The New York City Housing Authority owns more apartments than any landlord in the country, and it needs more repair money than any public owner in the city. Its own engineers put the 20-year bill at $78.34 billion. Its adopted five-year capital plan carries $7.79 billion. Sit with those two numbers for a second, because the gap between them is the whole story.

NYCHA can't fund that need through its own bid portal, so it split delivery three ways. Door one: work NYCHA bids itself. Door two: work handed to private development partners under PACT. Door three: a small but growing lane through the Public Housing Preservation Trust. Each door has its own rulebook, its own bid list, and its own way of finding a contractor. Watch only one of them and you're looking at a fraction of the market. Here's what's behind each.

“If your whole NYCHA strategy is refreshing iSupplier, you're watching a third of the apartments walk out a door you're not standing at.”

First, the money. NYCHA's 2026–2030 Capital Plan lists its funding by source and year. The five-year total is $7,786.2 million:

The federal line is flat — $731.3 million a year from 2027 through 2030, same number every year. The City line is anything but. It's $1,083.8 million in new City money for 2026, $684.0 million in 2027, then $180.0 million, $215.4 million and $218.1 million for the three years after that. The State's $577.8 million is almost all carry-forward from older appropriations, with just $26.5 million new in 2026.

Now, a plan line is not a contract. It's a market signal. It becomes a bid when NYCHA's Asset and Capital Management division — or a PACT partner — actually puts it on the street. Don't read a table like this as work you can chase today; read it as the weather.

2026 is the year the money is actually sitting there. Add the carry-forward balance from 2025 ($1,722.0 million) to 2026's new funds ($1,841.6 million) and NYCHA has $3,563.5 million available in 2026 — 46 percent of the entire five-year plan in a single year. After that it steps down: $1,415.3 million in 2027, $911.3 million in 2028, $946.7 million in 2029, $949.4 million in 2030.

Two things to get straight before you build a business plan on that. One: the 2026 number is not a forecast of 2026 awards. Nearly half of it is money already attached to projects in progress — it's carry-forward plus new, not a pile of fresh contracts. Two: the drop in 2028 is a City-funding cliff, not a federal one. Whether the City refills it is a budget question every spring, and the Council has already flagged the gap. NYCHA itself says it spent $1.25 billion in 2025 (per NYCHA's March 2026 release) and expects to spend more than $1 billion in 2026 for a fourth straight year, finishing construction on more than 125 projects. Those are NYCHA's own delivery counts, not ours.

What's actually under construction. The capital plan's active-projects table is the closest thing NYCHA publishes to a letting list. As of Jan. 1, 2026, the Authority carried 399 active capital projects with a combined budget NYCHA puts at $6.62 billion:

Look at the top two lines. Heating and Comprehensive Modernization are tied at $1,546 million apiece — each about 23 percent of the $6.62 billion — and they couldn't be more different jobs. Heating is 53 projects, boiler by boiler. Comp Mod is five whole-building gut rehabs at $1.55 billion, which works out to about $300 million a project — whole developments, not boiler rooms. Five contracts that size don't go out quietly, and that makes Comp Mod the clearest "what's coming" line in the whole document. Roofs and facades round out the next $1.1 billion. And look at what NYCHA says it delivered from 2021 through 2025: 744 roofs, 277 elevator replacements, 177 heating systems including 156 boiler replacements, 217 facades, 757 waste-management assets across 810 completed projects. The pattern doesn't move. NYCHA buys the same things every year. The only questions for you are volume and which door.

One more line from the plan worth circling: A&CM's own five-year pipeline — the work NYCHA bids directly — gets $1.4 billion federal and $1.6 billion City, roughly $600 million a year. That's door one, and it's smaller than the headline number makes it look.

Door one: NYCHA direct. The Authority's own solicitations run through its iSupplier portal and show up in the City Record and the State Contract Reporter. This is the roughly $600-million-a-year lane: requirement contracts, IDIQs (indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity — you hold a rate sheet, NYCHA calls work off it), elevator and heating packages, and the prequalified-list trades. It's the door most contractors already know, and it's the one they assume is the whole house.

