![\"NYCHA\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/20250722CityLimits-NYCHA-PACT-7355.jpg\")
Puerto Rican flags dangle over the entrance to a Hope Gardens courtyard on Linden Street, Brooklyn. (Adi Talwar\/City Limits)<\/p>\nNew York City\u2019s public housing authority has turned thousands of apartments over to private management. While PACT may currently be the most effective way to fund renovations quickly, many tenants are still not sold on the program, citing eviction threats and higher costs. <\/p>\n
Puerto Rican flags dangle over the entrance to a Hope Gardens courtyard on Linden Street, Brooklyn. (Adi Talwar\/City Limits)<\/p>\n
This story was originally published by the\u00a0Centro de Periodismo Investigativo<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n Lydia D\u00edaz was living in a dilapidated New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) apartment in 2021 when she got the news. Her building, part of the Harlem River Houses, would be the latest handed to private developers as part of the Permanent Affordability Commitment Together (PACT) program. The conversion would bring millions of dollars for renovations, but also make her a Section 8 tenant of a new private landlord.<\/p>\n Upset that they were denied a voice in the decision to join PACT and worried they would lose rights in exchange for poor-quality repairs, D\u00edaz and other tenants sued to stop it. But it was too late. The new companies took over, remodeled the buildings, and started managing them as they saw fit, all without the outside oversight<\/a> that existed under full public control.<\/p>\n Since then, her new landlord, Harlem River Preservation LLC, with its management company C+C, has tried to evict her three times, most recently in August for under $500 in unpaid rent.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to feel like this is my home. I only feel like I settle here. I don\u2019t feel like it\u2019s my home,\u201d said D\u00edaz, who is 68 and has lived in her Harlem apartment, in the northern part of Manhattan, for 16 years. She grew up in southern New Jersey to parents from Puerto Rico and has experienced homelessness in the past.<\/p>\n The new kitchen window in Lydia D\u00edaz\u2019s apartment at the Harlem River Houses opens only a few inches. The window was installed as part of NYCHA\u2019s PACT renovation program.<\/p>\n NYCHA has handed more than 39,000<\/a> units of public housing to private developers since 2016 as part of the PACT program, which is an implementation of the federal 2012 Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) program. While NYCHA, a public-benefit corporation governed by a mayor-appointed board, historically manages its own properties, the program leases chosen developments to private companies if they undertake massive and long-overdue renovations.\u00a0<\/p>\n Developers fund this work with loans the government can\u2019t access. They then pay them back, and earn some profit, by collecting rents set at standardized rates meant to mirror the market. Tenants pay 30 percent of their income towards this rent and a Section 8 voucher covers the difference.<\/p>\n But since renovations have been completed at many PACT developments, eviction threats against tenants have surged and eviction rates are about five times higher than NYCHA\u2019s regular buildings, although actual evictions remain low.\u00a0<\/p>\n For communities like Puerto Ricans, whose population in New York City decreased by 20<\/a> percent between 2017 and 2022 and who largely rely on public housing as a last holdout in gentrifying neighborhoods, this reality makes PACT feel like the latest ploy to drive them out for the benefit of real estate interests.\u00a0<\/p>\n Fear and frustration circulate, but PACT privatization, which keeps the land under NYCHA ownership, came from desperation. Before D\u00edaz\u2019s new developers took over the Harlem River Houses, the 693 units were estimated to need over $300 million in repairs by 2023. They had earned a 37 out of 100 in their 2019 inspection from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), far below a passing score of 60.<\/p>\n In fact, before PACT began, NYCHA said its overall portfolio required more than $45 billion in repairs by 2037. As the need grew, the amount the housing authority received from its primary funder, the federal government, was reduced.<\/p>\n But through PACT, developers have raised over $13 billion to fund renovations at buildings across the boroughs. These residents enjoy new parks, remodeled apartments, and modern HVAC systems, while nearly 300,000 NYCHA residents continue to sit in buildings one decade more deteriorated, where constant leaks, rodent infestations, and broken locks are the norm.<\/p>\n Developers receive a substantial revenue stream from this partnership, which comes from a combination of rents, subsidies, and tax credits, even though many have long histories of neglecting buildings and evicting tenants.