When Vivian Legions walks through the door of her apartment at the Berry Street-South 9th Street Houses, she feels much better than she did before it went under extensive renovations.

"I feel good, not embarrassed anymore because of what was not getting fixed," Legions said. "We needed renovations like ASAP."

Legions is a public housing tenant in the New York City Housing Authority development in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Her apartment used to be much different — chronic leaks, back ups and faulty appliances.

"Before the renovations, the cabinets were falling off the hinges. We would have to fix them ourselves or wait until NYCHA comes and fixes them. It took awhile," she said.

Now, she says when she brings friends over, they love it.

"They can't believe it's the same apartment," she said.

Across the street from Legions' apartment, acting U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Adrianne Todman took a tour of the housing development and spoke with the team that renovated the public housing units.

"The work in this complex was comprehensive, there was really nothing we didn't touch," Abdulla Darrat, construction management director at Paths Construction, which handled the renovations, said.

NYCHA's list of repairs and upgrades totals $78 billion.

Now, there are programs that let private companies do this work in a much faster and more efficient way — and NYCHA residents can vote on participating.

"NYCHA's leadership has been on the path to get more units repaired like this," Todman said. "A path that we think is a good one and should be sustained."

A key part of these repair programs is tenant protection vouchers that allow residents who need to vacate their units the ability to return once repairs are complete.

HUD is putting $37 million toward those vouchers.

NYCHA CEO Lisa Bova-Hiatt said her team is working with HUD to make sure the city's housing authority is regularly getting that funding for these vouchers.

"We're not concerned there's going to be a shortage, we've been working with HUD," Bova-Hiatt said.

The renovations don't stop at the apartments. Solar panels got installed on the roof so clean energy can be pumped into the grid.

"This is really exciting to see this and one of the things we're trying to do is to make sure that we're working better with our other housing partners so deals like this happen more quickly and it's not slowed down," Todman said.

Legions was a former tenant associate president who helped organize her neighbors in support of the renovations program at the Berry Street-South 9th Street Houses.

While some residents have feared losing their apartment if they switch, Legions said the residents at Berry Street-South 9th Street Houses were able to return and "come back to a beautiful apartment, renovated, better than what you had."