Rep. Ritchie Torres, Manhattan DA candidate Tali Farhadian Weinstein call for NYCHA reforms

Congressman Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) and Manhattan DA candidate Tali Farhadian Weinstein on Monday called for more funding towards public housing — as a way to curb the disturbing and ongoing spate of violence across all New York City Housing Authority buildings.

“It’s been a hard, hard year for so many reasons, including gun violence. [Now] we’re now on track to have the bloodiest year since 2012,” Farhadian Weinstein said Monday afternoon in front of the St. Nicholas Houses in Harlem.

“There have been 300 shootings in New York City this year — and like with everything, it’s always harder here...in NYCHA. Across NYCHA developments, murders jumped 50%,” she added. “All of us are entitled to live in safety.”

Torres, who grew up in city public housing, said NYCHA needs at least $40 billion to fix a backlog of repairs, and called on the Biden Administration to take on some of those costs.

“For far too long, NYCHA has been the forgotten city,” Torres said of the authority’s roughly half a million residents. “It has been so savagely starved of funding at every level.”

“Public safety in public housing is also [about] infrastructure,” added Torres, noting the importance of making sure buildings are well-lit with working lights to help stave off crime. “You have a right to feel secure in your own home.”

Farhadian Weinstein also recommitted to creating an environmental crime unit because, she said, “it’s just insane that kids are getting lead poisoning in our city, [and] that people can’t breathe properly.”

“All of us are entitle to live in a healthy and safe environment [and] we have just let our public housing crumble and deteriorate in a way that is depriving people of that right.”