NYC Public Housing Tenants Organize Against Slum Conditions and Privatization

The New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) has transferred more than 31,000 apartments from public housing through its Permanent Affordability Commitment Together (PACT) program since 2016. As the city moves to privatize more developments, tenants across the city are organizing against it.

How Privatization Works

PACT is NYC’s version of the federal Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) program. It converts developments from traditional Section 9 public housing into privately managed housing funded through project-based Section 8 contracts. Unlike tenant-based Section 8 vouchers, project-based vouchers are tied to the building, not the tenant. If a tenant moves, their voucher will stay with their old unit.

Under PACT, private developers are given long-term, federally-backed contracts to take over the management of public housing. The US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) argued this arrangement would “unlock” large amounts of private investment. Yet HUD’s own evaluation found private partners contributed only about 29 cents in private financing for every federal dollar invested in repairs. In 2026 alone, $839 million worth of taxpayer dollars are slated to be transferred to private landlords, despite the limited private capital they contribute.

NYCHA argues privatization is necessary because decades of federal disinvestment have left public housing with an estimated $80 billion repair backlog. Developments are plagued by mold, leaks, crumbling ceilings, broken elevators, rodents, and bedbugs, and privatization is advertised to tenants as a solution to slum conditions.

Slum Conditions

NYCHA’s conditions are deadly. A family at the Jacob Riis Houses, which are under traditional NYCHA, told The Worker that in 2022, their 23-year-old son died after his health began to rapidly deteriorated. One month before his death, local media reported that an independent lab had detected high levels of arsenic in the development’s water. The day after their son died, NYCHA released a public letter stating the lab had made an error and that no arsenic had been present.

The family who spoke to The Worker said that weeks later, a woman died, and her autopsy showed she had four times the legal amount of arsenic in her system. Recent medical correspondence reviewed by The Worker shows that a physician had documented metal exposure at Jacob Riis and advised another tenant to stop drinking the building’s tap water.

While NYCHA residents already suffer from unlivable conditions, many tenants under PACT have said that conditions have gotten even worse, and tenants are evicted before promised repairs happen.

An investigation by The City found more than 14,200 housing code violations at PACT developments since January 2021. The number of violations has increased over time at most privatized developments. Many violations have remained unresolved for months or even years.

Last December, tenants at the PACT-converted Manhattanville Houses told The Worker they had been without water and gas for weeks.

Federal audits reveal that nationwide, rent has increased for 57% of tenants who live in privatized developments. In NYC, a city audit found the eviction filings at PACT developments are five times higher than those in traditional NYCHA public housing.

The statistics match what tenants at PACT developments described to The Worker.

While showing a volunteer her apartment, one resident at PACT-converted Reid Park Rock pointed to the laminate flooring installed after privatization. The flooring was already buckling and loose.

“They just patched it up,” she said.

When asked what had changed since her development converted to PACT, she replied: “It’s the exact same. Nothing has changed.”

Residents also said maintenance requests continued to take months to resolve. “They take too long with the tickets,” one tenant said.

“There was no heat in the winter,” another reported. “No one had heat.”

A resident urged tenants elsewhere to reject PACT if given the opportunity. “If people get to vote, then they should vote no,” she said.

Tenants Resist Privatization

Tenants across NYCHA developments are organizing to delay or stop PACT conversions altogether.

Tenants at the FEC Houses have opposed PACT since NYCHA first proposed conversion in 2018. A tenant leader told The Worker that organizers spent years knocking on doors, collecting petitions, holding demonstrations, and talking with neighbors about what privatization would mean for their community.

“[NYCHA]’s lying to you with that visage of stainless steel and the wooden floors,” the tenant said. “It’s all bullshit. Don’t fall for that. What we need is internal fixing.”

Tenants also mobilized to collectively refuse to sign the PACT lease, saying that NYCHA needs signed leases to secure funding for the conversion.

Tenants interviewed by The Worker said the Tenant Association (TA) president at their complex sided with NYCHA in pushing the PACT conversion throughout the process. One tenant told The Worker that the TA president pressured tenants to sign the lease by warning they would be kicked out if they refused. Video reviewed by The Worker also shows the TA president punching a tenant during a confrontation. “He punched one of the tenants,” the tenant said. “And you’re a TA president—you’re representing us.”

