Pay your NYCHA rent at the bank

Public housing residents in Long Island City now have an additional option of paying their rent - through the bank. The hope is that besides convenience this alternative will also provide public housing communities with much needed banking experience.
As of October, the residents of the Queensbridge and Ravenswood Houses, over 95,000, can pay their monthly rent at Amalgamated Bank’s Long Island City branch, the only bank located near the two developments, at 36-18 21st Street. The two-dollar service will be available even to people who do not have a bank account at Amalgamated, said Bob Rinklin, spokesperson for the bank.
The bank transfers rent payments to the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) after residents present special IDs with a barcode that carries specific housing information, explained Rinklin.
Amalgamated’s Long Island City branch is the only bank in Queens to offer a service like that, Rinklin added. Amalgamated opened this branch, located across the street from the Woodside Houses, after pressure from the community, which prior to that had no banks and relied on cash checkers.
“That would be good,” said Jorge Mino, a Queensbridge resident who pays his rent through a money order he gets at a cash checker on 21st Street, at 41st Avenue.
But Nina Adams, president of the Queensbridge Tenants Association, disagrees. “It’s more money; people are cash-strapped right now,” she said, explaining that it costs her a total of $1.49 to get a money order from the same place where Mino does and mail it to NYCHA. In addition, Amalgamated is further away, Adams said, which might require paying for a bus fare.
This might be true, but a long-term benefit to be kept in mind is that going to Amalgamated exposes people to mainstream banking, said Bishop Mitchell Taylor, founder and CEO of the East River Development Alliance (ERDA), an organization providing services to public housing residents in Western Queens.
He said that according to a study recently conducted by ERDA, about 30 percent of Queensbridge residents do not have bank accounts. “Anything that will promote people coming into the bank and exposing them to mainstream financial institutions is a plus,” Taylor explained.
Currently, housing development residents can pay their rent via mail to NYCHA’s rent payment processing center, at authorized check cashing locations or online. NYCHA also has a payroll rent deduction program for residents who are employed by the City of New York.
Allowing public housing residents to pay their rent through banks is a practice which NYCHA started in 2007 in several Manhattan branches of banks such as Wachovia.