Public Housing Tenant Helps Others Like Him

By Anika Anand

For the first time in New York City’s history, low-income housing residents have a voice.

Victor Gonzalez, who was appointed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg to the New York City Housing Authority board in July, is the first public housing resident to sit on the board. The 62-year-old has lived in the Upper West Side’s Rabbi Stephen Wise Towers since 1972. As an executive member of the board, his official job description includes financing the development and preservation of affordable housing for New Yorkers. But in reality, it means addressing any sort of problem, from how long it takes to make repairs to the issue of job creation, he said.

“Getting a hole fixed in an apartment is just as important as getting a resident to move into the right size apartment, which is just as important as making sure the intercom works, which is just as important as fixing the entrance so the building is secure,” he said. “Everything is important to me. No one thing is less than the others.”

Upper West Sider Victor Gonzalez is the first public housing tenant to serve on the board of the city’s Housing Authority. andrew schwartz

Of the 600 applications for the position, Gonzalez’s stood out. After he was honorably discharged from the United States Air Force in 1971, he worked with the United Parcel Service for 33 years. During this time, he took an interest in community service.

“I just didn’t like the injustice that I was seeing being done to residents, those who couldn’t otherwise help themselves,” he said. “I thought that by getting into community service I could serve their concerns.”

Gonzalez said he became curious about what it takes to create change; how to relocate a bus stop or what it takes to put a speed bump in the street for the security of kids.

He started on the Department of Youth and Community Development’s neighborhood advisory board, then moved to Community Board 7 and the board of directors for Goddard Riverside Community Center. Currently, he chairs CB 7’s housing committee and continues to work with the Goddard Center.

“It’s made me more aware of how things get done in the city,” Gonzalez said. “I’ve learned of the different cultures and different wants and needs. It’s those things that motivated me. The journey itself has been wonderful and has taught me a lot. It’s made me a more responsible citizen.”

Gonzalez grew up in Manhattan’s Spanish Harlem. After leaving the military he moved to the Upper West Side.

“When I moved here, for some odd reason, this community embraced me,” he said. “And I felt, ‘Wow, this is really good to be embraced by a community in this manner, and I can give back.’”