As NYCHA Plans Chelsea Tenant Relocations, Some Residents Ask: What Happens to a Community When You Move It?

Approximately of the households being urged to temporarily relocate are seniors A few faced with moving contend that it goes beyond four walls and a ceiling but threatens the district and sponsorship networks that have sustained them through their later years Tenants protest NYCHA s demolition plans outside the Fulton Houses area center in September Adi Talwar City Limits Chelsea Addition a New York City community housing building for seniors sits just blocks from Hudson Yards Built in and framed by evergreen shrubs a wispy curving pine and London Plane trees that dot the surrounding campus it s home to a diverse and tight-knit group of older adults plenty of of whom have lived in citizens housing their whole lives In the lobby flyers advertise meeting nights and dance lessons in the Elliott society center housed in the same building Residents greet each other as they come and go holding doors or stopping to chat function d u ac var s d createElement 'script' s type 'text javascript' s src 'https a omappapi com app js api min js' s async true s dataset user u s dataset campaign ac d getElementsByTagName 'head' appendChild s document 'zwcugqstyjmfwec wgkn' For particular tenants however these everyday rhythms will soon change In late July the New York City Housing Authority NYCHA sent notices that residents will have to move out of their apartments within three months Chelsea Addition is the first of buildings slated to be demolished and replaced at the Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses FEC part of a years-long contentious redevelopment project meant to preserve the general housing complex in Manhattan s wealthy Chelsea neighborhood While the greater part of the roughly FEC tenants will remain in their current homes as the replacement buildings are constructed an estimated households will be relocated to other buildings in the complex and moved back once new and modernized towers are completed Approximately of the households being urged to move are seniors Various faced with moving contend that it goes beyond four walls and a ceiling but threatens the district and patronage networks that have sustained them through their later years With a area center in the same building being relocated off campus during construction residents fear losing access to critical services such as mental soundness counseling and social programs and worry about the emotional and physical toll of moving An -year old Chelsea Addition resident speaking on the condition of anonymity as they feared harassment from relocation coordinators and management says that as a senior her neighbors are her primary source of encouragement She moved to Chelsea Addition four years ago from another building on campus where a gun fight once broke out just outside her front door She says she feels so safe in her current apartment that she can go downstairs to see a neighbor and leave her door unlocked When I got sick people help ed she disclosed The woman fears what will happen if she and her neighbors are separated during construction This is my family now I have to move again and we can t see each other even This one move to here this one move to here how can we connect she added I lose my society again this is a terrible thing and lose my safety peace again when I live with somebody different NYCHA s Chelsea Addition a senior housing building from which tenants are being relocated this fall to make way for demolition and rebuild Adi Talwar City Limits The relocation plan Chelsea Addition the Elliott-Chelsea Houses and the nearby Fulton Houses are slated to be demolished as part of their selection for the Permanent Affordability Commitment Together PACT initiative It allows NYCHA to contract with private developers to rehabilitate society housing under the federal Section operation which is more lucrative than NYCHA s traditional long underfunded Section PACT projects are typically only focused on rehabilitation and in Related Companies which built the massive glossy Hudson Yards complex further west and Essence Progress were selected to manage the rehab of FEC In NCYHA s board approved a plan to tear down and replace the properties saying the cost to fix them was much higher than initially held making full demolition the only viable option Officers have also pointed to a survey which shows the majority of residents in favor of demolition though a number of tenants have questioned its accuracy When the project is complete community housing residents will be moved into six reconstructed high-rise buildings three at the Fulton campus and three at the Elliott-Chelsea campus The redevelopment plan also includes the creation of additional residential buildings on both sites that will house thousands of new mixed-income units a mixture of market-rate and affordable apartments The Fulton Houses campus after construction is complete The Elliott-Chelsea campus after construction is complete both renderings are from NYCHA s relocation plan While the majority of residents will stay in their homes until the new buildings are finished residents of Chelsea Addition and Fulton Houses Building will be moved into vacant apartments across the campus for a period of at least four years The Elliott Center a area center located in Chelsea Addition will also need to be relocated off-site according to NYCHA s -page relocation plan All residents are legally guaranteed the right to return Six of the buildings slated for demolition will be converted to Section this fall After that a subsidiary of Related-Essence will be able to collect federal subsidies equivalent to market-rate rents