In June 2021 I met a member-leader of the Rockaway Hub of Community Voices Heard who wanted to conduct a survey of residents at Ocean Bay Houses who had undergone RAD conversion and prepare a report for HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge. Her concern was that her and her neighbors also living in the other public housing developments in the Rockaways were on the list for conversion, and yet the city, state and federal governments didn’t know enough about how RAD was effecting residents. 

Since meeting, her and I have been working together to create a survey and research design and protocol, and digitize the survey and train other members of the Rockaway Hub on carrying out the research. We also worked together on two funding and support letters – one to Assembly Member Khaleel Anderson, and another to the leadership and board of Community Voices Heard. My main contribution was to deploy the existing research on RAD to justify why additional and NYC-specific research was critical, and firm up the research design and budget request. We also met with members of the JustFix.nyc team to see how their Letter of Complaint tool might supplement the survey to provide an actionable option for residents who want to escalate their demand for repairs.

We are currently awaiting a response from CVH. Updates forthcoming!

Posted on: August 20, 2021