Shola Olatoye and Mayor Bill de Blasio are expected to announce her resignation Tuesday at a public housing development in the Rockaways. | Office of Mayor Bill de Blasio Olatoye stepping down at NYCHA, de Blasio names interim replacement

Shola Olatoye, who has struggled to turn around the historically underfunded, mismanaged New York City Housing Authority since being named its chairwoman four years ago, is stepping down.

She and Mayor Bill de Blasio are expected to announce her resignation Tuesday at a public housing development in the Rockaways. Stan Brezenoff, a veteran of municipal government with stints leading the city's public hospital system and the Port Authority, will be named interim chair, City Hall officials said Monday night.


Olatoye leaves after months of scrutiny from law enforcement authorities and elected officials over lapsed lead paint inspections, deteriorating living conditions and a winter of widespread heat and hot water outages.

She also is departing as state officials prepare to impose an external monitor over the agency and federal law enforcement authorities consider a similar course of action.

Complicating matters, a group of tenants filed a wide-ranging lawsuit in February alleging "chronic and systemic" problems throughout the housing authority's 2,462 buildings. That suit also seeks an independent monitor for the agency.

“The resignation of Shola Olatoye is long overdue, and this is a step forward but we have a long road ahead of us,” Danny Barber, chair of the Citywide Council of Presidents (CCCOP), which is behind the lawsuit, said in a prepared statement. “We hope that the new chair will be considerate and will listen to the life-or-death concerns of our community, working with us to resolve the humanitarian crisis that NYCHA has created."

In recent weeks the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development instituted a "zero threshold" policy, requiring approval every time the housing authority draws on federal funds.

In an interview, Olatoye said she never intended to stay for a second term.

“When I was appointed by the mayor four years ago, my intention was to stay for the first term and you know, it’s been an amazing, maddening, humbling fascinating assignment and I think I’ve done some really important work on behalf of the one in 14 New Yorkers that rely on us,” she said.

Public criticism of Olatoye has persisted since the city Department of Investigation released a report in November concluding she knowingly falsified reports to federal officials about lead paint inspections, which the agency halted after a change in guidelines in 2012.

Olatoye has said her staff informed her that inspections were suspended and she in turn notified federal authorities in 2016. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York was already conducting a far-reaching investigation into operations at the housing authority. That probe could lead to the appointment of a federal monitor. Federal housing officials recently rejected NYCHA's plan to resolve the probe, the Daily News reported last month.

The DOI commissioner, Mark Peters, later accused Olatoye of misleading the City Council while she testified under oath at a hearing in February about the training her staff received to conduct lead paint inspections. She was accompanied by the city's corporation counsel, Zach Carter, at a subsequent Council hearing about heat outages.

Despite Olatoye's rocky tenure, which was also marked by several calls for her resignation and high-level staffing shakeups, she ushered in several meaningful reforms.

Under her watch, the agency balanced its budget for four consecutive years and reduced its central office costs by $23 million. She fought for concessions from unwilling union leaders and managed to implement a voluntary pilot program of staggered work shifts. Now, maintenance repairs can be done on a more flexible schedule at 12 housing authority developments.

She also spearheaded the agency's NextGen program, which launched three years ago to overhaul the operations at the housing authority while raising much-needed funds through leasing vacant and underutilized land to private developers. The improved operations have expanded to 207 developments and will be in place in the authority's 325 developments by 2019.

Repairs have been underway — 65 new roofs, exterior lights at 14 sites and nearly $1.8 billion awarded in contracts for Hurricane Sandy recovery projects.

Ocean Bay Bayside, the development Olatoye and de Blasio will visit Tuesday, is the first completed deal under the Rental Assistance Demonstration program, which leverages private funds for public housing repairs. It is also the largest single-site transaction of that program in the country.

“The housing authority that the chair inherited four years ago faced bankruptcy, an inability to make basic repairs and an alarming surge in violence. She was a change agent from day one. Crime is down. Repairs are faster. Finances are stabilized," de Blasio said in a prepared statement. "NYCHA is putting record investment from the city to work making life better for the 400,000 New Yorkers that call NYCHA home. We’re grateful for her service."

It is unlikely the departure Olatoye envisioned when she took the job in 2014. “I am honored to be asked by the mayor to run New York City’s Housing Authority. Everything we do will be focused on improving the quality of life for our tenants, especially protecting their safety. This is an enormous opportunity," she said at the time.

On Monday, as she reflected on her tenure, she acknowledged the challenges and mistakes but sounded a positive note.

“I think it’s less about the words and the press conferences. It’s more about the deeds and to say that we’ve done everything perfect, no, that would [be] not right, but there is a real moment here for the leaders to come together and come up with a model that will be uniquely New York, that will protect people’s housing but also take on some hard truths," she said. "And I think that is an opportunity that I hope is not wasted."