Since landing a grant to redevelop public housing in Syracuse’s Southside, the Syracuse Housing Authority has missed at least 15 of the project’s self-imposed deadlines, often by at least a year.
The housing authority’s inability to hit the deadlines has created panic among city officials about what may happen to critical federal funding on which the project relies.
Mayor Sharon Owens has warned the $50 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Choice Neighborhoods Implementation grant could be clawed back by a federal government intent on making cuts to housing and social safety net programs. The city and SHA co-applied for the grant.
However, SHA Executive Director Bill Simmons said HUD will be understanding, a sentiment echoed by HUD officials. But the housing authority could run out of runway with the funds if the project is not finished by its ultimate deadline in 2033.
“There is some deadlines [for the CNI grant]. … They know things happen, things will come up,” Simmons said. “And sometimes the deadlines will get extended.”
The debate over deadlines could be critical to whether Owens’ appointees are ultimately able to remove Simmons. Removing the long-embattled executive director of SHA has been in Owens’ sights since she began her run for mayor about a year ago.
Owens’ concerns about the federal funding stem from the federal government recalling $30 million in funds from the Reconnecting Communities and Neighborhoods grant in Congress’ reconciliation package. The mayor said she does not want to risk the $50 million Choice Neighborhoods Implementation grant, a major pot of funding for the neighborhood’s redevelopment.
“I’m afraid of losing every federal dollar that we’ve been issued because we live in New York state,” Owens said.
CNI funds are vital to the redevelopment of the area in the Southside formerly known as the 15th Ward.
The grant, which was the first of its kind awarded in New York, would help in phases redevelop the neighborhood that was destroyed more than 50 years ago. At the time, the construction of the Interstate 81 viaduct cut through the 15th Ward, leading to mass displacement.
Shuttered businesses were left behind in the aftermath of the viaduct’s construction, pushing Black families to establish new neighborhoods in its shadow.
The redevelopment plan submitted in the CNI grant application also included a billion-dollar, multi-phased redevelopment of the public housing in the neighborhood, namely McKinney Manor and Pioneer Homes, creating over 1,400 new mixed-income apartment units.
But some components of that redevelopment plan have already lived through episodes of uncertainty after SHA, the city, and the nonprofit organization Blueprint 15 couldn’t secure federal funding on time amid allegations of missed deadlines.
Blueprint 15, which works with public housing residents, was tasked with developing the Children Rising Center to provide child care options and early learning opportunities to the children in the community.
A year later that project remains stuck. The city, Blueprint 15, and the Allyn Family Foundation, a financial backer of the project, all blamed SHA for missing deadlines last winter which led to the loss of critical funding. SHA has consistently denied those claims.
Instead, Simmons blamed Blueprint 15 for changing plans which led to the pause of the project.
He claimed that there are several deadlines for the yearly new market tax credits that were supposed to make up $7 million of the Children Rising Center funding. If the nonprofit was unable to apply for one cycle, Simmons noted, they could have applied during a different application cycle.
“All that stuff was disingenuous,” Simmons told Central Current in August.
Owens has accused SHA of failing to do the mandatory preparatory work to move forward with the implementation of the East Adams project in line with the timeline provided on the Choice grant.
The mayor’s concerns come at a time when federal funding has become precarious. HUD recently slashed new Choice grants with the total available funding being $75 million. Housing authorities may receive a maximum grant amount of up to $26 million which is almost half of the pot of funding SHA was able to access.
“We cannot have delays and [cannot] have starts and stops,” Owens said.
Has SHA missed the deadlines listed on the Choice grant?
SHA has been at least a year late with their current closings.
According to the program schedule included in the CNI grant application reviewed by Central Current, SHA was supposed to carry out the relocation of residents at McKinney Manor between July through September of 2024 for the first phase of the project.
Instead, McKinney Manor residents were asked to vacate their homes in June last year.
