In Honor of Hispanic Heritage Month: Meet Milytza Diaz-Vega

For Milytza Diaz-Vega, helping others has shaped both her professional life and her family’s remarkable journey. As Program Manager of NYCHA’s Elevated Blood Lead Level (EBLL) Unit, she leads a team whose work helps protect some of the Authority’s most vulnerable residents: children.

Her story begins in Puerto Rico, where she was born into a family that already counted New York City as its second home.

“I’m the only one of four siblings who was born in Puerto Rico,” Ms. Diaz-Vega recalled. Her parents moved between that southern island and this northern one — Manhattan — before settling here, where she grew up.

Throughout her city-kid childhood, her parents emphasized preserving their beloved Puerto Rican heritage.

“They were very strict about making sure that I continued to follow my roots,” she said. That meant mastering Spanish, participating in Spanish-language spelling bees, and keeping the family’s traditions alive.

Ms. Diaz-Vega earned a full scholarship to St. Michael’s Academy, an all-girls Catholic high school in Manhattan, before attending St. John’s University.

She began her career at St. Luke’s Hospital (now Mount Sinai Morningside), where she rose through the ranks over nearly a decade. Her responsibilities came to include overseeing the Pediatric and Pharmaceutical departments while also collaborating with the NYC Health Department to ensure organization-wide compliance with official U.S. standards of care – over 250 quality, patient safety, and regulatory standards that are recognized and followed in over 22,000 U.S. medical institutions.

After marrying and welcoming their first child, a daughter, Ms. Diaz-Vega and her husband, an electrical engineer, ventured south to build a life in Puerto Rico. Their son was born there, and they intended to raise both children on the island.

But in 2017, Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico. Their family then faced another, even more urgent challenge: their young son needed surgery. Without it, they were told, he might remain permanently nonverbal.

“So, we just packed up and moved back,” Ms. Diaz-Vega recalled.

That difficult decision opened an unexpectedly wonderful new chapter. Their son, now a high school freshman, has made extraordinary progress.

Promoted to EBLL Unit Program Manager in 2022, Ms Diaz-Vega works closely
with office and field staff. “I love this team!” she said.

“He was supposed to be nonverbal – and he’s so not!” she laughed, adding that these days she sometimes tells him he talks too much.

His progress, and his mother’s tireless efforts to support him, also inspired his older sister, who is now completing her degree in special education and is planning graduate studies in speech therapy.

“She saw the effort and the hard work I did with my son,” Ms. Diaz-Vega explained. Now her daughter hopes to make a similar difference in other children’s lives.

When the family returned to New York, with two young children to care for, Ms. Diaz-Vega needed to find work. In 2018, she interviewed for a temporary position at NYCHA, was hired, and began just two days later. She’s been with the Authority ever since.

Promoted to EBLL Unit Program Manager in 2022, she works closely with office and field staff to protect residents’ health and safety.

For Ms. Diaz-Vega, one of the job’s greatest rewards is the team she herself helped build.

“I love this team!” she said. “I love the way that we all synchronize, that everybody works together and everybody’s on the same page.”

That dedication has earned recognition beyond NYCHA. In February 2023, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development commended Ms. Diaz-Vega and two colleagues for their work overseeing lead safety in the nation’s largest public housing portfolio.

“We’re small, but mighty – very, very powerful,” she said of her unit, which resides within the Healthy Homes Department’s Lead Hazard Control Department.

Away from work, family remains central to her life. Although Ms. Diaz-Vega has spent more of her life in New York City than anywhere else, Puerto Rico remains closest to her heart.

Her journey — from Puerto Rico to Manhattan, through healthcare, motherhood, and public service — reflects a heritage rooted not only in language, culture, and tradition but also in resilience, family, community, and love.

Those values continue to find expression in the work she does at NYCHA every day.