\u00a0<\/p>\n Councilmember Chris Banks, who chairs the New York City Council\u2019s Committee on Public Housing, said some PACT partners are apathetic to tenants\u2019 wishes and manage with the notion that NYCHA residents don\u2019t deserve housing to the standard of other New Yorkers. He cited Wavecrest Management<\/a>, which has won contracts across the city<\/a> with a history of violations from before PACT began<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cYou really have to question folks and intentions as to why they would put a slumlord to manage a property,\u201d he said. \u201cIt leads me to question whether this is a get-rich scheme or if this is a real, true investment to really uplift the residents of public housing.\u201d<\/p>\n Fears of displacement<\/strong><\/p>\n Interspersed with brownstones and pre-war buildings housing many of the city\u2019s wealthy and white residents, the Upper West Side has long been home to a Puerto Rican population who largely reside in its NYCHA developments and Mitchell-Lama buildings, another type of affordable housing built decades ago.<\/p>\n Their presence was once felt in bodegas, butchers, and restaurants dotting Amsterdam Avenue, but businesses have closed as Puerto Ricans have gradually left the neighborhood. Since 2010, about one quarter of the neighborhood\u2019s Puerto Rican population has left, American Community Survey five-year estimates show.<\/p>\n The Wise Towers, a NYCHA development converted to PACT in 2020 and now managed by Wavecrest Management, still serves as a lasting foothold in the area. But as eviction threats have increased over the last few years, Puerto Rican residents worry they will be the next community pushed out. Tenants point to the playground, which was remodeled so successfully that visitors overwhelmed the once ignored courtyard<\/a>, as evidence that the privatization was never primarily for their benefit.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ernesto Carrera, the Wise Towers\u2019 tenant association president who has witnessed the neighborhood change as a resident for over 50 years, has identified the new playground as a perfect microcosm for his problems with PACT: outsiders making decisions about people\u2019s homes without their input and pushing them out in the process.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve had mothers tell our children that they don\u2019t want their children to play with our children. We can\u2019t have that here. We never had that here, [\u2026] but the creation of this new park has brought out a lot of feelings in people,\u201d said Carrera, who successfully pushed for closing the park to the public.<\/p>\n \u201cIf it\u2019s private, it\u2019s private. We didn\u2019t make it private,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Carrera acknowledges the park\u2019s improvements, but says they are \u201cjust makeup\u201d on more serious issues within the buildings, like outdated plumbing, broken locks, and infestations. While some apartments now resemble luxury developments, others have barely been updated from their neglected NYCHA state.<\/p>\n Darrell Williams lives in an apartment accessible for people with disabilities on the second floor of one of the Wise Towers. Shoddy paint jobs cover damage from chronic leaks, his electric fob won\u2019t open his front door, and water from his wheelchair-accessible shower streams out into his hallway.<\/p>\n Wavecrest management says these types of issues should be reported to them online or by phone and they will resolve them within 48 hours, unless the repairs are significant or require outside contractors.<\/p>\n \u201cI tell them I have a leakage problem. \u2018Oh, here\u2019s a number.\u2019 You call that number, nobody answers,\u201d said Williams, who used to work for NYCHA. \u201cUnder NYCHA, they would have did a better job.\u201d<\/p>\n In addition to physical issues, residents say the Wise Towers became less affordable when they converted to private management, particularly in terms of rent.<\/p>\n Residents in both PACT and traditional NYCHA buildings typically pay 30 percent of their gross household income toward rent, meaning if a family earns $50,000 a year, they would pay $1,250 a month. They are also supposed to occupy apartments fit for their family size.\u00a0<\/p>\n But many people had not been reassessed for income or family changes in years. Parents whose adult children now earned incomes had to start reporting them. Parents whose adult children left were moved to smaller apartments. Higher-income residents, who sometimes paid flat rates<\/a> at NYCHA, were forced to start paying 30 percent of their income instead.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have to fix the buildings, but we also have to fix processes and the like. And some of it involves working with the residents so that they understand the expectations that actually always existed,\u201d said Jonathan Gouveia, chief real estate officer and executive vice president for NYCHA.<\/p>\n Part of this process is issuing pre-eviction notices to tenants behind on rent. Over 10 percent of PACT residents received this outreach in the first half of 2025, according to NYCHA\u2019s PACT Progress and Compliance Oversight monitor.<\/a><\/p>\n Gouveia says pre-eviction notices are a tool to offer support to residents behind on rent rather than evict them. This could come in the form of helping them report income changes or enroll in social services. They are also a way of protecting PACT partners from the arrear crisis at NYCHA, where 34 percent of tenants didn\u2019t pay rent in October<\/a>.