though tenants in those buildings and in all others slated for future conversion will still contribute only percent of their income toward rent as was the affair previously Section rents vary by ZIP code For the six buildings slated for demolition that means one-bedrooms will draw either or depending on location The developers will collect subsidies from the buildings slated for demolition for at least the next three years a practice the tenant organization Stop FEC Demolition which has been fighting the plan condemned as an act of dispossession in an August open letter Tenants in Chelsea Addition Fulton s Building will begin moving into their temporary replacement units by Oct Related-Essence has contracted relocation coordinators from Housing Opportunities Unlimited HOU to manage all aspects of the moves from disseminating notices to physically assisting residents with their belongings While NYCHA does not anticipate that residents will be moved off campus the plan contends that it is a possibility if no suitable replacement unit can be uncovered on site either way all residents will retain their right to return NYCHA has identified prospective replacement units but revealed they will not be finalized until residents receive their -day move notice later in September The relocation plan also stipulates that residents will be entitled to moving assistance and that they will continue to pay percent of their income in rent after moving While NYCHA is legally required to replace each unit one-for-one the agency has considerable discretion over unit and bedroom size and concedes that in several cases families may have to remain in their replacement units after construction is complete if there isn t an appropriately sized apartment for their household available According to the plan residents who do not comply with the moving process which NYCHA defines as refusing to move refusing to meet with management or relocation coordinators regarding moving or otherwise failing to cooperate could face eviction Any evictions would be carried out by the property management company hired by Related-Essence A December audit by the New York City Comptroller s Office located that PACT properties have a significantly higher rate of evictions than developments managed by NYCHA The housing authority disputed those findings at the time saying that there were still very scarce evictions under PACT Chelsea Addition Located at W th Dr Adi Talwar City Limits While the FEC relocation plan states that eviction will be employed only as a last resort a spokesperson for NYCHA did not respond to multiple requests for clarification on this specific agenda nor did they define what failure to cooperate in the moving process entails Of the tenants interviewed for this article none were aware of the relocation plan or had read it with the exception of Fulton Houses tenant leader Miguel Acevedo Andrew Sklar deputy press secretary for NYCHA commented in a announcement that NYCHA will continue individual outreach to residents in the coming weeks to ensure their requirements are met The PACT partner and HOU have been working directly with the households that are required to relocate since the fall of with preliminary engagement from NYCHA in the form of one-to-one sessions and town halls dating back to he mentioned in a declaration by email In addition to the -day notices handed out in July tenants were given information about free legal assistance Sklar added Information about relocations and the plan have been provided at all resident meetings this year bulk of late at NYCHA meetings on August and We are committed to providing a smooth transition for all residents who are required to move apartments he commented However a large number of residents have expressed considerable confusion about the process and what lays in store for them in the coming months and years I think it s very scary for elderly people to go through this trauma What happens with NYCHA is NYCHA doesn t explain anything says Alexa Aviles a -year old resident of Chelsea Addition who reported she felt the previous district meetings were not helpful Tenants divided Acevedo the tenant association president of Fulton Houses says that widespread misinformation is responsible for stoking fear among residents particularly from those who don t live in residents housing or who aren t affiliated with NYCHA or Related-Essence You guys who are against this plan that don t live here you re more than welcome to come stay six months in Fulton Houses especially in the winter and you ll see how close to us being condemned we live he reported NYCHA s Fulton Houses Tenants Association President Miguel Acevedo Adi Talwar City Limits According to the plan s Environmental Impact Declaration FEC residents experience persistent heat and hot water outages elevator outages mold and leaks in addition to other issues arising from outdated building systems with the -year capital need for the complex sitting at roughly billion Acevedo acknowledged that fear is a natural response to being stated to move but that the overall neighborhood will benefit immensely from fully reconstructed buildings which cash-strapped NYCHA says are only workable via conversion to PACT since the Section campaign has been underfunded for decades You put yourself in their shoes and you understand the binding issues they re dealing with financially Financially they can t afford to keep these buildings because they can t afford to maintain them he explained Related-Essence says the new replacement apartments will boast amenities like dishwashers and in-unit washers and dryers and that the rehab will also bring an affordable healthy grocer a healthcare facility retail