Already embroiled in a scandal after being forced to admit that as many as 820 public housing kids were poisoned by lead, the de Blasio administration on Monday was hit with the bill to fix everything else crumbling in the city's housing projects — nearly $32 billion.
That's almost double the $16.6 billion estimate from the New York City Housing Authority's 2011 assessment of its 326 developments citywide, which are now 60 years old on average.
But in announcing the tab, NYCHA officials also admitted they are a little short of cash — some $24.9 billion short, to be precise.
"The clear implication is that not everything that NYCHA wants to do, ought to do — has a resource base to accomplish all of that," said Stanley Brezenoff, who Mayor de Blasio brought in as interim chair of the embattled Housing Authority in April.
The repair bill ballooned, he said, because older buildings need more maintenance, many of the projects identified in the 2011 assessment were never funded and labor costs ballooned because of the construction boom across the city.
The new assessment, completed in March, found that, among other outlays, NYCHA needs $5.6 billion to fix kitchens and bathrooms; $2.9 billion for apartment floors; $3.1 billion to repair mechanicals like boilers, pipes and radiators; and $1.5 billion to fix elevators.
Budget watchdogs and affordable housing advocates decried the funding gap.
There was a bit of good news: NYCHA officials said they now plan to have their roof replacements done by 2025, five years earlier than scheduled.
De Blasio dodged reporters Monday — opting for a non-confrontational call-in to NY1 before he headed off to a July 4 family vacation.
But the stakes for fixing New York's crumbling public housing could not be higher.
More than 400,000 New Yorkers live in NYCHA's 2,413 buildings and many have endured horrific conditions — like freezing temperatures because of boiler failures, roach and rodent infestations, and widespread mold problems.
The $32 billion shock came as questions mounted over City Hall's failure to disclose that the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene found 820 positive lead tests from children living in NYCHA homes between 2012 and 2016.
The children tested positive for amounts of lead above what the Centers for Disease Control considers safe, but below the level would require that the Health Department inspect the child's home.
"There is no question that someone or some agency is misleading the public," said Comptroller Scott Stringer, who a day earlier ordered his staff to start a top-to-bottom investigation of the crisis.
In his NY1 interview, de Blasio insisted his administration was on top of the problem.