Tag Archives: nycha

Home, Murphy News

Resident Leadership Academy Announced in Metro

This week, the Resident Leadership Academy, a program designed to “provide training and build leadership skills for residents interested in taking a more active role in civic life within their development and/or community” was featured in metro. The program, offered as a partnership amongst the Fund for Public Housing, New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), and the Murphy Institute, will offer course credit to NYCHA residents through the Murphy Institute, developing skills, knowledge and leadership potential among NYCHA residents.

From metro:

With 326 developments and more than 400,000 residents across the city, the New York City Housing Authority serves a large number of New Yorkers, but often, public housing is overshadowed by the city’s other for-the-public facilities like transit, parks, education and art.

That’s why, as part of NextGeneration NYCHA, the agency is launching its Resident Leadership Academy this month to empower its future from within. Continue reading Resident Leadership Academy Announced in Metro →

Home, Student Work, Urban Studies

NYCHA, Representation & Service Provision: A Student’s Perspective

Featured photo via Urban Upbound

By Paula Bonfatti

For the past three months, I have interned in the research department of Urban Upbound, a nonprofit organization that provides services to public housing residents in Queens, New York. Urban Upbound supplies this community with tools and resources needed to achieve economic mobility and self-sufficiency; their vision is to help residents break cycles of poverty. They primarily serve the Queensbridge Housing Development, which — with its 3,142 apartments — is known as America’s largest operating public housing project.

Master of Arts in Urban Studies Candidate Paula Bonfatti Lima
Master of Arts in Urban Studies Candidate Paula Bonfatti Lima

In New York City, there are over 607,000 people living in public housing developments under the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA). 110,000 (18.1%) of these residents are children under 18 years old. Historically, public housing developments have been criticized by the mainstream as isolated, low-income urban population. Some critics contend that this housing creates vertical structural poverty in socioeconomically depressed neighborhoods. In addition, critics charge that these concentrated pockets of poverty are subject to high crime rates, unemployment and low turnover. However, NYCHA has 328 public housing units throughout the City’s five boroughs and serves 175,747 families, and has committed itself to playing an important role in fighting urban poverty and leveraging economically vulnerable communities. Continue reading NYCHA, Representation & Service Provision: A Student’s Perspective →