initiatives and partnerships
    • an interagency task force
    • an Office of Community Hiring
  • NYC Department of Youth and Community Development
    • Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP) and its:
      • Train and Learn
      • Advance and Earn
    • Cornerstone and Beacon Programs
    • Office of Neighborhood Safety Programs
  • NYC Office of Small Business Services and its:
    • Career Discovery NYC
    • Workforce1 Career Centers

This is a non-exhaustive list, and it’s already a lot! Many of these programs use separate metrics,goals,documents, reports and data to explore what is ultimately the same issue. There are numerous job boards, applications, and portals to secure sometimes overlapping services. NYC needs to implement a cohesive system to replace this confusingweb of programs and opportunities.

What should that look like?

• Centralized and user-friendly access point for residents, employers, and employees— including a centralized jobs board and newsletter where employers and employees can immediately go to post and view available opportunities and city agency can list vacancies.
• Implementing a strategic plan including but not limited to:
  • Unified metrics proposed by a central agency or body (like the Workforce Development Board), in partnership with relevant agencies, and continual updating and inclusion in the Mayor’s Management Report (MMR).
  • A publicly listed catalogue of all existing workforce development programs.
  • Review of existing programs and initiatives and consolidating, shifting funds, and expanding where necessary to eliminate overlap and push resources into sectors that match with the current need and approaches that have shown success. The city must be willing to be disruptive—end funding for programs that are not producing results no matter the age of the organization or strength of the relationships, fund those that show results, and expand those programs hastily. There is workforce development happening in neighborhoods across the city, and many are effective and nimble solutions. This centralized body should also be empowered to act quickly to advance the goals of economic development, able to help facilitate siting of programing as local groups look to find spaces and quickly lift administrative or regulatory barriers that are hindering full employment. This type of effectiveness would require officials in the city from planning, buildings, finance, DCAS, NYCHA and other offices to meet semi-frequently and collaborate without the silos that tend to characterize engagement across city agencies.
• Take advantage of existing community focal points. NYCHA communities, schools, and existing CDC buildings serve as tremendous spaces to seed place-based interventions. This should mean:
  • including segmenting metrics based on groupings such as NYCHA resident or school district
  • specific partnerships between unions, industry groups, and companies themselves with local community groups
• Survey young people and industry leaders to probe whether there is a supply-demand mismatch, and explore and expand entrepreneurial offerings made possible by the internet and existing and coming technological industries including web3 applications, VR/AR, AI, robotics and automation, quantum computing, green tech, 3d printing an advanced manufacturing, UX/UI and others.

Since our event was held, the Adams Administration has made some headway toward the goal of creating a workforce system. The administration's Jobs NYC initiative includes three key components:

1. A new talent portal at jobs.nyc.gov (which aligns with the resident-driven policy idea to create a centralized job portal).
2. Direction of the administration's "hiring halls" into communities that have the highest unemployment.
3. Continuing to reform the city's minimum qualifications requirements to make entry-level jobs more accessible.

Furthermore, the administration has created a Workforce Development Council, a new body formed to lead strategy on the city’s workforce development goals. Its creation fits well within our recommendation for a strategic organization to lead the city’s efforts, but it is unclear how this organization differs from the already existing Mayor's Office of Talent and Workforce Development (NYC Talent) and the New York City Workforce Development Board, nor why the existing apparatus needs a new layer of bureaucracy. This was one of the main complaints from residents, but it may be positive if this new council will replace existing redundancies.

These efforts are welcome as long as they align with residents' urge to consolidate the endless list of programs and initiatives. The portal appears to be quite user-friendly, but we will continue to speak to residents to understand their experiences as Jobs NYC advances. Currently, the only named member of the workforce development council is Chair Rob Speyer.  We hope that these recommendations inform the council's efforts and that folks on the ground are represented on the council.

3. Employ behavioral health interventions in NYCHA communities

No single issue was more apparent to residents and practitioners than the trauma afflicting youth. It is difficult for job training to occur when young people are faced with mental health hurdles and lack treatment to alleviate them.

NYC needs to treat this as a state of crisis. The immediate deployment of peer support specialists, with lived experiences similar to the impacted demographic and behavioral health treatments including psychotherapy, medication management, substance abuse treatment, group therapy, crisis intervention and other approaches as needed. This will require untraditional approaches to behavioral health, including:

• Mobile mental health teams where therapists and social workers are onsite in community spaces, for example:
  • Cure Violence in Chicago
  • The Trauma Response Team in Baltimore
  • Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles
  • Brownsville In Violence Out and The Brotherhood/Sister Sol are both NYC models, like others in NYC that already are working to provide these services but do not have the capacity or resources to make the impact that they are truly reaching for.
• Free telepsychiatry and teletherapy.
• Partnering with NGOs that specialize in the provision of support in disaster, war, and other highly stressful environments.

4. State-supported public housing construction apprenticeship programs to strengthen Section 3 compliance

In April 2022, Governor Kathy Hochul announced a new investment of $350 million for workforce development and the creation of the Office of Strategic Workforce Development (OSWD) within Empire State Development (ESD), a new division charged with better-aligning workforce development efforts with the needs and priorities of today's employers.

In response to the announcement, Reinvent Albany did a great report on how "workforce development" is an amorphous term in New York without much direction. There is ample space for using NYCHA campuses as a touchpoint for a specific program— and certainly an argument that some of the $350 million should be geared towards public housing residents.

Our research and the expertise of residents revealed that Section 3 of the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1968 (Section 3)—being a provision aimed at promoting economic opportunities for low-income residents in communities where HUD-funded projects are being carried out—is failing. 

NYCHA is charged with “to the greatest extent feasible” providing public housing residents with job training and employment opportunities, and public housing resident-owned businesses or those that have hired public housing residents are prioritized in contracting opportunities in connection with projects and activities in their neighborhoods. 

NYCHA hired 6,160 residents through Section 3 from 2016 to 2020. While this made-up 34 percent of all hires (the official target is 30 percent) NYCHA only met this target in the two earliest years of the period. As construction work has ramped up resident hires have fallen lower and lower, dropping to 22 percent in 2020. NYCHA hired only a shocking 8 percent through Section 3 for capital construction jobs in 2020, displaying a clear failure in terms of program goals.

The state should:

• Direct $50 million of the workforce dollars towards improving Section 3 compliance.
• Set the target towards 40% of all hires.
• Facilitate an apprenticeship program for the unions to train a class of residents to take part in the upcoming construction contracts.
• Use the Bronx, which currently has 20 PACT projects in some stage of the planning process, as a pilot.
• Design the program in partnership with unions, community groups, and residents to produce the most optimal delivery of this funding to best reach those that would best benefit from an apprenticeship.

Issues Covered

Affordable Housing