stores and additional outdoor recreational spaces to the constituents housing campuses Why shouldn t we live better in a locality that has been gentrified in the last so a great number of years Now we have an opportunity to be a part of that gentrification Acevedo mentioned A doorman a rooftop everything that those other units in these buildings have we can match that and be the same as them but it s society housing residents However countless residents anxious about relocation say that there is one fundamental aspect of their homes that cannot be rebuilt the society they have created together and rely on for patronage Delores McClain a lifelong FEC resident and mother of an adult child with a disability credits longstanding neighborhood ties with easing specific of the burden of caring for her son who is not mobile It s hard enough raising a child that has special requirements she disclosed To take us out from our comfort zone when you have a child like mine and you have neighbors that have accepted him that took a lot to get people to understand She says that her current apartment floods frequently after NYCHA attempted to re-model the bathroom to be ADA compliant She says that at this point she would move anywhere that would be able to accommodate her son s demands but that she wants to be able to stay in Chelsea To take all of that away now we gotta move to a new region learn new people learn new strategies McClain added They don t realize that they re literally taking away people s lives Displacement worries persist Research on the relocation of population housing residents under the HOPE VI project a federal initiative in the s and s to redevelop population housing which relocated tens of thousands of residents has shown that displacement can have crucial impacts on wellbeing particularly by disrupting society ties Another survey exposed that waiting for redevelopment often manifested in new or worsened mental physical condition conditions for residents particularly among those who already had existing physical condition problems The senior center at NYCHA s Fulton Houses Adi Talwar City Limits NYCHA previously communicated City Limits that comparisons between the FEC rehab and the displacement experienced under the now-defunct HOPE VI activity are misguided and unjustified particularly since the current plan will keep the vast majority of tenants in their homes until the new ones are completed But for those who need to relocate fears persist Maria Santos a tenant of Chelsea Addition worried about how the move will affect her neighbors numerous of whom speak little or no English A lot of the tenants they re already people that have wellbeing issues and a lot of them have gotten even worse because they re nervous they re scared and they don t know what to do she says The FEC campus includes on-site mental robustness counseling at the Elliott Center in Chelsea Addition Operated by the nonprofit Hudson Guild the center also offers a society events space after-school campaign early childhood classroom basketball court and performance theater The center will be relocated to a location a block away from the FEC campus on th Street A representative for the Elliott Center did not respond to a request for comment on how the center will continue to encouragement residents during the transition or whether they anticipate any disruption in services A multitude of residents opposed to demolition are not sitting by passively In early August dozens of seniors gathered outside of Chelsea Addition to protest relocation and members of the Stop FEC Demolition group staged a protest march on Saturday which ended in front of local Councilmember Erik Bottcher s home Bottcher supports the current plan Certain residents along with organizers affiliated with the group Fight for NYCHA have filed an Article petition a legal action in New York that allows people to challenge decisions made by a governing body agency In this situation tenants are using it to question the legality of NYCHA s relocation and demolition plans Community housing tenants and advocates protesting the demolition plan outside Councilmember Erik Bottcher s office on Sept City Limits Adi Talwar In response to the -day notices they also filed a temporary restraining order a court request to pause the relocations while their legal challenge is considered Luis Flores an organizer with Fight for NYCHA assisted the tenants in filing the petition but acknowledged that time is running out We re in a very tight predicament now because of the -day notice We need to get in front of a judge but because we don t have a lawyer I don t know what that process is he stated Flores says residents feel they need stronger assistance from those they believe can affect change and questioned why major advocacy groups have not taken further procedures to represent tenants It s been very frustrating he explained We feel fully alone While NYCHA anticipates relocated residents will need to remain in their replacement apartments for three to four years particular seniors say that timeline feels impossible One resident speaking on condition of anonymity declared several of her neighbors are elderly and in fragile soundness and that being petitioned to move during this stage of life feels particularly overwhelming Old people only have future for the upcoming day she commented Old people only think about the coming day not think about two years three years To reach the editor contact Jeanmarie citylimits org Want to republish this story Find City Limits reprint procedures here The post As NYCHA Plans Chelsea Tenant Relocations Particular Residents Ask What Happens to a District When You Move It appeared first on City Limits