“You’d think people are lined up to go to a really popular concert or something,” said Julia McNally, a staff attorney for the Legal Aid Society. In reality, the people on line are struggling tenants, many of them facing the hovering threat of eviction.

Inside the cramped courthouse, tenants make their way through crowded hallways cluttered with baby carriages, walkers, and wheelchairs, as they settle in for what is often a grueling day in a system that has become known to attorneys like McNally as New York City’s “eviction mill.” At security, tenants are told to give up any food and water they have on hand and funneled into wide hallways to await their time slot. There is no child care available at the Bronx housing court so wailing babies and impatient toddlers often accompany their anxious parents.

But today, the stressful hustle and bustle of housing court has been traded in for silence. There is no line outside or inside housing court, in the Bronx or in any other New York City borough. On March 13, as coronavirus continued to spread throughout the city, a coalition of New York’s largest landlords announced a voluntary 90-day stay on evictions. Then, two days later, New York courts made it official, putting an eviction moratorium into effect indefinitely, with Governor Andrew Cuomo later specifying that it would last at least 90 days. Non-essential court employees were told to stay home. Housing court went dark.

Throughout the city’s five boroughs, tenants are waiting in limbo, anxious to see how the coronavirus crisis will unfold and how it will impact people who have  only recently stopped paying rent and those already in eviction proceedings. New York’s City Council reported that tenants in more than 19,000 New York City apartments were evicted during the 2018 calendar year. By the end of 2020, that number could look positively minuscule.

With many tenants out of work and rent strike movements growing, it’s becoming more and more difficult to find any kind of historical precedent for the current crisis.

“This pandemic is unique, in terms of its economic impact,” said Céline Gounder, Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine and Infectious Diseases at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine. “So it’s going to have an impact in terms of evictions in a way that, frankly, most of the others have not. You haven’t seen the world economy destroyed by a pandemic like this before.”

For one of New York’s busiest courts, it has been a considerable adjustment. As of 2018, the City Council reported that the Bronx had the highest eviction rate of any New York City borough, with 1 eviction for every 79 units in the county. Eviction petitions in the borough have steadily risen even as the median household income has remained stagnant, skyrocketing to more than 69,000 in 2017 – 39 percent of the city’s total. The state’s eviction moratorium means those petitions are effectively on pause for at least the next three months – and that tenants can continue to withhold rent for as long as the moratorium proceeds. As the first day of April drew closer, landlords and real estate experts prepared for as many as 40% of tenants to skip their rent payments.

“This rent moratorium has definitely made it very difficult both financially and emotionally,” said Richard St. Paul, director of the New York Small Home Owners Association, which represent small landlords in the city. “These small home owners depend on the income to provide for their families and also take care of their homes.”

With a rent cancellation bill stalled in the state legislature, skipping rent could prove a temporary solution to a widespread problem for tenants. As current legislation stands, tenants cannot currently be evicted for failing to pay rent. But once the state’s eviction freeze ends, the courts may well have to deal with a surge in holdover evictions, including both the thousands that were being processed when the freeze went into place, and potentially thousands more thrown into the system as out-of-work tenants delay rent payments during the pandemic.

A study from the non-profit Community Service Society found that only 30% of New Yorkers have more than $1,000 saved in preparation for an emergency. With the country’s unemployment rate rising as high as 13 percent, those numbers could be a recipe for disaster.

For Mary O’Leary, who belongs to a Brooklyn tenants association, this hypothetical precarious financial situation is all too real. “I am able to pay back rent currently,” she said, “but that’s because I haven’t gotten sick. Say I do get COVID-19. To pay those medical expenses, I will no longer be able to pay rent.”

Tenants at 1234 Pacific Street in Brooklyn are staging a rent strike to press landlords to reduce rent during the coronavirus pandemic. Photo provided by Mary O’Leary.

In April, O’Leary joined two-thirds of her building’s residents in a rent strike, refusing to pay rent until landlords meet a set of demands, including cutting rent in half for tenants for the duration of the crisis and potentially removing the requirement in full for tenants who have lost work as a result of the pandemic. It’s a choice she made partially to support neighbors in more precarious positions, and partially to make sure she’ll be protected in the future, as the crisis continues.

McNally and her fellow tenants are bracing for their landlord to take them to court if the moratorium ends and rent cancellation legislation has not been passed. But if a backup in eviction proceedings leads to a three-lane pileup once the current crisis is resolved, this already-complicated situation may become virtually impossible to navigate.

Set foot in Housing Court and you’ll often hear a chorus of names being called by landlords’ attorneys, struggling to settle with the tenants they’ve been tasked to find. After discussing the possibility of reaching a settlement, attorneys and tenants will go before a court attorney, who may in turn encourage a settlement. Only then does the tenant appear before a judge.