<\/p>\n However, data shows<\/a> that, so far this year, about half of pre-eviction notices became eviction filings, the first legal step toward an eviction. NYCHA says developers often pursue filings so tenants can qualify for New York City\u2019s \u201cone-shot deal<\/a>,\u201d which grants financial assistance to individuals dealing with acute emergencies like eviction.<\/p>\n While only three households of the 399-unit Wise Towers have been evicted this year, memories of past displacement and broken government promises leave residents fearful that others are in line.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cLong term, we ain\u2019t gonna be here,\u201d said Domingo Rom\u00e1n, who grew up in the buildings and now comes to visit friends and family. \u201cWe\u2019re gonna have to move all the way up to the Bronx, because that\u2019s what they\u2019re trying to do\u2014get all the Puerto Ricans and Blacks out of here and moved up to the Bronx.\u201d<\/p>\n Some Wise Towers residents previously lived in nearby brownstones that were seized and demolished for the development\u2019s construction as part of \u201curban renewal\u201d programs spearheaded by Robert Moses, former New York City planning commissioner, according to Councilmember Gale Brewer.<\/p>\n The destruction of brownstones to construct the Wise Towers mirrored the 1947 development of the Amsterdam Houses, the neighborhood\u2019s first NYCHA development, which was built on top of a once-thriving Puerto Rican neighborhood called San Juan Hill<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThese are residents that I\u2019ve known since 1978, so they mean everything to me,\u201d said Brewer, who has represented the neighborhood since 2002, eight years of which as Manhattan borough president. \u201cI would like to assume, I hope I\u2019m correct, that the eviction rate at Wise Towers would be very, very low. I will have a fit if somebody\u2019s [evicted without cause].\u201d<\/p>\n PACT developers have little to gain short-term from evicting tenants, though. When vacancies arise, they get filled from NYCHA\u2019s Section 8 waitlist in a process PACT partners don\u2019t have control over. And developers receive a standard rent regardless of how much the tenant pays, since the Section 8 voucher pays the difference.<\/p>\n Wavecrest Management stated that they have no intention of increasing eviction rates.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m very proud of the PACT program. I think it has changed many lives. I think when you\u2019re dealing with that many households at any one time, one person may not be happy,\u201d said Susan Camerata, one of the three Cameratas who make up Wavecrest\u2019s executive board.<\/p>\n Repairs over tenants\u2019 wishes<\/strong><\/p>\n The Harlem River Houses were completed in 1937 as the first development NYCHA constructed after its founding three years earlier. The buildings stand as a monument to the political vision of NYCHA\u2019s pioneer, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, who thought city government should be responsible for providing New Yorkers with the infrastructure they need to thrive, such as housing, schools, and hospitals. The vision was enabled by funding from President Franklin D. Roosevelt\u2019s New Deal program.<\/p>\n Not only was the development to be functional, but it was also intended to be a dignified place to raise a family, specifically a Black family. La Guardia officials touted this vision for the complex as they laid its first bricks in 1936, journalists reported. Besides apartments, the Harlem River Houses also featured cobblestone-lined paths encircling playgrounds, sculptures from a range of artists, and an amphitheater overlooking the river.<\/p>\n The campus, which now includes another nearby building constructed later, was restored to its former beauty over the last four years by the Harlem River Preservation with the use of $275 million.<\/p>\n \u201cIt looks like you\u2019re in a movie scene. It\u2019s surreal,\u201d said JeRome Dunbar, director of community relations at the Harlem River Preservation. \u201cEspecially for it being affordable housing, low-income housing, you can\u2019t beat it. I would live here.\u201d<\/p>\n But the historically authentic fa\u00e7ades of these landmarked buildings obscure apartments with mold-dotted walls that feel squeezed in by a layer of drywall added during renovations. In one apartment, a lightly humming HVAC system emits the ripe odor of a decaying rat. And throughout the buildings, faux wood floors peel at the edges of where they were hastily laid down, revealing a layer underneath coated with dust that residents say they constantly need to sweep.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThey didn\u2019t even bother to flatten out the walls and level the walls or even file the walls down before they painted. They just painted over the cracks,\u201d said April Washington, whose family has lived in the development since 1955.<\/p>\n Washington has refused to abide by the terms of the lease that grant the Harlem River Preservation access to her apartment, which means her apartment has not been renovated. In response, they filed a holdover case against her in February.