“The bad situation we saw in the apartments during this tour was excessive.” This is how the Ombudsman of the City of New York Jumaane Williams described the terrible conditions in which most of the units of the residential complex of the 303 of Vernon Avenue, in Brooklyn, and therefore condemned again the negligence of the Public Housing Authority (NYCHA), which forces thousands of low-income New Yorkers to live with insecurity and unhealthiness.
“What is happening here clearly has to do with a lack of funds, but it is also mismanagement in the management of these homes,” said the Ombudsman, adding that they saw “apartments from which cold air came out through the heaters, many with black mold, which is the worst mold.”
Williams spoke alongside affected tenants at a press conference after touring three units, highlighting areas where insufficient action and lack of real repairs have led to ‘extreme’ poor conditions for NYCH tenants TO. These include a mother whose conditions in her home were so dangerous that the City’s Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) temporarily relocated the children to shelters, leading to the separation of the family.
“One of the worst apartments we saw is that of a mother who is so bad, that ACS said that he could not continue living there with his children, and after they ended up in two different shelters, they still charged him a thousand dollars (of rent)”, the Ombudsman said indignantly.
“The Housing Authority has to stop putting a Band-Aid on all this and really solve the problems, because the conditions we live in are unhealthy, especially for the children, who are being put in shelters, that easy, instead of them coming to do the urgent repairs that are needed much more easily, so that these children can live in better conditions and with their parents,” said one of the tenantswhose apartment was inspected by Williams.
The resident complained that NYCHA does not waste time collecting the rent they pay, “but why don’t they just as quickly send someone to address the problems in our homes, and make us feel safe, instead of breathing mold, and suffering from sewage leaks… all this goes against our health”.
NYCHA Tours
In recent weeks Williams has already made other tours of residential complexes that belong to the Public Housing of the City, and has seen first-hand how many tenants are living in apartments with many deteriorations, including lack of heating and hot water, in the middle of the winter season.
The Ombudsman assured that , part of the goal of these NYCHA tours, is to “connect these issues to a larger conversation about public safety, because you can’t imagine being a young person living under these conditions, the stress that this brings when it comes to learning, when it comes to simply living their lives, and nobody helps you with these problems”.
And, being a great majority of minority NYCHA tenants, 40% of them Hispanic, Williams noted that “it is the brown and African-American people who the ones we’re putting in terrible conditions, and we’re not doing anything about it. We not only have to do what is right and respond to them morally, but also legally, because many of these conditions are illegal”.
On February 8, Williams visited the Fort Independence Houses complex, in the Bronx, to learn about the series of failures in the apartments, after various balances show that 90% of all NYCHA apartments in the five boroughs require repairs and renovations.
NYCHA in numbers:
- 1 in 14 New Yorkers depends on NYCHA housing, through of your housing program or section 8.
- 14.8% of public housing in the country is in New York.
- 328 are the NYCHA buildings in New York.
- 178,000 apartments.
- 400,000 residents
- 90% of tenants are Hispanic.
- $450 is the average rent in NYCHA apartments.
- 130 days is the average time that NYCHA takes to resolve repair requests, according to various reports, and others take months without being attended to.