In a normal time, this standard level of institutional crowding means speed is king in Housing Court. For landlords who may be in the process of evicting multiple tenants, that speed is an asset. For tenants, it often means settling with landlords without a chance to find a lawyer,  said McNally, the Legal Aid attorney.

Tenants have only recently gained the right to counsel. And since the introduction of the right to counsel model in 2017, which was part of broad housing reform legislation, the cacophony in the bustling court has only grown louder. When McNally, now a supervising attorney at Legal Aid who works in Queens, enters the courthouse, her first priority is to find the tenant she is representing. “We just go into the courtrooms and yell out the tenants’ names to try to make that connection with them,” she said. Courtrooms scattered across three floors mean attorneys have to run back and forth as the day progresses.

Along with Housing Court reform came a movement towards staggered appointment times, at 9:30, 10:30, and 11:30. As the next appointment time closed in, McNally described a frantic rush to dispose of earlier cases, with court attorneys yelling out every name on their list even as tenants’ and landlords’ attorneys are doing the same – all in the same courtroom where a judge is hearing cases at the same time.

These changes aren’t the only piece of legislation in New York’s movement towards housing reform. In June 2019, the newly-elected Democratic majority in the New York State Senate passed the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act.

For activists in pursuit of more affordable housing in cities like New York, the new law instituted important changes. It placed limits on how much rent landlords can recover after renovating or otherwise improving a building, as well as limits on security deposits and an attempted limit on broker’s fees, which is currently in arbitration.

Most significantly, the law made it easier for tenants to avoid huge rent increases between lease renewals. Before the Tenant Protection Act, landlords were able to charge tenants a “preferential rent,” somewhere below the legal regulated limit, before raising the rent up to that limit when the tenant renewed their lease. The 2019 law restricted this ability.

“Before the HSTPA, landlords could charge tenants below what the legal regulated rent of the unit was, but then at lease renewal could raise that up to the legal regulated rent, even if that represented a dramatic rent increase for the tenant,” said Charles McNally, who serves as communications director at NYU’s Furman Center for Real Estate & Urban Policy. (He also happens to be the husband of McNally, the Legal Aid lawyer.)  “Now, if a landlord offers a preferential rent, the tenant is entitled to a rent increase based on that preferential rent, not on whatever the legal regulated rent is, even if it’s higher.”

Some landlords say these new restrictions are making it difficult to keep buildings in order. A lawsuit filed by the Buildings and Realty Institute of Westchester in the February following the law’s passage charged that the bill, which changed the existing Emergency Tenant Protection Act of 1974, created new hardships for landlords.

St. Paul of  the Small Home Owners Association agreed.

“The new [Tenant Protection Act] of 2019 already placed a number of limitations on landlords’ ability to deal with tenants who are not paying rent,” he said. “This rent moratorium has added more financial pressure….that they already had to bear as a result of the change in law.”

But according to Cea Weaver, campaign coordinator for Housing Justice for All, the laws still leave landlords with the upper hand. “What we have right now is a lot of folks fac[ing] retaliatory evictions, or consequences for complaining about living conditions, or landlords simply raise the rent because they want someone out,” Weaver said.

Now, Housing Justice for All is fighting for a rent freeze, as well as rent, mortgage, and utility suspension for the duration of the coronavirus pandemic.

Housing Justice for All is also continuing to push for a good-cause eviction provision, which would prevent landlords from evicting tenants for retaliatory or frivolous reasons.  “A good cause eviction would give you the right to renew your lease with a limited rent increase that covers the landlord’s costs and allows a modest profit but doesn’t allow for price-gouging,” Weaver said.

A good cause eviction provision was originally included in the Tenant Protection Act, championed by freshman State Senator Julia Salazar, but it failed to pass in June. Now, tenants are facing a world that feels primed for exactly the concerns Weaver raised, with landlords pushing renters out of homes over concerns that may not take the current global crisis into account.

Within moments, the Zoom chat was blowing up. It was a recent weekday evening and a local city council member was hosting a virtual town hall on housing issues during the pandemic, and tenants had lots and lots of questions.

“What is the impact of notice of late payment for future leases and credit?” read one text.

“How do I go about breaking my lease?” said another.

The meeting’s host, Michael Grinthal of TakeRoot Justice, had to ask attendants to limit their questions until the end of the Zoom call. There was a lot to get to first.

In the past, Councilwoman Helen Rosenthal’s office had held a housing clinic in person, on the first Wednesday of every month. Tenants in the councilwoman’s district on the Upper West Side could attend and raise questions about their rent, about conflicts with landlords, and about housing policy in general. In New York, housing can be a sticking point in even the best of times, and meetings like this one are a necessity for tenants throughout the five boroughs.

