Talk to the Residents

Center for Architecture director Benjamin Prosky launched into a half-day conference about New York’s housing crisis with just two words: public investment. He addressed a coterie of professionals from almost every rung on the housing ladder, all of them gathered on the seventh floor of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library. The rhetorical question that followed—why a design-focused organization would turn its attention to policy—set the tone for the three keynotes and three panels.

The most radical proposal of the event came from New York Times critic and architectural doyen Michael Kimmelman, who called for establishing a “right to housing.” Karen Blondel, founder of the Public Housing Civic Association and the only resident of public housing speaking on the day, argued that while policy discussions are important, they need to move out from the conference room into the public realm. “It’s about you speaking to the residents,” Blondel told the architects in the audience. “Don’t start with the tenant leader either, and I’m a tenant leader. That’s one person in a development; you really have to do your work and talk to the residents.”