‘Keep Public Housing Public’

The New York City Housing Authority has nearly 400,000 tenants living in 173,160 apartments. These NYCHA apartments are called public housing and “the projects,” making them the largest public housing project in the country.

NYCHA has neglected repairs for decades, as the city government says it cannot afford to pay for the necessary fixes. Instead, the city government has schemed with private realty companies, already giving them over a third of the public housing. The big real estate industry is now actively replacing low-income housing with so-called market-rate housing.

As earlier reported, the mostly Black and Latinx NYCHA tenants are fighting against this privatization of their neighborhoods. Pictured here is the May 4 demonstration at Fulton Housing. Tenants, in English and Spanish, insisted that “We will not be moved!”  Some spoke of having lived there for 50 years, some for generations. There is no affordable alternative to move to. The solidarity shown could be heard in an old but favorite chant: “The people united will never be defeated! ¡El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!”