<\/p>\n Developers created forums for residents to provide feedback to the design choices before the renovations began, but with the upgrades standardized across the development, some residents were bound to have choices imposed on them.<\/p>\n NYCHA received criticisms for overlooking residents\u2019 viewpoints in their first PACT conversions, and say they have strived to include them more actively since. In doing so, they recently offered residents of the Jacob Riis Houses a chance to vote on if they wanted to join PACT, which tenants rejected<\/a>. NYCHA says these votes won\u2019t necessarily happen going forward.<\/p>\n Typically, residents only vote when there is a third option to convert to the Public Housing Preservation Trust, which switches tenants to Section 8 but keeps their buildings under government management. In the seven votes hosted with these three options, Randall Avenue-Balcom Avenue became the first to choose PACT in April.<\/p>\n \u200b\u200b\u201dThey\u2019re saying whether you like it or not, this is what\u2019s best for you,\u201d said Lydia D\u00edaz, speaking of the gray wood laminate cabinets installed in her apartment, as well as the overall changes with PACT.\u00a0<\/p>\n Residents say they became skeptical about moving their apartments under the control of the private sector after hearing stories from other conversions. In part, they fear they will lose transparency and outside oversight over their homes.<\/p>\n \u201cNYCHA has come a long way when it comes to transparency, but I think the PACT program is still notoriously not transparent,\u201d said Iziah Thompson, senior policy analyst at the Community Service Society of New York (CSS).* \u201c[NYCHA] knows these issues exist. Some of these buildings are super old, and sometimes the scope of work for the projects doesn\u2019t cover everything.\u201d<\/p>\n Among other transparency gaps, PACT developments don\u2019t receive inspection scores from HUD or the same oversight from a federal monitor<\/a> imposed on NYCHA in 2018.<\/p>\n PACT as gentrification<\/strong><\/p>\n Robert Camacho is the chair of Brooklyn Community Board 4, where he represents the residents of the rapidly gentrifying<\/a> neighborhood of Bushwick. Throughout his 64 years there, the Puerto Rican community has slowly been pushed out by surging rents<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n At the Hope Gardens\u2019 massive local NYCHA campus, though, those born on the island still make up 32 percent of residents<\/a>, while the majority of the rest come from either the Dominican Republic or Brooklyn.<\/p>\n The development was switched to PACT in 2019 and, after a disastrous few years<\/a> under Pinnacle City Living management, is now controlled by Wavecrest. Pinnacle has since earned contracts at other PACT sites.<\/p>\n As Camacho walks around the development, between hugs with grateful tenants and rants on local issues from bike lanes to dog owners, he details how PACT developers have ignored local voices and instilled fear in tenants with constant eviction threats. To him, the privatization is a continuation of the harmful policies that have displaced Puerto Rican families from the neighborhood.<\/p>\n \u201c[Elected officials] are too busy telling us what we want and what we need, instead of listening to us and what we need and what we want,\u201d said Camacho. \u201cI don\u2019t live in NYCHA, but the people that are there are my family. You know why? Because if they go to my store and they\u2019re paying and they\u2019re hurt, then we\u2019re hurt.\u201d<\/p>\n Between the Hope Gardens\u2019 three-story buildings on Wilson Avenue, playgrounds, barbecues, and picnic tables were removed, where now sit adult gym equipment and empty grass shaded by a new 13-floor building\u2014a separate project between NYCHA and other developers.<\/p>\n Long-time Puerto Rican neighbors Blanca Gardana and Blanca Izquierdo say they are relieved their children reached adulthood before the conversions, as developers stripped the community of spaces where children used to congregate.<\/p>\n \u201cThe kids don\u2019t have enough space to play, for entertainment,\u201d said Izquierdo, who moved to New York from Aguadilla as a child and has lived in Hope Gardens for 36 years. \u201cEverybody, almost everybody, says that NYCHA was better.\u201d<\/p>\n Wavecrest Management said they would not comment on the courtyard renovation decisions because they were made before they assumed control.<\/p>\n The space has also been used less by residents because when it rains hard, a puddle overtakes the lawn that streams into Gardana\u2019s ground-floor apartment. Wavecrest Management provided tenants with hydrobarriers to stop the water, but NYCHA claims the problem is due to city infrastructure outside its control.<\/p>\n Due to the flooding, management decided to relocate the boilers from the basement to the roof. For Izquierdo\u2019s second-floor apartment, this meant seizing one of her closets to put pipes through.<\/p>\n In addition to physical changes that happened without residents\u2019 input, residents say their relationship with the space has changed due to widely issued fines for violating rules people didn\u2019t know existed, like smoking in stairways or forgetting keys.