Why has this all been so difficult to achieve? The authority chairman, John B. Rhea, a former managing director at Lehman Brothers who has been city government’s persona non grata after a series of articles in The Daily News reported that his agency’s funds remained in a state of inertia while buildings stood in need of countless improvements, sought to explain the slow progress of enhanced security at Thursday’s Council hearing. Finding the most cost-effective systems, developing scalable models, establishing approval at various levels of bureaucracy — all of this required time, he said, while acknowledging that the agency could certainly become far more efficient.

The problem, though, extends beyond the agency’s noted dysfunction and exemplifies the broader issue of how inadequately the city ranks the needs of the poor. The authority is subsidized largely by the federal government and as a result has been subjected to significant cuts in the recent past. Financing for security measures is dependent almost entirely on the largess of Council members who allocate money for them from their discretionary funds, which in turn vary from member to member.

Currently, the authority has $51 million in Council money to outfit 85 housing complexes with cameras (and some portion of those with what is known as “layered access” — key-card entry systems, electronic smart doors and other mechanisms) by the end of next year. Just over 100 complexes have cameras already, but they are not in every building and many are old and would require replacement. To outfit all of the more than 330 complexes with cameras and some form of layered access — essential given that studies have shown that cameras alone are an unreliable means of deterrence — would cost upward of $500 million, and there is no obvious route to obtaining that money.

Reviewing city budget figures only serves to nourish fears of questionable priorities. Next year, the authority will have about $60 million of city funds apart from Council dollars at its disposal, but that number includes money that has been rolled over from previous years. By contrast, the city has allocated hundreds of millions of dollars for the development of lush tourist-luring green spaces like Brooklyn Bridge Park and Governors Island. More than $20 million has been proposed toward the renovation of Carnegie Hall, although it is precisely the type of cultural institution to which private money has happily swum since the birth of status.

The city is home to buildings with the names Stephen A. Schwarzman and Sanford I. Weill emblazoned out front. But I have yet to find anything called the Jamie Dimon Houses in Bushwick.