Judge Rejects Overhaul of New York City's Troubled Public Housing

A federal judge on Wednesday rejected the city's agreement to bring in an independent monitor to oversee public housing, saying the deal doesn't have enough teeth to trigger actual reform for NYCHA's long-suffering tenants. Manhattan Federal Judge William Pauley declined to sign off on a consent decree reached in June between Mayor de Blasio, the authority and federal prosecutors whose in-depth investigation revealed years of lies about NYCHA's failures to provide habitable apartments to its 400,000 residents. "The court does not reject the proposed consent decree lightly," Pauley wrote in his 52-page decision. "But as it stands, the proposed decree suffers from fatal procedural flaws, including its formless injunctive relief and enforcement mechanisms." In June, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman filed a stunning complaint detailing how NYCHA managers for years covered up failures to address a long list of health and safety issues, including lead paint, mold infestation, heat outages, and faltering elevators.