Created in 1934 as the first agency of its kind in the United States, it aims to provide decent, affordable housing for low- and moderate-income New Yorkers throughout the five boroughs of New York City.

[5] Another 235,000 receive subsidized rental assistance in private homes through the NYCHA-administered Section 8 Leased Housing Program.

The parcel of land the houses were located on were purchased from Vincent Astor and the city used eminent domain to secure the remaining property.

In 1958, Mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr. began to shift construction away from megaprojects to smaller sites which retained the street grid and had under 1,000 units.

NYCHA is a public-benefit corporation, controlled by the Mayor of New York City, and organized under the State's Public Housing Law.

have demolished their high-rise projects and in most cases replaced them with lower density housing, New York's continue to be fully occupied.

This report identified $6.9 billion in needs required to bring the Authority's structures into a state of good repair.

[23][24] In 2018, a city-wide survey of NYCHA properties found that the organization needs $31.8 billion over five years to address unmet capital repairs including replacing broken elevators, upgrading faulty heating systems, and fix run-down kitchens and bathrooms.

Despite its needed repairs, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is cutting the agency's budget to encourage NYCHA to rely on partnerships with private property managers while Governor Andrew Cuomo is withholding his multiyear funding of $550 million until a federally required monitor is appointed to oversee the housing authority.

[26][27][24] The conversion of the properties would be under the Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) federal program leading to concerns that NYCHA would be privatized.

[28][29] If units were to be brought under RAD, oversight by the monitor and the court would be terminated leading to further concerns that the mold remediation ordered in the 2013 Baez lawsuit wouldn't happen.

[37][38] In October, 2012, Hurricane Sandy turned out to be the single most destructive event in the history of the New York City Housing Authority.

[39] In February 2014, NYCHA's Recovery and Resilience Department was created bringing about initial agreements in over $3 billion in funding for over 33 developments by March 2015.

[39] In February 2018, attorney Jim Walden filed a lawsuit on behalf of 400,000 NYCHA tenants living in squalid conditions.

[17] On June 11, 2018, U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman filed a lawsuit accusing NYCHA of violating health and safety regulations, exposing children to lead paint, and training its workers to deceive inspectors under the oversight of chairwoman Shola Olatoye from 2012 to 2016.

This list is divided geographically by the five boroughs of New York City: Manhattan, the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island.