But most of the leading mayoral candidates haven’t been eager to embrace the so-called blueprint — instead offering alternatives such as asking the federal government for more funding and “empowering” NYCHA residents.

In their public comments at numerous housing forums, and in their official campaign proposals, most of the candidates looking to succeed de Blasio have not laid out comprehensive plans for how they would rehabilitate NYCHA, and the majority have either opposed or shied away from explicitly backing current efforts to salvage the system.

The notable exceptions are the two candidates most familiar with public housing: Kathryn Garcia, who ran NYCHA briefly under de Blasio, and Shaun Donovan, who ran the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development under President Obama.

“We have tried going to the federal government since the Carter administration, and we’ve always come up empty. That is not a plan that we are likely to see any success in,” Garcia said at a mayoral forum in March.

“I think it was Benjamin Franklin who said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results,” Donovan recently told POLITICO.

Accepting that a sufficient infusion of federal money is unlikely, NYCHA is looking to transfer management duties for about a third of its apartments to private firms. The program — called Rental Assistance Demonstration, or RAD — leverages Section 8 vouchers paid to property management companies. The authority would transfer the rest of the units into a new public benefit corporation. Both initiatives would allow the agency to leverage private financing to fund repairs.

As the agency’s capital needs deficit tops $40 billion, several candidates have expressed optimism that they’ll be able to achieve what current and previous mayoral administrations could not — a federal bailout for public housing, which has seen its funding decline during both Democratic and Republican administrations over recent decades.

“I do not agree with Kathryn on giving up on the federal government. This is federally formed and created housing,” said former city attorney Maya Wiley at the March forum. “I’m not going to stop fighting for that.”

“When we look at the different models we’re forced to use right now, it’s because of the lack of investment on a federal level,” Comptroller Scott Stringer said at another forum.

At another recent forum candidates were asked to raise their hands if they supported RAD and the NYCHA blueprint. Only Garcia and Donovan did. Eric Adams, Stringer, Wiley, Dianne Morales and Ray McGuire did not.

Rachel Fee, executive director of the New York Housing Conference, said she expects federal appropriations for NYCHA to increase under President Joe Biden and a Congress controlled by Democrats, but likely not at the level needed.

“NYCHA’s capital backlog is growing each day, and I just don’t think they’re ever going to get everything they need from Washington,” Fee said. “The longer we wait, the longer we kick the problem down the road, the bigger that price tag grows, and it makes achieving full repairs more and more out of reach.”

The Citizens Budget Commission has estimated that by 2027, 90 percent of NYCHA units will have declined to the point where they’re at risk of no longer being cost effective to repair.

Fee still expressed optimism that Biden’s infrastructure plan would yield significant capital funding for NYCHA, but it’s unclear what shape it will take or how much public housing will ultimately benefit. The plan includes $40 billion in proposed spending for public housing authorities nationwide.

The new blueprint

NYCHA’s existing plan, known as the “Blueprint for Change,” would transfer 110,000 of the agency’s 175,000 apartments to a new public benefit corporation known as a “preservation trust,” to be controlled by a board of NYCHA and City Hall appointees, and include four resident leaders. This new model, officials say, would allow the agency to tap into federally-funded “tenant protection vouchers,” which would provide a new income stream for repairs and allow the agency to access bond financing.

The plan would need both state and federal approval, and a substantial increase in the current federal allocation of tenant protection vouchers to New York City. But proponents say it’s more politically viable than requesting tens of billions of dollars from Washington in the form of a direct public housing commitment.

The RAD program would apply to about 62,000 NYCHA units. It was established in 2013 under Donovan’s leadership at HUD and allows public housing authorities to bring in private management to conduct repairs, allowing the agency to tap into private financing while retaining ownership of the properties. The strategy has proven politically fractious though not necessarily unpopular with public housing residents. But opponents say the practice is a slippery slope toward privatization, and some critics of the proposed preservation trust say it would pose some of the same risks.

When pressed on the issue at a previous housing forum, Adams said he would support RAD with more resident engagement, including providing legal representation to NYCHA tenants evaluating plans for their buildings. He has also said he would raise $8 billion for the authority through selling air rights, which has been a component of the de Blasio administration’s plans for the agency. A campaign spokesperson didn’t answer a question on why he didn’t raise his hand when the RAD question was posed but confirmed he supports RAD and the trust only if residents are given a “real role in the decision-making process.”