\u00a0<\/p>\n Some say these fines add financial challenges and a feeling of increased surveillance, as they are partially enforced through new cameras installed across the buildings. While some residents are happy with the crackdown, others say it mirrors broader correlations<\/a> between increased policing of low-level offenses and gentrification.\u00a0<\/p>\n Fines are only charged for offenses prohibited across developments and cannot exceed NYCHA\u2019s. PACT partners have just been more adamant about enforcing them. According to Wavecrest, these fines are just used to influence behavior, not collect revenue.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t enforce it,\u201d said Joseph Figueroa, Wavecrest property manager at Hope Gardens. \u201cWe\u2019re going to bill them for it, but it\u2019s not something that we\u2019re taking them to court for and saying they have to pay.\u201d<\/p>\n Caught in a bind<\/strong><\/p>\n Public housing advocates see PACT as the end of an era of city government that provided low-income New Yorkers with necessities like housing without an outside, profit-motivated party involved.\u00a0<\/p>\n But federal funding makes up 67 percent of NYCHA\u2019s revenue and President Donald Trump\u2019s proposed budget would cut about 43 percent of that, a report from the New York City Independent Budget Office <\/a>found.<\/p>\n This federal disinvestment has plagued NYCHA since President Richard Nixon <\/a>suspended subsidies to construct public housing in 1973, laying the groundwork for the 1974 creation of Section 8. With New York City concurrently enduring its own financial crisis<\/a> in the 1970s, NYCHA fell into disrepair. Corruption thrived<\/a> in this neglected state, further draining the authority of its limited funds.<\/p>\n Caught in this predicament where NYCHA simply could not fund needed repairs as traditional public housing, they decided to sacrifice some control to access private loans and a voucher that would ensure steadier revenue. While NYCHA residents continue living in deteriorating homes where health, safety, and comfort are mere aspirations, thousands of residents moved to PACT now live in buildings free from lead with new kitchen appliances, bathrooms, and playgrounds.<\/p>\n \u201cWe should not be in the business of selling public assets,\u201d said U.S. Representative Nydia Vel\u00e1zquez, whose district includes Hope Gardens. \u201cBut if you have a development like this one where you don\u2019t have the money to make the capital improvements, this is going to attract the kind of violence that has been impacting this community.\u201d<\/p>\n PACT tenants could also be vulnerable, Vel\u00e1zquez noted, as Trump proposes<\/a> imposing a two-year limit on Section 8 vouchers, which could mean they would lose their rent assistance.<\/p>\n While NYCHA hopes to convert 23,000 more units to PACT by 2028, it is also exploring other ways to make progress without federal funding through leveraging the private sector. They are currently seeking proposals<\/a> from developers for new projects.<\/p>\n Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has also committed to doubling city investment in NYCHA to maintain their buildings as public and construct new ones, which could indicate less enthusiasm for PACT than there was under Mayor Eric Adams, who ardently supported the program.<\/p>\n At the same time, Mamdani\u2019s appointments, such as incoming First Deputy Mayor Dean Fuleihan, draw largely from former Mayor Bill de Blasio\u2019s administration, which created PACT. And, at least for the three years of Mamdani\u2019s term that will overlap with Donald Trump\u2019s presidency, the prospects of increased federal funding for NYCHA are slim.<\/p>\n![\"Harlem](\"https:\/\/citylimits.org\/wp-content\/plugins\/trx_addons\/components\/lazy-load\/images\/placeholder.png\")
The new kitchen window in Lydia D\u00edaz\u2019s apartment at the Harlem River
Houses, installed as part of NYCHA\u2019s PACT renovation program, opens
only a few inches. (Adi Talwar\/City Limits)<\/p>\nThe playground at the Wise Towers on Manhattan\u2019s Upper West Side has been a source of disputes between residents and visitors. (Adi Talwar\/City Limits)<\/p>\nSigns around the children\u2019s playground at the Wise Towers warn that it is a residents-only area. (Adi Talwar\/City Limits)<\/p>\nHarlem River II apartment building, located on Frederick Douglass Boulevard in Manhattan. (Adi Talwar\/City Limits)<\/p>\nNYCHA\u2019s Harlem River Houses in June. (Adi Talwar\/City Limits)<\/p>\nVisible mold conditions inside Celena Soto\u2019s apartment at the Harlem River Houses. Soto is one of several residents who have reported ongoing maintenance problems. (Adi Talwar\/City Limits)<\/p>\nBlanca Gardana, with her husband, Heriberto Echevarr\u00eda (standing), and her brother-in-law, Julio Echevarr\u00eda, in a courtyard at Hope Gardens. (Adi Talwar\/City Limits)<\/p>\nBlanca Izquierdo and her husband pose inside their second-floor apartment at the Hope Gardens housing complex in Brooklyn (Adi Talwar\/ City Limits)<\/p>\nFlood damage inside Gardana\u2019s apartment. (Adi Talwar\/City Limits)<\/p>\n