Months after residents moved out, demolition finally started in October before a groundbreaking took place on Dec. 4.
The third and fourth phase would have seen the demolition of some of Pioneer Homes carried out in phases.
The program schedule indicated that relocation plans would be scheduled through last fall into the spring of this year.
But Simmons told Central Current SHA will not close on either of those phases this year.
SHA failing to close on the third and fourth phases this year is a driving force behind Owens’ calls for a transition in leadership, she said.
“It’s important for us to transition so that we can continue to move the project,” Owens said. “It has been clear that under the current leadership, that has not happened.”
Owens’ stance is considerably different from that of former Mayor Ben Walsh’s administration, of which Owens was a member. In September, the Walsh administration objected to Central Current’s characterization of whether or not SHA had missed self-imposed deadlines.
SHA and McCormack Baron Salazar, the Missouri-based private developer in charge of demolition, told Walsh that they would close on the first phase of the project, involving the demolition of McKinney Manor, by the end of October or early November. However, that was more than a month late based on the projected timeline Simmons had given Central Current in August.
Following publication of Central Current’s report, the city said that closing dates for projects often shift.
“We will [set goals] from a timing standpoint, there’s goals that we’re going to hit, there’s goals that we’re not and it’s so often out of the control of anyone,” Michael Collins, the Commissioner of Neighborhood & Business Development said at the time.
‘Not just in Syracuse’
Long-term housing projects that last between five to 15 years often miss strict deadlines, said Korey Lundin, a senior staff attorney at National Housing Law Project.
Lundin explained that delays under those timelines can be compounded by a list of factors, including changes in staffing at local housing authorities and HUD, government shutdowns impacting HUD operations, and changes to financing and rising costs of construction. The greatest risk to the flow of dollars drying up lies in the hands of the members of Congress.
“Sometimes those are within the control of the [public housing authority], sometimes they’re not,” Lundin said.
With Congressional funding dwindling over the years, housing authorities often scramble to combine dollars from different sources to carry out their projects.
“The more Congress and the federal government disinvest in public housing, and the less money they put into it, that’s going to impact every resident in public housing across the country,” Lundin said. “Not just in Syracuse, because it’s going to mean there’s going to be delays, there’s going to be changes to the plan.”
A HUD spokesperson told Central Current that Choice dollars for a housing authority would only be at risk if they are not expended by the end of the grant period. For SHA, the grant period ends on Sept. 30, 2033.
When Central Current reached out to the mayor’s office with the HUD response, the mayor reiterated her commitment to pushing forward the project with the focus on residents.
“The CNI deadline extends to 2033, our focus is on delivering meaningful progress in 2026,” Owens said in a statement to Central Current.
As the project chugs along, Lundin told Central Current that Trump’s divestment in public housing could actually serve as a rare boon for the project, especially since SHA is seeking a Rental Assistance Demonstration conversion for all 75 units that they demolished at McKinney Manor.
Authorized by Congress in 2012, the RAD program allows housing authorities to convert their public housing stock to project-based Section 8 housing.
RAD programs also provide tenant protections like prohibiting re-screening tenants after conversion, as well as ensuring the right-to-return to a unit following temporary relocation during construction.
The current federal administration is being less stringent in their rollout of dollars when it comes to a reduction or elimination of public housing, Lundin said.
Compared to plans that may involve bringing up public housing units to code or improving conditions for residents, HUD will most likely favor public housing authorities like Syracuse who are planning to build mixed-income properties, he said.
“That project is probably going to face more scrutiny than a project that involves private market investors, mixed income developments because Trump’s HUD is not doing anything to encourage [public housing authorities] to either build or keep their public housing right,” Lundin said.
Read more of Central Current’s coverage
SHA has missed deadlines on the Choice grant by at least a year. Does it matter?
SHA failing to close on a third or fourth phase this year emphasizes the importance of a need for transition at leadership levels, Mayor Sharon Owens said.
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