On Nov. 8, residents from Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea NYC Housing Authority (NYCHA) campuses rallied and marched against developers’ encroachment on public housing, alongside other housing activists, organizers and community members. The main rallying cries, “Defend Public Housing!” and ”No Demolition!” were shouted loud and clear in rallies in front of NYCHA Fulton Houses on West 17th St. and at Elliott-Chelsea Houses on West 27 St., then on to the offices of Related Companies at Hudson Yards.
Despite plans to offer bus rides between locations to elderly tenants using crutches, walkers and wheelchairs, that group was so fired up that they chose to participate in the mile-and-a-half-long march. These seniors, by refusing to move from their homes, are on the front line in stopping the demolition of the NYCHA campuses.
This housing action brought together a uniquely inter-generational, multinational group of organizers and fighters, representing residents, Chelsea neighbors and a wide range of working-class people from around the city who are set on fighting for their right to affordable housing, and who believe that housing should be a right, not a privilege.
A young protester at the rally, Aya, grew up in Chelsea and was there to fight against the displacement of her neighbors, stating: “This is an unprecedented move from NYCHA, and we are standing here to say, that’s not gonna happen, and we are not losing our neighbors!”
Another woman told this reporter that she was out there on her mother’s behalf, noting “she’s eighty-eight years old, and does not need to move from her senior building to a general population [building] – it is not safe and I’m gonna fight til’ the end!”
The crowd carried signs in English, Chinese, Spanish and Polish, reflecting the diversity of the residents of Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses, as they marched up Ninth Ave. and across 33 St. , amidst glass skyscrapers home to global developers such as Blackrock and Related Companies.
A land grab by giant real estate developers
Related Companies – developer of Hudson Yards – is the $70 billion corporation behind the contested plan to destroy Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea residents’ current homes, move the people around and create mostly luxury apartment buildings in their place. NYCHA and local politicians claim that residents will be able to return after years of construction, but residents find this doubtful, and see it as a land grab. This project has been facilitated by RAD/PACT (Rental Assistance Demonstration/Permanent Affordability Commitment Together) a misnamed federal government plan to privatize public housing nationally.
The demolition of the two NYCHA campuses is to start with one building on each campus. In Elliott-Chelsea, governmental and corporate forces are targeting Chelsea Addition, a building with a seniors-only population, many in their 70s, 80s, and 90s, as they are presumed to be less able to fight these removals. They were in for a surprise as many are refusing to move, thereby holding the line for all Chelsea NYCHA residents.
They have faced various forms of coercion and intimidation, both from the city government which manages the complexes and the city’s corporate benefactors. Harassment has included coercion to signing away their Section 9 rights (public housing), to become Section 8 rights (privately run with federal subsidies) which are more amenable to Related Companies’ $2 billion development project.
Most recently mail has stopped being delivered to Chelsea Extension and process servers come during the night knocking on doors and telling the residents they have to move. NYCHA even filed lawsuits in the New State Supreme Court against at least sixteen seniors citizens in the Chelsea Extension building seeking monetary damages from those remained there after the Oct. 26 deadline. The alleged violations are not for illegal activity, but for simply refusing to leave the apartments that many have lived in for years and decades.
This is another story of displacement, and if allowed to go through, has ominous consequences for the future of public housing across New York City, and the mostly low-income black and brown residents that rely on it.
In the words of Lakeisha Taylor, from the Holmes-Isaacs Coalition representing tenants from a NYCHA complex on East 60th Street, “I’ve been through this fight before with NYCHA and you know, if it happens to one, it will happen to us all. Section 9 is extremely important…And it’s really important that we come together and support each other and fight for this.”
Elliott-Chelsea resident Louis A Bertot spoke to the necessity of keeping public housing alive for future generations, attributing his ability to raise two families to the affordability of NYCHA and proximity to his workplace.
With this struggle ongoing since 2019, tenants have passed away in the process, unable to see the housing rights battle through. These fighters are long from gone because the generational torch burns bright, carried by the many residents still engaged in the fight to protect their homes. These organizers are supported by the greater Chelsea community, and a wider array of New Yorkers of conscience, who understand the implications of this fight for the future of housing rights in New York City and beyond.
The energy of this just struggle is palpable, made evident by the many tenants who added themselves to the speaking program of the Hudson Yards rally two-thirds of the way through, to give their impassioned testimony about the fight to keep their homes and the impetus on the larger public to demand public housing as a human right!
Groups such as Stop FEC Demolition, Chelsea Public Housing Coalition’s Direct Action Committee, Amsterdam Houses & Amsterdam Addition Tenant Association, Youth Against Displacement, The Peoples Forum and tenants organizers from Mesa Verde houses attended the march. Holmes-Isaac Coalition (which succeeded in stopping ‘infill’ of their NYCHA playground/plaza by a private realtor) as well as representatives of other 5 NYCHA complexes came to supporting the rally.
Solidarity statements were shared by Coalition to Defend Chinatown and the Lower East Side, Limited Equity and Affordability at Penn South (LEAPS), Communication Workers of America Local 1180 Committee for People with Disabilities, Parents to Improve School Transportation, The Party for Socialism and Liberation, Safety Net Activists at the Urban Justice Center and more.
Above, Renee Keitt, President of the Elliott-Chelsea Tenants Association, addresses the crowd. All photos: Liberation News.
