Public housing residents from developments across the city boarded a bus to go to the farthest reaches of the five boroughs.
Waiki did not want to give us her last name, but she has lived in Fulton Houses in Chelsea for 15 years.
"I have been very interested since they started talking about converting it to RAD or doing affordable housing," she said.
RAD is a program NYCHA will use to infuse new money into deteriorating developments. A third of its property will get turned over to the program — leasing buildings to private, nonprofit developers who promise to fix and renovate them.
On Thursday, residents at developments slated for this program had a chance to see what one converted development is really like.
They headed east.
Melanie Aucello was among the skeptics.
She's lived at a NYCHA building in Kips Bay for 10 years. In June, the city announced it would soon be managed by a private developer.
"Where are the residents gonna be when these rehabs take place?" she asked. “We have handicapped. We have people with asthma. NYCHA has never looked out for us before with lead, with asbestos. Sometimes I still wake up and there is no hot water."
But she boarded the bus anyway and an hour or so later, they were in the Rockaways.
It's a NYCHA development now managed by a private nonprofit — Ocean Bay.
It's the shining example for NYCHA of its new policy—one that brings fear of privatization from skeptical residents.
It comes with a garden, basketball courts, and renovated lobbies. The apartments were all renovated.
It was a hard sell from NYCHA and its private partners, one that received a positive review from Waiki from Fulton Houses.
"It was beautiful," she told us. "The floor, new appliances, that's a plus. That's good."
But in the end it didn't sway Aucello — she's still skeptical.
"There's a lot of misinformation," Aucello said. "There’s a lot of fear. A lot of residents are not going to trust NYCHA or anyone who has let us live with lead and asbestos and crime and vermin and we are still living with it now."