Companion to NYCHA Has $7.8 Billion and Three Front Doors. Two compliance programs, two different jobs they do.

Section 3 applies to HUD-funded construction and rehabilitation — which, at NYCHA, is most of it. The benchmarks: 25 percent of labor hours by Section 3 workers and 5 percent by Targeted Section 3 workers, reported through eComply's Certified Hourly Report. Let's say you run 10,000 labor hours on a boiler job. That's 2,500 hours by Section 3 workers and 500 by Targeted Section 3 workers you need to be able to show on paper. A Section 3 Business Concern is 51 percent owned by public-housing or Section 8 residents, or by low-income persons, or has more than 75 percent of its labor hours performed by Section 3 workers. You register through eComply and it lasts three years.

“Door two has the same hiring math as door one — it just doesn't show up on iSupplier.”

M/WBE. NYCHA accepts NYC SBS certification rather than running its own program — so if you're certified with the City, you're certified here. NYCHA's own M/WBE Utilization Plan form — the one you file with the bid — carries a 30 percent M/WBE subcontracting goal (15 percent MBE, 15 percent WBE), a policy NYCHA announced in 2021. Let's say you're the prime on a $10 million facade job: that's $1.5 million to MBE subs and $1.5 million to WBE subs you need to show on the plan. One caution, and it's a real one: confirm the goal in your package's front end — NYCHA's standalone M/WBE page was taken down this year.

Certification is eligibility, not a job. Same rule as every other agency in this series. The goals apply to subs the same way they apply to primes. And here's the one people miss: PACT partners carry Section 3 onto their sites, because the HUD money goes with the building. Door two has the same hiring math as door one — it just doesn't show up on iSupplier.