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Yonkers Officials Launch $300 Million Public Housing Renovation Plan

YONKERS, N.Y. - Public housing in Yonkers is getting a facelift as part of a three-year, $300 million plan that will see nearly 2,000 units rehabbed.

Yonkers officials kick off the long-awaited public housing renovation plan at Dr. James O'Rourke Townhouses.

Yonkers officials kick off the long-awaited public housing renovation plan at Dr. James O'Rourke Townhouses.

Photo Credit: Contributed

Following several years of negotiations, the Municipal Housing Authority of the City of Yonkers (MHACY) launched a plan to renovate 1,700 public housing units in the city.

State officials were responsible for ascertaining $125 million for public housing included in this year’s state budget, according to MHACY Executive Director Joseph Shuldner. He said it was “the last piece of a complex linkage of public and private investment needed to restore the city’s crumbling public housing stock.”

The three-year-plan includes financing for new bathrooms, kitchens, roofing, flooring boilers and other upgrades at 20 properties in Yonkers, benefitting as many as 10,000 residents and senior citizens living in public housing. The first project will be the rehabilitation of 200 apartments and the creation of four new units at the James O’Rourke Townhouses in east Yonkers.

“This project will provide safe, decent and affordable housing for the more than 10,000 residents in public housing, create hundreds of construction jobs and boost the economic revitalization of our city that (Yonkers) Mayor (Mike) Spano has been working so hard to bring about,” Shuldner stated.

Spano added that “the long-awaited housing rehabilitation is part of a winning strategy” to attract developers to downtown Yonkers.

“This announcement recognizes Yonkers’ commitment to provide quality homes for our public housing residents,” he said.

Assemblymember Shelley Mayer, who was instrumental in securing the funds, praised the work of her colleagues to help renovate public housing in Yonkers.

“My colleagues and I were able to secure $125 million in the 2017-18 New York State budget for municipal housing outside of New York City, the majority of which will go to the City of Yonkers,” she said when announcing the three-year plan. “I am thrilled the Municipal Housing Authority for the City of Yonkers will receive the funding it needs to begin to renovate the aged municipal housing units under its authority.

“The seniors and families living in these units deserve housing that is proper and up to code.”

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