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Quality Assurance Unit at NYCHA

Mission Statement:

The mission of the Quality Assurance (QA) Unit is to provide objective assurance to management and regulators that residents receive high-quality workmanship from both staff and vendors. The QA Unit is responsible for improving performance and accountability by ensuring that maintenance and repairs are completed to industry standards in alignment with existing policies and procedures. The QA Unit will identify and address risks; deploy third-party contractors for training; and guide business process improvements.

Department Overview:

The QA Unit is responsible for the following activities and objectives:

1. Identifying maintenance performance problems that are related to particular buildings, units, managers, or staff.
2. Using available information and research tools, including work-order data, resident interviews, employee interviews, and site visits.
3. Considering both performance on individual work orders and also performance of maintenance repairs from the first identification of need to the ultimate correction of the problem (“end-to-end”).
4. Reviewing work performed by NYCHA in advance of Public Housing Assessment System (PHAS) inspections to determine whether that work was industry-standard quality.
5. Verifying and contributing to compliance with the Agreement insofar as the Agreement bears on maintenance work at NYCHA.
6. Communicating with the public and stakeholders regarding quality assurance issues, including maintaining a forum for employee and resident complaints (including anonymous complaints), regarding quality assurance issues.
7. Providing relevant QA Unit findings to NYCHA managers, including the General Manager, and (during the term of the Agreement) to the Monitor, SDNY, and HUD

Leadership:

The QA Unit will be led by a Quality Assurance Officer. The Quality Assurance Officer will report directly to the General Manager. The Quality Assurance Officer is responsible for ensuring that maintenance and repair work are completed to industry standards.

The Quality Assurance Officer will collaborate closely with the Environmental Health and Safety Officer and the Chief Compliance Officer to coordinate on quality assurance issues that present environmental health and safety issues or compliance issues through the Compliance Council.

Organization:

The Quality Assurance Unit will be organized around the following functions:

1. Analysis:
   • Harness NYCHA data and tools, employee and resident interviews, and site visits to focus quality assurance efforts related to particular buildings, units, managers, or staff
   • Use the results of quality assurance monitoring to recommend corrective action or refer to the Management Services Division or the Special Projects team for in-depth business process reviews for systematic quality assurance issues

2. Monitoring:
   • Expand the role of the existing QA inspection team to include new problem areas

3. Training:
   • Develop scope of work for training RFQ to address patterns of QA deficiencies