If there were one building with one parking lot, what you say would make some sense. But the dynamic you are missing is that some public housing residents have

If there were one building with one parking lot, what you say would make some sense. But the dynamic you are missing is that some public housing residents have won the lottery within the lottery -- not only are they in public housing for which they pay little in rent, but they are in public housing that sits on some of the most expensive land in the entire nation. On top of that, they get virtually free parking in neighborhoods where even rich people don't own cars because it costs hundreds of dollars a month to park. There was a mooted proposal which would have a net effect of sharing a bit of these resident's good fortune with some of the rest of the public housing community. Residents of those buildings would still have apartments in some of the most desirable places on earth, but they wouldn't also get parking there. The money freed up would be used to not only repair their buildings (although the plan did give them first dibs) but also buildings in less desirable areas. As I said it was fought bitterly. This story is a parable for the entire "affordable housing" movement over the last 70 years. It doesn't aim to put in place policies that make housing more affordable generally, on the contrary it has been a driving policy goal of governments since the end of World War II to do everything possible to ensure that housing costs in general would grow faster than the rate of general inflation in order to give money to homeowners in a way that didn't look like welfare. Instead, the movement is designed to pick a few lucky winners and give them housing. Although there's generally hasn't been an ownership interest transferred to the lucky winners (but see Mitchell Lama Co-Ops) this housing has generally been heritable -- so much so that people today can't even get a lottery ticket because almost all the prizes have long since been issued. As for as calling the alternatives magic, as someone who has observed NYC, NYS, and US politics for a couple of decades now, I feel pretty confident in labeling the idea that any of those governments is going to come up with $18B out of general funds for NYC public housing capital needs magical thinking. We can't even get a fair share of transportation funds.