A year later and they’re still waiting.
NYCHA promised to install desperately needed security cameras at high-crime developments beginning last summer, but the agency has managed to get the job done in just a tiny fraction of the targeted locations.
In July 2012, the Daily News revealed the authority was sitting on $42 million in camera money that had been set aside over the previous eight years.
Within days, NYCHA Chairman John Rhea vowed to install cameras at 86 targeted projects.
On Wednesday Rhea acknowledged that as of this week, cameras have actually been installed in just 11 developments — five in Manhattan, four in Brooklyn and one each in the Bronx and Staten Island. None have been installed in Queens.
As for the other 75, NYCHA claims 44 are either under construction or will be later this month. The rest are still awaiting approval by city budget officials, said NYCHA spokeswoman Sheila Stainback.
“We expect to complete all the listed developments in 2013,” she promised.
One development Stainback listed as “under construction” was the Baruch Houses on the lower East Side. So far, no cameras have actually been installed there, though on Thursday tenants will be told when to expect the system to be up and running.
The Baruch Houses saga is typical of the NYCHA camera mess. Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer first allotted $400,000 for cameras there in 2010.
Rhea then decided to freeze all camera spending. By that point, some $42 million had already been set aside by the City Council and state lawmakers for cameras.
“These funds were stalled for three years,” Stringer said. “The damage has been done because it took them so long to get this running.”
Stringer called the delays “absolutely disgraceful and quite frankly dangerous,” noting that during the delay, a Baruch tenant was stabbed to death in an elevator and a 16-year-old was knifed to death next to Baruch over his coat.
Luther Stubblefield, 72, a longtime Baruch resident who’d pushed for cameras for years, was frustrated by the wait — even after money was put aside for his development.
“They were putting money in continuously and it was just frozen,” he said.
On Wednesday he was grateful actual cameras are scheduled to finally show up.
“It’s finally happened,” said Stubblefield. “I’m very excited that this has happened. I put a lot of effort to it.”
