On the heels of a similar announcement from Governor Andrew Cuomo, Mayor Bill de Blasio said he, too, would be providing resources to public housing residents during the pandemic. 

The city will open six testing sites at or near NYCHA developments to provide free testing for residents. The three sites near NYCHA developments - Cumberland Health Center in Fort Greene, Belvis Health Center in Mott Haven and Gouvernor Health Center on the Lower East Side - will open on Friday. For the first time, the city will open testing sites actually on NYCHA property. Those sites at  Jonathan Williams Houses, Woodside Houses and St. Nicholas Houses will open next week.

"Everyone in New York City has been hit hard by this pandemic. Everyone," de Blasio said on Wednesday. "But the residents of NYCHA have been hit particularly hard, and we want to do a lot more to reach you, to help you, to bring you support, not just the testing, but other forms of support to help you through this crisis.

Up until now, the city’s public housing population has not been a major topic of discussion at the mayor’s daily press briefings. In fact, we have been asking the city for weeks whether it was tracking cases at NYCHA developments. Officials said they were not. 

On Monday, Cuomo announced the state would be partnering with a New Orleans-based startup, Ready Responders, to conduct testing inside apartments at eight NYCHA developments. The governor also promised 500,000 cloth masks for NYCHA residents and thousands of gallons of hand sanitizer. Public housing advocates cast the move as a long time coming. 

So it’s perhaps not a surprise the mayor announced similar measures on Wednesday. He said the city would also provide NYCHA residents with face coverings, and gloves on top of that. De Blasio said the city would be giving free internet service and tablets to 10,000 seniors in public housing. It will also expand meal service to all senior buildings in NYCHA (there are 79), automatically enrolling all of those residents in the meal delivery service. That will be rolled out over the coming weeks, a spokesperson told NY1.