We have to call bullshit on this appointment. It comes after many resignations and questions over leadership and ability to lead. How can this guy, Greg Russ, that services 11K can deal with the scale and the different culture of 400K? Does he scale? To his credit, maybe being a New Yorker is the common failing of our past chairmen?
He’s in Charge of Housing for 11,000 Minnesotans. Can He Handle 400,000 New Yorkers?
Gregory Russ will head NYCHA, whose recent leaders have resigned in the wake of scandals over safety and management.
One chairman resigned in 2008 a few months after a 5-year-old boy fell 10 stories to his death trying to escape a stalled elevator in a Brooklyn housing project.
Another chairman resigned in 2013 following reports of mismanagement and increased neglect in New York City’s public housing complexes. In 2017, a chairwoman stepped down amid a lead paint scandal.
Leading the New York City Housing Authority, the nation’s largest public housing system, can be a grueling, reputation-tarnishing position. The assignment couples intense public scrutiny with the pressure of managing an underfunded and scandal-prone bureaucracy, known as Nycha, which provides housing to more than 400,000 low-income residents.
So why would Gregory Russ want the job?
“This issue is a bellwether issue,” said Mr. Russ, a career public housing official who currently presides over Minneapolis’s public housing system of 11,000 residents. “Nycha’s issues actually are not just important for New York City, but they’re important nationally.”
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