In July, she had a confrontation with a caretaker who claimed that Ms. Kenner hit her. Ms. Kenner said she never touched the woman. The property manager for Van Dyke sent Ms. Kenner a letter warning that her lease was being considered for termination. The reasons cited were “non-desirability” because of “physical assault against a Nycha employee” and “chronic rent delinquency.”

Ms. Kenner has paid rent late 10 times in the past year, according to Housing Authority records.

In her defense, Ms. Kenner said she tried to pay her rent every month but sometimes did not have enough money to cover all of it. She said that she did not know she had been carrying a rent balance, and that she had not previously received late notices. Housing officials said Ms. Kenner’s monthly rent bill indicated the outstanding balance.

Image Ms. Kenner, in the purple shirt. Credit... Damon Winter/The New York Times

“They’re trying to get me out because I stay up on stuff,” Ms. Kenner said. “It’s not that I’m looking out for me. I’m looking out for everybody.”

Van Dyke, which was completed in 1955, has been drawn into efforts to help alleviate the city’s shortage of affordable housing. The Housing Authority plans to sell an underused parking lot there to a nonprofit developer for a 12-story rental building with support services for low-income and homeless families. Housing officials said the proceeds from the sale, expected to be $1.8 million, would be reinvested in Van Dyke.

The plan has angered some residents, who say that the complex is crowded enough and that it has become a “dumping ground” for the poor. Ms. Kenner sees a more complex equation. She said that while she hated to lose what little Van Dyke had, she could not oppose the plan. “Who am I to stop anyone from living in a decent place?” she asked.