A housing plan from McGuire, meanwhile, called for “empowering tenants” at each development to determine how and where elements of RAD and the blueprint are used, and it said any decisions on both would be made “in partnership with tenants.”

Andrew Yang, a frontrunner in the race, has released plans to increase participation of NYCHA residents and pursue “green reinvestment” across the authority. The latter proposal appears to be funded exclusively through federal dollars, with the plan stating that Yang’s “top priority will be securing $48 billion in needed funding from the federal government over the next 10-years to make repairs and capital improvements.” It does not mention RAD or the preservation trust.

“We have to face facts that there’s going to be one source of funds at that scale, and it is the federal government, but I am very optimistic that the federal government is going to be funding the rebuilding of this country,” Yang said at a recent forum, referring to the agency’s multi-billion dollar capital backlog. “We have to fight like mad to make sure New York City and NYCHA get our fair share. We are sending more than $20 billion a year to D.C. than we’re getting back every year, and it’s payback time.”

Yang’s campaign didn’t respond when asked for his position on RAD and the blueprint.

Wiley and Stringer have largely talked around both issues when asked about them at several mayoral forums, while Dianne Morales has said she opposes all of the city’s current efforts on NYCHA.

Wiley expressed optimism that a proposal from Rep. Nydia Velázquez to fully fund NYCHA’s capital backlog will move forward.

Stringer has called for “new revenue streams” for the housing authority, proposing to reroute surplus funds from the Battery Park City Authority, though this would generate only $45 million per year.

Garcia has offered full-throated support for the city’s current plans, while pointing out the push for more public housing funds from Washington has been a losing strategy for decades.

“NYCHA doesn’t need a new plan; NYCHA needs us to start executing on the plans we have,” Garcia said at a forum late last year.

The good and bad of RAD

Funding for NYCHA has traditionally been what’s known as Section 9 funding, or subsidies that are specifically for public housing authorities around the country; it’s a stream that has been in decline for decades. The last time Washington was under full Democratic control, NYCHA did not get enough funding to fully address its growing capital needs — and there’s no guaranteeing what happens in Congress after 2022.

Donovan has said he would establish a preservation trust and use RAD in some form as mayor. He argues the political realities of federal funding for housing make Section 8 funding preferable.

“For decades, under Congress after Congress, we’ve seen reductions in public housing funding and substantial increases in Section 8 funding,” Donovan said in an interview. “There is a strong political coalition for Section 8 that will make sure that public housing funding increases in the future rather than continues to decline.”

Still, he has criticized de Blasio’s use of RAD, arguing the program does not require NYCHA buildings to be turned over to private owners and requires political coalitions the current mayor was unable to forge.

“Other housing authorities across the country have used RAD while keeping all parts of public housing oversight public, from development to management to financing,” Donovan said at a recent campaign event.

NYCHA currently remains under the watch of a federal monitor, appointed to oversee the execution of a legal settlement between the city and HUD after the mounting scandals in recent years.

The scope of mismanagement and operational failures at the housing authority certainly didn’t begin under de Blasio but revelations of longstanding management failures emerged on his watch. A city Department of Investigation report in November 2017 revealed the agency had failed to properly inspect apartments for dangerous levels of lead paint and then lied about it — potentially putting thousands of children at risk for exposure.

Federal prosecutors released a scathing report in 2018 that laid bare a host of other health and safety violations at NYCHA buildings, including broken elevators, mold, inadequate heat due to faulty boilers, pests and vermin.

NYCHA’s current chair, Gregory Russ, is the fourth person to head the agency under de Blasio.

While the administration’s use of RAD has been controversial, the program has won praise from residents at developments that have gone through conversions.

“I recommend to resident leaders — if you’re going under renovation, I would suggest you take it,” said Sandra Gross, the tenant leader at Baychester Houses, which recently underwent a conversion. “I’ve been fighting with NYCHA for a lot of things, since [private management] came in — the things that I’ve been fighting for, I got.”

“We didn’t feel safe on the ground, we didn’t have enough lighting, the doors were always broken and open, kids didn’t have nowhere to play,” Gross said, describing conditions in the development before the conversion. “The renovation is wonderful. We feel more safe in our development, we got new kitchens, new bathrooms, new doors, the whole development is renovated, we have 24-hour security now ... The tenants are very happy.”