{"id":12821,"date":"2023-01-03T02:42:36","date_gmt":"2023-01-03T02:42:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmonicafernandez.com\/?p=12821"},"modified":"2025-04-28T05:33:03","modified_gmt":"2025-04-28T05:33:03","slug":"pact-impact-privatization-fears-at-lower-east-side-public-housing-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmonicafernandez.com\/?p=12821","title":{"rendered":"PACT impact: Privatization fears at Lower East Side public housing"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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A complex managed as public housing on the Lower East Side is on its way to being transferred to private management, which has neighbors fearful of rent increases or even evictions.<\/p>\n

A few weeks ago, residents of Seward Park Extension, which includes two buildings, received an envelope in their mail that was hard to ignore. All 360 units received a letter from the New York City Housing Authority informing them that their buildings would be converted to a program that uses private companies and funds to manage the housing development and its repairs.<\/p>\n

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Miguel Rodriguez has lived at Seward Park Extension on Essex Street since moving in to care for his father in 2009. He\u2019s currently trying to legalize his residency following his dad\u2019s death a few months ago. \u201c[With PACT] they\u2019re going to throw poor people out on the street,\u201d he predicted. \u201cThese people have been there for 50, 60 years.\u201d (Photo by Maria Monica Fernandez)<\/figcaption>\n
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The Housing Authority says that under the new system, repairs to the buildings will be expedited, but residents fear that rents will go up or that they will be evicted.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThere was no vote,\u201d said one resident, who preferred not to be identified for fear of being evicted from the apartment where he has lived for more than five years.<\/p>\n

The letter explains that NYCHA will move Seward Park Extension into the Permanent Affordability Commitment Together program a.k.a. PACT. NYCHA presents\u00a0PACT<\/a>\u00a0as a tool to obtain funds from private companies to repair decades of public housing neglect due to lack of federal funding.<\/p>\n

Under PACT, Seward Park Extension, with its 796 residents, will be part of the federally funded\u00a0RAD<\/a>\u00a0(Rental Assistance Demonstration) program, which involves a transition from the traditional public housing model, which is assisted by Section 9 federal funds, to apartments in the Housing Choice Voucher Program, or Section 8, a privately funded program for management and repairs.<\/p>\n

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The Essex Street entrance to one of the Seward Park Extension buildings on the Lower East Side. (Photo by Maria Monica Fernandez)<\/figcaption>\n
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But other Seward Park Extension residents who spoke to this reporter say that in doing their research on other NYCHA residences converted to PACT, they found that those homes fell into a \u201cgray area,\u201d where neither NYCHA nor the private entity dealt with complaints, grievances or assistance about the residential units.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe more I researched, the more I realized how bad [PACT] is,\u201d said Christopher Parker, a resident since 1984 of Seward Park Extension. He has been collecting signatures, along with other residents and Councilmember Christopher Marte, to petition to stop the implementation of PACT before the conversion becomes \u201cofficial\u201d and, Parker fears, residents start getting evicted.<\/p>\n

Since NYCHA began implementing PACT in 2016, there have been multiple complaints of noncompliance and violations against residents of housing that became managed by private companies.<\/p>\n

A study by Human Rights Watch<\/a>\u00a0on PACT\u2019s implementation in New York City reveals that, while it is difficult to draw conclusions on the privatization\u2019s long-term effects \u2014 since it is a relatively new program \u2014 there has been an increase in evictions in two of the housing developments already under the PACT system, and that the system \u201chas not established adequate oversight measures and protections for residents\u2019 rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tenants of NYCHA housing \u2014 where the Hispanic, African-American, elderly and disabled communities predominate \u2014 face a 99-year privatization that \u201cgives profit-driven entities unprecedented control over public housing residents,\u201d according to Human Rights Watch. This would entail new practices for vulnerable-income communities when it comes time to sign new rental agreements, collect rents and raise grievances and other legal issues for the protection of their rights.<\/p>\n

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Deborah Givers, the president of the Seward Park Extension Tenants Association, believes PACT will bring improvements to the families living in the two buildings that comprise Seward Park Extension. (Photo by Maria Monica Fernandez)<\/figcaption>\n
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James Rodriguez, an associate professor of urban studies at the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies and an activist with Residents to Preserve Public Housing, says PACT\u2019s privatization processes have lacked clarity and \u201chave been poor at encouraging collective decision-making,\u201d which can lead to confusion and distrust among tenants.<\/p>\n

Rodriguez claims that PACT has not met its goal of improving housing conditions in the communities where the program is already implemented. He cited \u201cmediocre repairs that begin to fall apart in a matter of months, chronic problems, such as lead and mold that have not been properly managed, and problems due to lack of transparency and communication between residents and management.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Residents interviewed from 66 Essex St. at the Seward Park Extension complained about the lack of a security due to the building\u2019s front door entirely lacking a lock. (Photo by Maria Monica Fernandez)<\/figcaption>\n
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Various resident and activist groups have raised criticisms of PACT\u2019s privatization of NYCHA residences and its goal of transferring 62,000 apartments into Section 8. Nevertheless, some Seward Park Extension residents interviewed for this article see the program as offering hope toward ending the years of neglect they say they have received from NYCHA.<\/p>\n

Deborah Givers, the president of Seward Park Extension\u2019s Tenant Association since 2020, is in favor of her building becoming part of PACT. Givers described the building as an \u201cunsafe and unsavory\u201d place where, she said, some elderly residents are afraid to leave their units because of the constant presence of teenagers and homeless people who freely come and go, taking advantage of the lack of a lock on the building\u2019s front door.<\/p>\n

That lack of security worries other residents, as well, who complain the building\u2019s hallways and elevators are sometimes the scene of drug use, sex, homeless people sleeping and even human feces.<\/p>\n

As of this past October at Seward Park Extension, 158,000 outstanding repair orders had been registered with NYCHA. An average of 90,000 orders is the manageable workload for NYCHA housing repairs, according to an audit report on the agency\u2019s maintenance practices. Currently, NYCHA records a citywide backlog of 668,640 open orders.<\/p>\n

When asked about residents\u2019 uncertainty regarding the threat of evictions once PACT takes over management, Givers responded that p<\/p>\n

people who say they\u2019re going to be evicted \u201care guessing.\u201d Since September, Givers explained, NYCHA has held meetings concerning PACT.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are not listening,\u201d she said about the uncertainty the change has generated among residents.<\/p>\n

NYCHA officials contacted for this article confirmed that Seward Park Extension is in the process of becoming part of PACT but that the transition to the 99-year private management plan would not actually start until 2024. They said meetings would continue to be held in coming months to address residents\u2019 concerns about the change.<\/p>\n

According to the agency, tenants will be able to review the complex\u2019s facade maintenance via the Resident Review Committee, and legal assistance will be provided by NYCHA.<\/p>\n

Officials said the intention of PACT is not to evict tenants and that strategies are in place for those unable to pay their rent to have their cases reassessed, so that rent does not exceed 30 percent of their income.<\/p>\n

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The building at 154 Broome Street is also part of Seward Park Extension. (Photo by Maria Monica Fernandez)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12823,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[146],"tags":[145,68,63],"class_list":["post-12821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-print","tag-housing","tag-local-journalism-post","tag-new-york-city-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmonicafernandez.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmonicafernandez.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmonicafernandez.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmonicafernandez.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmonicafernandez.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12821"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/mmonicafernandez.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12821\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13002,"href":"https:\/\/mmonicafernandez.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12821\/revisions\/13002"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmonicafernandez.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmonicafernandez.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmonicafernandez.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmonicafernandez.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}