Tenant Advocates Say Elderly Chelsea Residents Are Being ‘Coerced’ Into Moving Out
Despite community opposition, the New York City Housing Authority is insisting the Fulton & Elliott Chelsea Houses in Manhattan will be demolished. Above: Chelsea Addition apartment directory on W.27th Drive appears to have been cleared with elderly tenants still residing in the building.
By Joe Maniscalco
The New York City Housing Authority stepped up its efforts to clear out the elderly residents living in the Chelsea Addition in Manhattan this week, forcible attempting to relocate one resident against her will, according to reports and flatly telling everyone there that their building “will be demolished.”
Tenant advocates responded quickly on Wednesday afternoon after receiving word that NYCHA had dispatched movers to the elderly widow’s home and boxed up her belongings in preparation for relocation.
“The whole place was a mess because they’d been in there moving her stuff out,” Midtown South Community Council President John Mudd told Work-Bites. “They basically coerced her, or lied to her, whatever, to sign [papers]. She was insistent about not moving—that’s one thing she was sure about.”
Work-Bites is protecting the elderly resident’s anonymity, but other tenant advocates we spoke to also say the tenant does not want to leave her current apartment inside 436 W. 27th Drive and was actually coerced into signing papers agreeing to be relocated to another apartment on the Elliott-Chelsea campus.
A majority of tenants living in NYCHA’s Fulton & Elliott-Chelsea [FEC] public houses on the west side of Manhattan are actively and vociferously opposing plans to demolish their communities so that private developers can move in and start building a towering new complex of mostly market rate luxury housing over the next two decades.
Boxes are stacked up outside the apartment of a Chelsea Addition tenant’s home on Oct. 29. Tenant advocates say the tenant was coerced into signing papers agreeing to be relocated.
NYCHA and the outgoing Adams administration insist the scheme to lease out the public housing properties to Related Companies for 99 years—architects of the nearby Hudson Yards mega-development—is the best way to realize a much smaller smattering of so-called “affordable housing” units.
But FEC tenants opposed to the demolition plan say it’s nothing but a naked land grab and are demanding a binding vote on the project. They’ve also been in court to block any further advancement of the plan. Community Board 4 voted down the demolition plan last month.
Tenants further insist NYCHA has failed to provide any evidence that maintaining and repairing the FEC houses would be more costly than completely demolishing them and constructing an entirely new complex of mostly market rate buildings.
Local elected officials, including Council Member Erik Bottcher, Assembly Member Tony Simone, State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal, and Congress Member Jerry Nadler, however, have all ignored the reality on the ground and continue to back the demolition and privatization plan.
The sample lease cover letter Chelsea Addition tenants began receiving this week treats the demolition as a fait accompli. “NYCHA is in the process of redeveloping the Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea campuses through the PACT program. Buildings will be demolished in phases and replaced with new, state-of-the-art residences for NYCHA tenants,” it says.
PACT [Permanent Affordability Commitment Together] is the program giving NYCHA the ability to move apartments out of Section 9 housing and into Section 8—a deft move that further allows NYCHA to “unlock” funding from private and non-profit developers interesting in big returns.
Copy of the sample PACT resident lease Chelsea Addition tenants began receiving this week.
The seniors living in the Chelsea Addition—many of them well into their lates 70s, 80s, and beyond—do not want to leave their current apartments where they feel safe and are supported by community. They also do not want to lose their Section 9 housing protections. Longtime resident Marina Aloy was reportedly waging a five-year battle against cancer when she received a vacate notice telling her she had to move out by Sept. 15, and died just a few days before that date.
Tenant advocates filed a complaint with the State Attorney General Office’s Housing Protection Unit following Wednesday’s incident at the Chelsea Addition, raising serious concerns about elder abuse and tenant harassment.
“Packing a tenant’s belongings against her stated wishes and deploying police to compel compliance, absent a court order of eviction, raises concerns under New York’s unlawful eviction and harassment prohibitions,” Layla Law-Gisiko, Democratic District Leader for Assembly District 75, wrote this week.
“Some Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea residents are resisting removal. It won't be a good look if they're harassed into leaving, especially seniors,” Community Board 4 Land Use Committee member David Holowka told Work-Bites. “The buildings can't be demolished until they're vacant and we still have a way to go.”
A NYCHA spokesperson asked to respond this week to charges of elder abuse and coercion at the Chelsea Addition, instead touted the “redevelopment of Fulton & Elliott-Chelsea,” and how it will allegedly “address over $900 million in mounting physical needs while maintaining residents rights and protections and delivering a more equitable living experience for NYCHA residents in Chelsea.”
Sign welcomes visitors to NYCHA’s Chelsea Elliott Houses in Manhattan—it could soon be demolished.
“Nearly every resident will be able to remain in their existing apartments until their new homes are built, while just over 100 households are being temporarily relocated to refreshed units on the campus,” the NYCHA spokesperson continued. “This process has and continues to be clearly communicated as we take the next steps to ensure this redevelopment project is delivered as promised to the benefit of 2,056 NYCHA households, including the over 80 households that have completed their moves or are currently relocating to refreshed apartments on campus to await the construction of their new homes.”
NYCHA residents and their supporters opposed to demolition of the FEC Houses plan to take to the streets on Saturday, Nov. 8. FEC tenants, as well as public housing tenants at the Amsterdam and Amsterdam Addition are expected to begin assembling outside their buildings at noon before marching on the offices of Related Companies, located at 30 Hudson Yards, for a 2 p.m. rally.
Holowka still believes Community Board 4’s opposition to the demolition plan will “carry weight in the post-election political reality.”
“A new mayor might be moved by the community's rejection of the plan, which emerged under now-disgraced [Mayor] Adams,” he added. “Other newly elected officials may also be influenced. We'll soon have a new Manhattan Borough President who could break ranks and start a movement against the plan.”
Communities often lose planning battles—but that’s no reason not to fight them, Holowka continued.
“Especially when they're as dishonest, unjust, destructive, and environmentally backward as this one,” he said. “CB4 would have lost credibility as a grassroots voice for the public, which has vociferously opposed the plan, had it not opposed it.”