New York City is home to the largest public housing authority in the United States with over 600,000 New Yorkers residing in NYCHA’s 325 public housing developments. Due to decades of disinvestment and mismanagement from all levels of government, there is an estimated capital needs deficit of $32 billion to make repairs to NYCHA’s crumbling infrastructure. Anyone who follows local news has likely seen the scandalous reports about the conditions this crisis in funding has created for residents, many of which break the habitability standards required of private landlords. As the City turns to the private sector to address the housing authority’s capital needs deficit through federal programs like RAD (Rental Assistance Demonstration), a groundswell of housing justice organizers and residents are waging a powerful fight to ensure that private equity and real estate interests get out of New York City public housing.
In many ways, public housing has become a national symbol of racialized urban decay. Residents are often scapegoated for the decline of the public housing program, which has already been set up to fail through decades of disinvestment. This narrative of failure has often been exploited by policymakers and real estate interests to justify the downsizing and dismantling of public housing programs in cities throughout the United States. Staying Power explores how this dominant narrative can be challenged through visual and archival strategies. The project takes cues from the participatory action research and critical pedagogy traditions, affirming the rightful place of residents as experts and agents of community memory. The goal of the platform is to provide a publicly accessible curriculum about public housing history and highlight it as a stabilizing force in urban communities worth preserving and fighting for.
This first volume of Staying Power coalesces interviews, photographs, research, and artistic collaborations with public housing residents produced between 2019-2021. Content lives online and through limited edition risograph posters and booklets (also available to download as a free PDF here).
