‘Don’t Trust the Trust’—NYCHA Residents Warn of ‘Slow Exodus of Black and Brown People’

Council Member Chris Banks (center) with residents fighting efforts to privatize NYCHA housing. Photo/Joe Maniscalco

By Joe Maniscalco

The ongoing destruction of what New Yorkers used to count on as “good city jobs” is a certain kind of egregious and boneheaded attack on working class families across the five boroughs—one that’s exemplified by the ongoing campaign to push municipal retirees into a profit-driven “Medicare Dis-Advantage” health insurance program. The privatization of public housing, however, is another.

For decades, New York City Housing Authority [NYCHA] apartments with their rents capped at 30 percent of tenants’ incomes provided low-income, working class families like Brenda Temple’s the stability they needed to give their kids a shot at a better life—AKA the “American Dream.”

“People in public housing are helping their children to catapult out of public housing and to have a better life for themselves,” Temple recently told Work-Bites ahead of a public hearing on NYCHA's privatization plans held at the Borough of Manhattan Community College [BMCC]. “I have one nephew who came out of the Ravenswood Houses who is doing well and living in Tarrytown—he’s a math and science teacher. I have another nephew who writes for Abbot Elementary—he’s in Hollywood right now coming out of public housing.”

One in 17 New Yorkers—or more than 528,000 people—lives in a NYCHA dwelling. It’s the largest public housing authority in North America and consists of 2,411 buildings containing 177,569 apartments.

The working class residents and people of color who live in NYCHA housing, however, insist the agency’s latest campaign to bring in private developers and investors to manage and finance much needed repairs throughout the system, is actually an existential threat to any kind of dignity and upward mobility tenants who live there might have.

That’s largely because the effort being pursued through the RAD [Rental Assistance Demonstration]/PACT [Permanent Affordability Commitment Together] and Preservation Trust programs involves ending Section 9 public housing as we know it, and transforming those units into Section 8 housing—effectively ending existing federal protections tenants have against rent hikes and evictions, in addition to losing their succession rights.

“We are your post office workers, your bus drivers, your cooks and cleaners, your security guards, nurse aides—we take care of your children—so, don't we deserve a quality of life where we can come home and love our families like you do at the end of the day?” Temple says.

Temple lives in the Ocean Bay Apartments (Oceanside) in Far Rockaway, Queens, where she says the sight of NYCHA families being evicted and kicked to the curb has already become commonplace.

“I live across the street from a development that's already privatized under RAD, and they had more people evicted out of that one development than all of New York City public housing developments,” Temple told Work-Bites. “There’s a controversy about that—but we've taken surveys, and I've seen with my own eyes people being put out. We don't know where they’ve gone. We don't know if they went back to the homeless shelter, went to live with family members, or if they're homeless. This is a travesty—this is a slow exodus of the marginalized, Black and brown people in this city.”

The city calls NYCHA’s neglected buildings “unacceptable and unsafe” and says they need more than $78 billion to fully restore and renovate.

Manny Martinez blasts NYCHA’s RAD/PACT and Preservation Trust programs as a “racial corruption scandal attacking a half a million people.” Brenda Temple holds “Stop NYCHA” sign. 

Manny Martinez, head of the South Jamaica Houses Resident Association, however, calls NYCHA’s push for privatization a multi-million dollar “racial corruption scandal” that includes radically shortchanging residents of vital federal monies for Covid relief.

“This is a racial corruption scandal attacking a half a million people,” Martinez said outside BMCC. “Under Section 8 you can only make 80 percent of the household income—in Section 9, you can make 120 percent. For families that have children growing up, who get good jobs, now they’re gonna put their households at risk. [Parents] have to determine, “Can I let him or her get a job because we might not be able to pay the rent.”

New York City Council Member Chris Banks [D-District 42] represents constituents living at roughly 12 different NYCHA developments in his district. He says moving residents from Section 9 to Section 8 housing has been a “complete disaster” and that residents living at four of the NYCHA buildings in his district have already been put through a “living hell.”

“RAD/PACT is a get rich scheme,” Council Member Banks said outside BMCC. “They just come into the community and shove this down your throat…It’s a scam. They use it to profit off of the poor.”

Fellow New York City Council Member Chris Marte [D-1st District] also denounced the privatization push and called for more NYCHA residents to become “decision makers.”

“When NYCHA was run by residents there was never a deficit,” he said. “We want more NYCHA residents to be the decision makers because they have the lived experience; they understand the numbers. They are ready to do the right changes to make sure we are protected and [can] live with dignity and pride.”

NYCHA is currently run by a seven-person board appointed by the mayor—only three of which are NYCHA residents.

“We are a community of people that have gone through some stuff,” Temple said. “But we support one another, we love on one another. We argue and we fight, but we get along because we understand each other's fight and each other's plight. That's why we need to stay a community. We need to grow together and change together in the face of whatever life throws at us.” 

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