Starting Wednesday at noon, residents at NYCHA’s Hylan Houses in Bushwick, Brooklyn, will have 30 days to vote on whether they want to stay in the Section 9 program or join one of two other models for raising repair money: PACT or the Preservation Trust.
Adi Talwar
June 26 2024: A door next to the Coney Island Houses Voters Engagement Office, 3002 Surf Avenue, 3F, Brooklyn 11224.
Starting Wednesday at noon, residents at NYCHA’s Hylan Houses in Bushwick, Brooklyn, will have 30 days to vote on whether they want to stay in the Section 9 program or join one of two other models for raising repair money: PACT or the Preservation Trust.
The campus, home to around 410 tenants in a single building at Moore and Humboldt streets, is the fifth NYCHA complex to vote on how to pay for repairs, as the housing authority struggles to address billions in needed renovations following decades of insufficient funding from the federal government.
Are you a Hylan Houses tenant? Send us your questions about the vote, or about the options on your ballot, by emailing NYCHA reporter Tatyana Turner: Tatyana@citylimits.org
Hylan Houses on its own is in need of approximately $90 million in maintenance and repairs over the next two decades, according to NYCHA.
“Conditions are really dire in Hylan,” said Lucy Newman, supervising attorney of the Public Housing Unit at The Legal Aid Society, which has been doing voter outreach work at the campus to encourage tenants to cast their ballots. The 19-story building currently has just one working elevator, she added—the second is undergoing repairs—and also suffers from issues with leaking pipes that cause moisture in the walls.
“Our whole goal in this whole process is just to answer people’s questions that they may have around the choices that are put before them, and support them with information so that they can…work out what they want,” said Newman.
Tenants can vote for one of three options: they can choose to remain in the federal Section 9 program, as they are now—which NYCHA officials say provides limited funding to deal with its repair needs—or convert to alternative models.
Those options are the Preservation Trust or the Permanent Affordability Commitment Together (PACT) program. Both shift apartments from Section 9 to Section 8, another federal housing program, which offers expanded government funding and unlocks other revenue streams, like issuing bonds.
Under PACT, NYCHA continues to own the development but leases it out to private developers or nonprofits, which then handle the repair work and day-to-day operations.
Under Preservation Trust—which was signed into law in 2022—units are transferred to the Trust, a new public entity, but NYCHA retains management responsibilities at the campus. Under both Trust and PACT, residents retain most of the same rights and protections as Section 9, including paying no more than 30 percent of their income on rent.
Three of the four campuses to previously take part in a vote opted for the Preservation Trust, while residents at the Coney Island Houses this summer chose to remain in Section 9, the first to do so.
NYCHA has also selected a number of campuses to convert to PACT without a vote. Since 2017, it has brought, or started planning the transfer of, more than 37,000 units into the program—which is New York City’s version of the federal Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) initiative. The shift is expected to bring in $13.2 billion for collective repairs, officials have said.
Newman says her organization typically fields a number of questions from tenants during the voting process, including where they’ll go when renovations eventually start on their units (typically, NYCHA holds some apartments empty on a campus to house people temporarily, or will look for vacant units at developments nearby).
Another common concern, she said, is around responsibilities for repairs and maintenance before a campus converts to PACT or the Trust—a transition that can take time before repair work actually starts. For example, at Nostrand Houses in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, which was the first NYCHA campus to vote to join the Trust, officials said the conversion process would take a year and a half to two years, after which apartment inspections would be scheduled, and later, renovations.
“NYCHA residents, just like every other private tenant in New York City, have the right to live in safe, habitable homes, and NYCHA, as their landlord, is obligated under law to provide them with those living conditions,” Newman said.
“If they choose Trust or PACT, until that conversion happens, NYCHA remains the landlord and has to maintain conditions that comply with law, whether that’s heat or water, adequate security for the doors and access to the buildings, repair needs in apartments, fixing leaks, mold,” she added. “They still are obligated to comply with those obligations.”
Any person listed on the household composition of an apartment at Hylan Houses who is over the age of 18 can take part in the vote, and can do so online starting Wednesday at noon and through Dec. 12 at 9 p.m.
Tenants can also submit their ballots by mail as long as they’re postmarked no later than Dec. 12, and in-person voting will take place during the last 10 days of the voting period from Dec. 3-12, from 12 to 8 p.m., at the Hylan Houses. More information on the vote is included in the NYCHA flier below.
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