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NYCHA residents can sound off in series of meetings with city officials
By
Ryan Kost
Published May 8, 2026
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By
Ryan Kost
Published May 8, 2026
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Residents of New York City's public housing complexes will get a chance to air complaints about mold, pests and broken elevators directly to top housing and city officials at a series of neighborhood forums starting later this month.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani's office announced the series Friday, describing it as a first-of-its-kind engagement effort. The first “NYCHA in Your Neighborhood” forum is scheduled for May 20 in the Bronx, with Brooklyn to follow on June 3 and Manhattan on June 17.
Each event will draw residents from an area's NYCHA developments for small-group discussions with policymakers, according to the mayor’s office.
City agencies, including the health department and Department for the Aging, will be on hand with resources as well.
“These forums will give residents a new opportunity to weigh in on the issues that matter most to them and access services from a range of city agencies,” Mamdani said in a statement.
NYCHA has been under federal monitorship since 2019 over hazardous conditions and faces tens of billions of dollars in unmet capital needs.
The announcement comes a month after the "rental ripoff" hearing series, which opened a forum for residents to tell city leaders about their struggles with housing in New York.
That series drew criticism from public housing residents who said they felt excluded, though City Hall officials said no one was banned from the hearings.
At the first hearing in Downtown Brooklyn in late February, the Rev. Kevin McCall of Kingdom Justice Church held up a sign reading “the mayor don't CARE about NYCHA,” and the performance artist known as Crackhead Barney commandeered the podium to demand public housing residents be heard.
NYCHA representatives were on hand with their own table during the first hearing.
A spokesperson for Mamdani's office said the new neighborhood forums were not a response to that backlash and had been planned as a separate, ongoing piece of the administration's NYCHA engagement strategy.
In the statement announcing the series, NYCHA CEO Lisa Bova-Hiatt called the events “a natural progression in how NYCHA engages with residents.”
Leila Bozorg, Mamdani’s deputy mayor for housing and planning, noted in the statement that the agency serves more than 500,000 New Yorkers.
“Their voices and experiences are critical as we collectively shape and implement a vision for a more affordable city,” she said.
NYCHA residents can register on the city website to attend the meetngs.
Tagged
Politics
Zohran Mamdani
economy
housing
new york city
Ryan Kost
Ryan Kost is a reporter on the day-of news desk, where he covers breaking news and writes enterprise stories about jails, courts, prosecutors and government accountability. His work focuses on the public institutions that shape life in New York. Before joining the newsroom, he lead a multi-part investigation with Columbia Journalism Investigations and New York Focus into how New York prosecutors handle wrongful conviction claims. He's also been a staff writer at The San Francisco Chronicle, The Associated Press and The Oregonian. Got a tip? Signal: ryankost.20
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