At NYCHA, failure most foul.

ERROL LOUIS, NY DAILY NEWS

Let history record: The collapse of the crown jewel of New York City’s progressive infrastructure proceeded without pause on the watch of its most ostentatiously progressive mayor. And as the conditions at the New York City Housing Authority deteriorated, Mayor de Blasio and the boss he tapped to run the bureaucracy kicked up a massive dust cloud of lies.

Let the record show that the newest and best hope for assistance to the long-suffering tenants of the New York City Housing Authority comes courtesy of the much-detested Trump administration. Mayor de Blasio and other New York progressives have been dealt a bracing blow from Washington. “Today marks the beginning of the end of this nightmare for NYCHA residents,” said U.S. Attorney Geoff Berman, whose federal complaint lists deception, coverups and ineptitude that ran amok at the housing authority.Money was short at the authority, Berman took pains to explain at his press conference, but money alone doesn’t explain or excuse the disaster. “The culture at NYCHA is to blame,” he said. “The management at NYCHA is to blame.”NYCHA staffers would replace the doors and walls with plywood and paint over the false fronts to conceal the deterioration from visiting inspectors from HUD.“Development staff would shut off a building’s water supply just before the [federal] inspector arrived to inspect common areas in order to temporarily stop ongoing leaks that would otherwise be visible,” according to the federal complaint. “Once the inspector left the building, the water supply would be restored. Deputy directors at NYCHA knew of this practice.”There were tens of thousands of complaints about mold growing in apartments.  1,900 instances of elevators getting stuck with a person inside — and it took two hours, on average, to fix broken elevators.The miseries suffered among the more than 400,000 NYCHA residents play out as a real-time tragedy, measured in children poisoned by lead paint, seniors trapped by broken elevators, frigid temperatures in the deep of winter, epidemic vermin-spurred asthma attacks. Gaping holes in walls and doors that left roaches and rodents rampant, with routine extermination all but ended.These failures did not start with de Blasio, but the "progressive" mayor’s four years of denial, his sudden professions of shock at decay, render any responsibility laid at his feet by predecessors squarely his burden.
With the new consent decree, the de Blasio administration apparently has agreed to accept federal oversight — and spend billions of city dollars on repairs — in exchange for the Justice Department not pursuing criminal prosecutions. This is first and foremost a case of right and wrong, and of cash-strapped bureaucrats choosing to treat rent- and taxpaying New Yorkers with deep, callous contempt. The law has been violated here, and it might be best to treat those responsible like the criminals they are. For shame, Mayor de Blasio. For shame.