New York, NY – The Center for NYC Neighborhoods congratulates its board members Vicki Been and Shola Olatoye, both of whom joined the de Blasio administration’s housing team today. Shola Olatoye will become the Chair of the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) and Vicki Been will serve as Commissioner at the Department of Housing Preservation and Development.
“NYCHA’s residents, and our entire city, will benefit from Shola’s incredible dedication to solving the affordable housing crisis in New York. She is committed to protecting the city’s most vulnerable citizens, particularly the homeless and victims of domestic violence, and she has a clear plan to re-invest in NYCHA—to benefit its residents and the entire city. Mayor de Blasio is right when he says that we face an affordability crisis, but today’s announcement puts us on a clear track to making our city affordable for all New Yorkers,” said Herb Sturz, Chair of the Board of the Center for NYC Neighborhoods and Senior Advisor at Open Society Foundations.
“In her years at NYU’s Furman Center, Vicki has shown unflagging attention to housing of all kinds, across every neighborhood in the city. Thanks to her dedication, affordable housing practitioners have had access to the information needed to make smart decisions about the best interventions to keep housing affordable. And that’s exactly the kind of expertise HPD needs to achieve the appropriately ambitious housing goals of the new administration. I could not imagine a more expert pick to lead HPD into a new chapter. Mayor de Blasio declared today that he’s putting together a housing dream team and we could not agree more,” said Christie Peale, Executive Director of the Center for NYC Neighborhoods.