Door two: PACT. Under Permanent Affordability Commitment Together, a development converts to Project-Based Section 8 and a private partner takes over the rehab and the management. NYCHA reports 6,664 apartments converted in 2025 across 16 developments and six transactions, with $2.9 billion in financing — both records. Cumulatively, the program stood at 31,248 apartments converted and $9.8 billion raised as of January 2026; NYCHA's program page had it at more than 32,000 homes and $10.3 billion by May. (Those are two different dates and two different counts — don't add them.) The stated goal is 62,000 apartments, so PACT is half done. In December 2025 NYCHA put out a request for expressions of interest for 27 more developments, 5,266 units, roughly $2.5 billion in 20-year need, in three clusters: Bronx/Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens/Staten Island.

Here's the thing about door two, and it's blunt: PACT renovation work is bought by the partner, not by NYCHA. It does not appear on iSupplier. It never will. Getting on a PACT job means getting on the partner's bid list — a developer, a GC, a property manager — and Section 3 hiring obligations follow the HUD money right onto that site. If your whole NYCHA strategy is refreshing iSupplier, you're watching a third of the apartments walk out a door you're not standing at.

Door three: the Trust. The Public Housing Preservation Trust is a separate public entity authorized to take up to 25,000 apartments, keep them public, and fund the repairs with bonds. It's announced design-build teams for Nostrand Houses ($400 million) and Bronx River Addition ($93 million), a design-build team for Unity Towers (about 200 apartments), and in July it signed its first progressive design-build contract for Hylan Houses (209 apartments). Design-build — one team, drawings and shovels both. Trust procurement runs RFQ/RFP, the job count is small, and yes, it's a fourth procurement rulebook for the same brick.

Where the buildings are. NYCHA's own engineers already did the borough math, in dollars. The 2023 Physical Needs Assessment puts the five-year need at $60.32 billion and splits it by borough and by building system (Table 4, $ billions):

Here's the story in that grid. Manhattan leads the short-term need at $18.70 billion, Brooklyn's right behind at $18.03 billion, and the Bronx carries $15.90 billion — the three of them are 87 percent of the five-year bill. Stretch it to the full 20 years and the order flips: Brooklyn about $24.3 billion, Manhattan about $23.8 billion, the Bronx about $19.7 billion, Queens about $8.1 billion, Staten Island about $2.5 billion. So Manhattan's buildings need the money sooner; Brooklyn's need more of it over time. Either way it's dollars, not a head count, and that's the map you bid against. The live board agrees: the current floor-tile requirement contracts are a Queens/Staten Island package following a Brooklyn one that just closed, the elevator RFQs are Brooklyn and Manhattan, and the Trust's first four jobs are three in Brooklyn and one in the Bronx. One more thing to notice: the Bronx beats Brooklyn on decarbonization ($2.16 billion to $1.42 billion), so if you do heat, the Bronx is a bigger lane than its total suggests.

Which trades are standing in the right spot. The 2023 Physical Needs Assessment ranks what NYCHA's buildings need in the next five years — $60.32 billion of that 20-year total — by building system. That's the demand map, whichever door the work comes out of.

Apartment interiors — kitchens, baths, floors, windows. Apartments are 41.7 percent of the short-term need, $25.13 billion: bathrooms $7.22 billion, floors $5.81 billion, kitchens $5.70 billion. Windows are another $5.21 billion. That's why NYCHA runs standing requirement contracts for V/C floor tile and in-unit design-build renovations, and why PACT partners' scopes are apartment-heavy. Flooring, tile, kitchen-and-bath rehab, window installers, and painters who can work an occupied unit without losing a day to a locked door — that's the widest lane there is.

