When he took over as secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in 2009, Shaun Donovan was determined to change the policies that had let our public housing stock—and the political will to support it—so badly atrophy. Its neglect was evident even if the need for it was less appreciated. By then a $26 billion backlog of needed capital repairs to the public housing stock had accumulated, effecting the demolition of over 10,000 units a year from the inventory over the previous decade. Yet as stock was lost, hundreds of thousands of the elderly, disabled, and eligible families continued to seek refuge in public housing, and still do today. Most wait on lists for years for apartments to open up, sometimes in long lines when they actually do. More than 270,000 families are on the waiting list of the New York City Housing Authority alone.
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