City Limits, BYTAREQ SAGHIE, Dec 7, 2025

Lydia Díaz was living in a dilapidated New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) apartment in 2021 when she got the news. Her building, part of the Harlem River Houses, would be the latest handed to private developers as part of the Permanent Affordability Commitment Together (PACT) program. The conversion would bring millions of dollars for renovations, but also make her a Section 8 tenant of a new private landlord.

Upset that they were denied a voice in the decision to join PACT and worried they would lose rights in exchange for poor-quality repairs, Díaz and other tenants sued to stop it. But it was too late. The new companies took over, remodeled the buildings, and started managing them as they saw fit, all without the outside oversight that existed under full public control.

Since then, her new landlord, Harlem River Preservation LLC, with its management company C+C, has tried to evict her three times, most recently in August for under $500 in unpaid rent.

“I want to feel like this is my home. I only feel like I settle here. I don’t feel like it’s my home,” said Díaz, who is 68 and has lived in her Harlem apartment, in the northern part of Manhattan, for 16 years. She grew up in southern New Jersey to parents from Puerto Rico and has experienced homelessness in the past.

The new kitchen window in Lydia Díaz’s apartment at the Harlem River Houses opens only a few inches. The window was installed as part of NYCHA’s PACT renovation program.

NYCHA has handed more than 39,000 units of public housing to private developers since 2016 as part of the PACT program, which is an implementation of the federal 2012 Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) program. While NYCHA, a public-benefit corporation governed by a mayor-appointed board, historically manages its own properties, the program leases chosen developments to private companies if they undertake massive and long-overdue renovations.

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