NYCHA announced in June 2023 that it planned to lease the land under the Fulton and the Elliot-Chelsea Houses (FEC)—on two separate sites between West 16th Street and West 27th Drive, between Ninth and Tenth avenues—to The Related Companies and Essence Realty, through the city’s PACT (Permanent Affordability Commitment Together) program. The developers would gradually tear down the public-housing buildings, which hold 2,056 apartments, and move their residents to new buildings in the federal Section 8 program as they are completed. It would also construct about 2,500 luxury and about 1,000 so-called “affordable” apartments on the same land.

Fulton 11 and the Chelsea Addition senior housing are the first two buildings scheduled to be demolished. Before then, NYCHA needs to complete “Phase 0”: the relocation of the 132 households in those buildings, 6% of the FEC developments’ residents. They would move to “comparable” temporary apartments during the demolition and construction, and move again to new apartments.

The plan would privatize the buildings’ management, moving them from Section 9, federal law covering traditional public housing, to Section 8, in which the government pays the landlord the difference between 30% of the tenant’s income and an amount slightly below the median market rent in the area—well over $3,000 a month in Chelsea.

NYCHA and Housing Opportunities Unlimited (HOU), a Boston-based tenant-relocation company, have been pressuring tenants to relocate since last July, when Fulton 11 and Chelsea Addition residents received notices that they would have to move within 90 days.

Since then, 30 of the 36 units in Fulton 11 have been vacated. Renee Keitt, the Elliot-Chelsea Tenants’ Association president, estimates 20 out of the 96 units in Chelsea Addition are still occupied. NYCHA has been concentrating its pressure on the remaining Fulton 11 tenants, she said.

“Everybody grew up together. Kids have known each other since diapers,” Santiago said. “They turned a lot of family and friends against each other. That’s something we can never get back.”

Santiago said they have faced indirect harassment. He said NYCHA nailed shut the garbage chute, claiming it was for maintenance; locked the playground and basketball courts for Fulton 11; and that cleaning staff they used to see daily stopped coming.

The heat and hot water in the building have been on and off since late August, he added, and over the holidays there was none at all. Santiago said he and the other tenants put in maintenance tickets for these issues, but nothing was resolved. It wasn’t until he went in person to the NYCHA office and confronted them that the chute and parks reopened, and they got back heat and hot water.

“We slept with sweatpants, sweaters, jackets, hats. With the windows closed, it felt like we were sleeping outside,” Santiago said.

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