In 2023, NYCHA announced plans to demolish the FEC Houses. Demolition was scheduled to begin in December 2025, but tenants have so far prevented demolition by refusing to leave their homes despite eviction orders and intimidation from NYCHA.

“NYCHA nailed down the compactors so [tenants] couldn’t even throw away garbage,” one tenant explained. “They took away the hot water.”

A state judge eventually issued a temporary restraining order halting demolition in February 2026. The order has since been extended twice while tenants continue their organized resistance against demolition.

Tenants at the Jacob Riis Houses led a similar campaign after learning in 2023 that NYCHA intended to convert the development to PACT.

One tenant told The Worker that residents found out about the proposal through word of mouth because the TA president deliberately kept information from them. Tenants responded by knocking on doors, petitioning, and organizing tenants around defending public housing.

Their efforts successfully pressured their TA president to request that NYCHA allow all tenants a formal vote on whether to convert or remain in traditional public housing. In the lead-up to the vote, NYCHA officials and the TA board held meetings to push misinformation about PACT to get tenants to vote for it. Tenants organized disruptions at these meetings, exposed these lies in front of attendees, and held their own educational events informing tenants of the realities of PACT. Ultimately, around two-thirds of tenants voted against PACT.

The Fight for Brooklyn’s Largest NYCHA Complex

The fight for a tenant vote has since emerged as a central issue at other NYCHA developments facing PACT conversion, including Red Hook West, Brooklyn’s largest NYCHA complex. There, the TA has promoted PACT through a dedicated website and a series of “community meetings” beginning in September 2025. One tenant told The Worker that only 15 of the complex’s nearly 2,800 tenants were attending these meetings. Many tenants told The Worker they had never heard of the meetings and knew little or nothing about the PACT proposal.

In May 2026, a tenant invited a volunteer from The Worker to attend a “community meeting” hosted by the TA board and representatives from NYCHA. Throughout the meeting, tenants repeatedly pressed TA President Karen Blondel and NYCHA officials on whether tenants would be allowed to vote on the PACT conversion. Blondel and NYCHA officials repeatedly said they would not.

“That is not a possibility,” one NYCHA representative told attendees. “There is not a vote for PACT… Just to be very clear about the answer, there [will] be no vote.”

Since then, tenants have begun organizing to demand a vote by knocking on doors, circulating petitions, and talking with neighbors about the proposed conversion.

“NYCHA is a big beast to tackle,” one tenant told The Worker. “But the thing is, you have to be consistent. If you’re not consistent and persistent, they’ll get their way. You’ve got to keep fighting. It’s a long haul.”

“There’s 500,000 NYCHA residents citywide,” another added. “If we could all get together, I’m sure we could scare the heck out of the mayor.”

Break the Vicious Cycle

Tenants across NYCHA developments are carrying on a historic fight. New York City’s public housing wasn’t handed down from above—it was won during the Great Depression through militant organizing by tenants, including eviction blockades and sit-ins led by the then-revolutionary Communist Party USA.

Only through combat and resistance are the people’s demands conquered. In a system driven by the pursuit of profit, neither private monopolies nor public monopolies will give anything away that is not forced from them.

At the same time, the monopolists with the help of their government will do everything they can to claw back what has been won from them.

Tenants have succeeded in preventing PACT’s rising rents and evictions, but still live in slum conditions. Tenants are being killed by PACT and NYCHA.

The government funnels tax money to expand both low-intensity and open warfare domestically and abroad while public housing and other social programs are left to rot. As the value of the land rises, the government then transfers ownership of public housing to private monopolies, who utilize slum conditions and evictions to force out tenants and construct more profitable developments.

With wealth and ownership concentrated in the hands of a financial oligarchy, regardless of how much housing is public or private, the trend remains the same: slum housing for workers and the poor and mansions for the rich. It does not matter who is in office because the ruling class is the same and the economic laws by which society is organized remain the same.

Ultimately, the solution to private slums is not public slums, but to combine the housing struggle with the struggle for the conquest of power by the working class, to break this vicious cycle.

Image: Red Hook West Houses buildings. Credit: The Worker.

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