Mayor Michael Bloomberg launched a new housing initiative this month largely inspired by the plight of the Milbank properties — the 10 neglected northwest Bronx apartment buildings that have fallen apart since foreclosure began two years ago.

The mayor made the announcement Jan. 8 at Our Lady of Angels Church, in Kingsbridge Heights, before a crowd of Milbank tenants and organizers from the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition, who have been fighting for almost a year to draw the city’s attention to the deteriorating buildings.

The new “Proactive Preservation” program will essentially allow the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) to more aggressively identify and inspect distressed properties, intervening to make repairs if necessary, in the hopes of preventing another Milbank scenario from taking place.

“While the work our housing inspectors do is very good, it can sometimes be too little, too late, or both,” Bloomberg said.

HPD will glean data — like outstanding tax and water debt, nearby foreclosures and notices from local officials and community groups — to flag trouble properties and then intervene to stabilize them. A newly formed 10-person “Proactive Enforcement Bureau” will perform “floor-to-cellar” inspections on buildings, according to a statement.

The mayor also proposed a plan for City Council to grant the city the power to sell Emergency Repair Program liens that exist on a property to a third party collector, who would then be in charge of collecting on the debt — saving taxpayers from footing the bills for emergency repairs and possibly giving landlords more incentive to make repairs themselves.

While this all sounds like good news, many Milbank tenants say they’re still frustrated. “I’m very divided on what the mayor just said,” said Rev. Peter Silva, who lives in a Milbank building on Aqueduct Avenue. He called the new initiative “great,” but said it did little to reassure him. “The building’s falling apart,” he said. “I understand they have a big job in front of them…but we’ve been in foreclosure for two years already. The tenants are the ones suffering.”

HPD said this fall that the city had already begun making emergency repairs on the most hazardous violations. The agency is still pressing LNR Property LLC, the servicer to the loan attached to the buildings, to sell them to a “responsible owner.” (LNR has been looking to sell the buildings for months.)

“How much longer will I have to live the way I’m living?” asked 72-year-old Milbank tenant Gloria Thomas.