It was the muckraker Jacob Riis who famously wrote about how the Lower East Side’s other half lived. Riis was given his due when, in 1949, a public housing complex by Walker & Gillette was named after him in the same neighborhood he opined about. A canonical park at Riis Houses followed in 1966 by M. Paul Friedberg. Following the conclusion to a landmark vote this week, Jacob Riis Houses will stay public. NYCHA residents there have voted to remain in Section 9, instead of converting their public housing campus into a privately managed community under PACT, the same mechanism NYCHA and Related are using to flip Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses. Jacob Riis Houses tenant association (TA) president Daphne Williams supported PACT, but the majority of Riis Houses residents did not. Riis Houses has 1,191 units spread across 13 buildings. In total, 1,034 votes were cast. Of that number, there were 667 votes to remain in Section 9 (the public option), and 367 votes for PACT (privatization). The vote comes after a lengthy, intense fight against PACT by activist groups Cuala Foundation, Rogue Residents, and Concerned Tenants at Jacob Riis against PACT. “The people spoke in a powerful collective voice: public housing needs to remain public,” Cuala Foundation said in a statement shared with AN. Eddie Rodriguez is a member of both Cuala Foundation and Rogue Residents; and Zulay Velazquez is the founder of Concerned Tenants at Jacob Riis, and also Riis Houses’ new president elect. “Our work on the ground showed time and again that not only do residents care about keeping public housing public,” Rodriguez said, “but they want to be part of helping to find solutions for the problems, which are complex.” “I’m still processing the outcome of the vote and everything that’s happened this past year,” Velazquez added. “The vote count surprised me, yet in many ways it aligns closely with the petition count I shared with HUD, NYCHA, and our elected officials before this vote even began. The residents of Jacob A. Riis worked hard this past year—and that hard work paid off.” Across Town NYCHA spokesperson Michael Horgan, after the vote, told AN about concerns moving forward related to maintenance and financing. “Based on the election administrator’s final tally,” Horgan said, “residents from Jacob Riis Houses have elected to keep their development under the traditional Section 9 model. NYCHA does not currently have the ability to address the extensive physical needs at Riis, estimated at over $940 million, with the financial resources available in the Section 9 program.” The voting results at Riis Houses came just days after NYCHA and HPD released the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea (FEC) Houses. The outcome at Riis Houses was met with praise by FEC residents who oppose the demolition plan by PAU, COOKFOX, and ILA. Save Section 9, a public housing advocacy group, also supported the outcome at Riis Houses, and so did Equality for Flatbush, a tenants rights group. Elliott-Chelsea resident Renee Keitt, who opposes demolition, was elected Elliott-Chelsea Houses TA president last January, replacing Darlene Waters, who supported demolition. Jackie Lara, resident of Fulton Houses, told AN “it’s awesome what happened at Riis. I hope we can turn things around here, too.” Today, Lara is running for New York City Council against Erik Bottcher, who supports the FEC Plan. “We have a lot of new allies in the neighborhood that didn’t know what was going on,” Lara added. “We’ve reached out to many of the schools about the shadows the new buildings will create, how long the construction will be, the rats. With Renee, we’re still gathering people to fight this.” “Although the DEIS is over 1,000 pages, it says nothing about the loss of Section 9 public housing and the impact it would have on generations of public housing residents,” Elliott-Chelsea resident Celines Miranda told AN. “2,056 units of precious public housing units will be lost if this demolition goes through.”  “Aside from that,” Miranda continued, “the proposal will create massive problems for the community. FEC Tenants Against Demolition advocates for the first alternative in the DEIS, which is the No-Action Alternative. That would keep us in public housing.”