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NEW YORK CITY HOUSING AUTHORITY 90 CHURCH STREET » NEW YORK, NY 10007 HOUSING TEL: (212) 306-3000 = http faye govinycha AUTHORITY KATHRYN GARCIA INTERIM CHAIR & CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER May 31, 2019 VIA EMAIL Bart M. Schwartz NYCHA Federal Monitor 415 Madison Avenue, 11"" Floor New York, New York 10017 Dear Mr. Schwartz: Tam confounded by the tone, timing, and content of your May 30, 2019 letter. Our office has and will continue to fully cooperate with Guidepost’s large team and I have tried to collaborate with you in order to help improve NYCHA at weekly meetings with the General Manager and other senior officials. We have made NYCHA staff as well as our records, data, reports, and other information — available to you and your team. Your decision to eschew the protocols available to you under our agreement, in favor of an unexpected and unwarranted public expression of frustration, is unfortunate and misguided. At the outset, NYCHA fully acknowledges that it needs to make significant improvements, with respect to its compliance with the lead-based paint rules. Our agreement with HUD sets forth an aggressive roadmap to make sure that NYCHA provides its residents with safe, quality housing. We are working hard to implement the systems and protocols that will allow us to reach that goal, quickly and effectively, My testimony at the May 7 Budget Hearing was intended to provide a brief status update of our progress to date, and my testimony was truthful and forthright. We expect to continue to provide you, the Council, and other stakeholders with future updates on our continued efforts to improve our compliance and increase our transparency on these challenging issues. 1 will address each of your assertions in turn. First, with respect to your belief that NYCHA can do more to identify children under the age of 6 living in units with actual or presumed lead paint, NYCHA reviewed annual re- certifications from our residents that identify the composition of their households. We recognize, however, that more can always be done to identify children that have not been disclosed on these official records by our residents. For instance, in January 2019, NYCHA issued surveys to all residents to obtain additional information about children under 6 and NYCHA plans to incorporate the results going forward. When we met about this issue on May 22”, you mentioned that we should ask our building superintendents if they are aware of any undisclosed children residing in the units, We are reviewing the challenges that this may pose to our residents and employees and we had expected to continue a detailed dialogue on this issue at our regular meetings. Given the unfortunate tone of your letter, | instead will assign a team to review and respond to your written suggestions by June 6, Second, | fundamentally disagree with your grossly premature assertion that, based on just ‘over a month of data, you believe that NYCHA will be unable to complete its critical XRF initiative by the end of 2020. AAs with any large initiative, the XRF initiative will ramp up ‘over time, and we fully expect to soon be completing the XRF work at a pace that will enable us to meet the end of 2020 timeline as we add staff and increase the efficiency of the process. Moreover, publicly backtracking at the start of an $88 million project docs nothing more than needlessly reduce NYCHA’s abil contractors to actually meet the goals we intend to keep. To be productive, we suggest that we establish a regular meeting with your team and the technical staff overseeing the project to regularly review the progress and schedule. Third, | disagree with your characterization of my testimony regarding the deliverables required by Exhibit A, Paragraph 6, which NYCHA submitted to the United States Attorney. I simply provided the Council with a status update of an important deliverable that NYCHA submitted under the Agreement. The publicly-available agreement clearly establishes a process for HUD and SDNY to review and potentially reject the documents submitted by NYCHA (See Agreement, Exhibit A, 6). NYCHA is still awaiting HUD's and SDNY’s response to the technical submission, and when their response is received. NYCHA will follow the process outlined in the agreement. Fourth, your statement that “my office had to learn through its own efforts” of lead safe work rule violations by vendors is specious. As you recognize, the monitoring that identified these deficiencies is through an ongoing monitoring program designed and administered by NYCHA"s Compliance Department in partnership with the New York City Department of Sanitation (DSNY). We have been sharing information with you about this program for months, including information about vendor non-compliance. For instance, in an email dated April 8, 2019 to four Guidepost team members, we attached detailed monitoring reports indicating areas where DSNY had identified lead safe work practice deficiencies with respect to both NYCHA staff and vendors. Your letter’s failure to acknowledge your staff's receipt of these reports from NYCHA staff is troubling, Given that NYCHA has been transparent about this monitoring program - and will continue to give you access to staff, documents, and data regarding this significant effort to enhance NYCHA’s compliance culture ~ we are very perplexed by the implication that we have not disclosed this to you. Fifth, you state that “perhaps the most frustrating recent development” of our May 22! meeting, was that “you and your staff were unable to identify for me the person at NYCHA in charge of and accountable for getting this most urgent work done promptly and correctly.” NYCHA completely disagrees with your statement. At this meeting, our General Manager Vito Mustaciuolo informed you personally that he was accountable for ‘overseeing this work—commensurate with the importance NYCHA places upon its execution. General Manager Mustaciuolo oversees the Operations and Healthy Homes Departments, which work in coordination to manage the inspection, testing, remediation, and abatement related to lead paint We will schedule a meeting with SDNY, HUD, and the Monitor to our ongoing efforts with respect to lead-based paint uss your letter and Further, today, NYCHA is presenting the Monitor. HUD, and SDNY with a corrective action plan that addresses shortfalls we have identified that prevent the Authority from certifying full compliance pursuant to paragraph 30 of Exhibit A We remain hopeful that moving forward ~ starting with the Corrective Action Plan — we can establish a collaborative r cused on improving the quality of life for NYCHA residents. Sincerely, Interim Chair & Chief Executive Officer Ce: VIA EMAIL Dan Brownell, Senior Managing Director, Guidepost Solutions LLC Vicki Been, Deputy Mayor Zachary W. Carter, Corporation Counsel, City of New York Vito Mustaciuolo, General Manager, NYCHA, Arden Sokolow, Chief of Stal, Office of the Chair, NYCHA, R. Hunter Kurz, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, HUD Lynne M. Patton, Regional Administrator, Region Il, HUD. icofirey S, Berman, United States Attorney, SDNY. Robert Valen, Assistant United States Attorney, SDNY Corey Johnson, Speaker, New York City Council Alicka Ampry-Samuel, Council Member, New York City Council

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