Heating, steam and decarbonization. Decarbonization is $7.53 billion of short-term need (space heat $5.18 billion, domestic hot water $2.35 billion), with steam piping at $1.92 billion and condensate return at $1.68 billion on top of that. Heating is already tied for the largest active program at $1.55 billion. If you do boilers, steam, hydronics, heat pumps or controls, you're looking at the single biggest dollar line NYCHA has.

Elevators. $3.21 billion of short-term need; 277 replacements delivered in five years; $465 million across 32 active projects; an elevator PQL; and three elevator RFQs on the board this month. Steady, specialized, and gated by prequalification — get on the list or don't bother reading the ads.

Roofing, facades and waterproofing. Roofs are a modest $1.10 billion of need, because NYCHA has replaced 744 of them since 2021 — this is a program in its late innings, even though it still carries 21 active projects and $574 million. Building exteriors, facades and windows ($540 million active) and Local Law 11 facade work keep rolling; the A/E and Local Law inspection RFP on the board is the kind of contract that comes right before a restoration package.

Plumbing, waste and water quality. Waste management has the most active projects of any program (89). Plumbing IDIQs for pumps, gravity roof tanks, monochloramine and chlorination systems are open now. And NYCHA says large-scale waste-line, kitchen and bath plumbing is where its mold problem starts — it puts that at close to 20 percent of the total need.

Site, grounds and resiliency. Grounds ($152 million) and flood remediation ($85 million) carry the Sandy-era and stormwater work. A ground-settlement remediation RFQ at Polo Grounds Towers is on the board.

Abatement. The plan asks for $953 million through FY2029 for lead abatement in 30,000 units, and NYCHA keeps PQLs for lead and asbestos services. Abatement rides inside damn near every interior and exterior package, so even if it's not your trade, it's in your schedule.

NYCHA work costs different. Every NYCHA job is in an occupied building. Apartment work means resident scheduling, access failures, and remobilizing when the tenant isn't home. Federal money means Davis-Bacon wages and certified payroll through NYCHA's eComply system, and since December 2024 every bidder and every listed sub has to hold a New York State Labor Law 220-i registration before bid day. Section 3 hiring and contracting benchmarks attach to anything HUD-funded. None of that is optional, and all of it belongs in your number — not in a change order you'll never get.

So what do you do now? First, register on iSupplier and get the NYC.ID and PASSPort pieces done before the solicitation you want shows up; approval takes days, not minutes. Second, decide which doors you're actually chasing. NYCHA direct, PACT partner subcontracting, and the Trust's design-build teams are three separate relationship lists — pick yours on purpose. Third, get on the prequalified list for your trade. Applications roll, and NYCHA wants yours at least 15 days before a bid date. Fourth, price the occupied-building and compliance cost honestly. The jobs that go wrong at NYCHA go wrong on access, not on materials. (Our companion pieces cover the iSupplier mechanics, the M/WBE and Section 3 rules, and this week's live NYCHA opportunities; the bid-book reads on insurance and bonding, materials and specs, and payments and change orders go a layer deeper.)

The bottom line. NYCHA's five-year plan is real money, front-loaded into 2026 and stepping down after. Heating, apartment interiors and elevators are the deepest trade lanes; Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx are where the buildings are. But the fact that should change how you spend your Tuesday is this: a third of the apartments are headed out the PACT door, and that work never touches NYCHA's bid portal. Watch the plan to pick a market. Watch iSupplier, the partners, and the Trust to find the job. And if you've read our MTA, SCA and DDC installments in this series, you already know the rhythm — NYCHA's is the one where the same buildings get bought three different ways.

Confirm before you bid: the 30 percent M/WBE goal (15 percent MBE, 15 percent WBE) cited in the companion piece comes from NYCHA's own M/WBE Utilization Plan form and its 2021 policy announcement — confirm the goal in your package's front end, because NYCHA's standalone M/WBE page was taken down this year. PACT totals above are labeled by date because NYCHA reports them more than one way.