But now, with in-person gatherings restricted, the housing clinic has moved online. “We’re improvising, just like everyone else,” Councilwoman Rosenthal said in her introduction.

“We’re going to try to reach as many questions as we can,”  Grinthal said. “I know there’s a lot of people and there’s a lot of things that people want to know, so we may not get to every question.”

Across the occasionally scratchy connection of Zoom’s video chat, lawyers from TakeRoot Justice and the Goddard Riverside Law Project described the changes tenants would face with Housing Court’s closing.

Some answers were simple. Evictions remain restricted in New York, except in cases where a landlord can prove a tenant is an immediate physical threat.

Others were more complex. Grinthal noted that as part of the eviction moratorium, the governor had ordered all sheriffs and marshals to cease carrying out evictions.

“It is illegal, and it always has been illegal, even before this crisis, for a landlord to evict somebody without using a marshal or a sheriff,” Grinthal said. “[That’s] what we call a ‘self-help eviction,’ where a landlord locks somebody out on their own.”

In cases where a tenant has been in residence for more than 30 days, such a situation is indeed illegal, and New York City police officers are trained specifically regarding how to handle them. But that hasn’t stopped some landlords from taking advantage of the crisis to change apartments’ locks, according to a Buzzfeed News report.

“We are definitely concerned that more landlords are going to be tempted to resort to illegal lock-outs, now that they cannot use marshals or sheriffs to do legal evictions,” Grinthal said.

In such cases, Grinthal noted that Housing Court remains open and available to assist tenants in emergency situations. Tenants must simply file a claim reporting an illegal lockout.

But for eviction cases already in progress when the state’s eviction moratorium came through, tenants remain in limbo – granted a brief reprieve, but unsure of what the future may hold. Tenants who have been ordered to leave  their apartments have seen their cases frozen. Landlords may not move to evict them until the moratorium has been lifted.

Grinthal said some of those tenants who had retained legal services may hear from judges about the possibility of settling with their landlords, but remote court proceedings will not extend to eviction cases for as long as the moratorium remains in effect.

On April 6, Chief Judge Janet DiFiore and Chief Administrative Judge Lawrence K. Marks released a statement announcing that state courts would resume operations remotely, allowing essential and emergency court operations to proceed. Landlords pounced, hoping that the memo might provide an opportunity to continue hearing existing eviction cases.

Tenants’ attorneys disagreed, and after a few days, so did the courts. Housing Court Supervising Judge Jean Schneider penned a letter confirming that eviction cases would not proceed remotely. “The court system’s administrative orders and the governor’s emergency orders continue to stay all eviction proceedings and bar all evictions statewide,” Schneider wrote. “Within this major limitation, we are looking for ways to move cases along where we can.”

When the crisis does come to an end, tenants and landlords alike are preparing for what State Senator Brad Hoylman called a potential “tidal wave” of evictions. In early April, Hoylman and fellow state representatives Liz Krueger and Jeffrey Dinowitz introduced the Tenant Safe Harbor Act, which would prohibit landlords from evicting tenants for nonpayment of rent during the eviction moratorium and for six months after it ends. Another bill, from State Senator Michael Gianaris, would cancel rent for 90 days following the act’s passage.

Housing Justice for All has voiced concerns with Hoylman’s bill, claiming that its allowance of “money judgements” for landlords essentially amounts to a form of debt collection. “Basically, a money judgement says that while you can’t be evicted, your landlord could still take you to Housing Court,” Weaver said.

But it will still take some time for any tenants to head back to Housing Court. Back in Councilwoman Rosenthal’s remote housing clinic, Grinthal warned that the courts are unlikely to reopen at full operating capacity. “What will happen when the courts reopen is an excellent question,” he said. “It’s very unlikely that the courts will just suddenly one day be completely open for business and everything will go forward, because the courts themselves are going to take some time to phase back in and get things going again.”

St. Paul, who represents small landlords, sees the situation concluding in much the same way it did before the crisis began. “It’s going to be resolved with a lot of negotiation that already takes place in the courts now, where most cases are negotiated with a settlement, versus going to a trial,” he said. “What we’ll see right now is that there will be a huge uptick in people…looking for money rather than still seeking evictions, because it’s so difficult to evict a tenant based on…the fact that they haven’t paid rent.”

To Weaver and her colleagues at Housing Justice for All, the situation remains dire, for tenants and landlords alike, and clearly requires immediate attention.

“We’re trying to get the governor to cancel rent,” Weaver said. “We want a hardship fund for small landlords, but the reality is that we think the economy’s going to be suffering for long after COVID-19’s public health crisis has receded, so we really need some longer-term intervention.”

John DiLillo  is an NYU undergraduate journalism student in Prof. Rachel Swarns’ Advanced Reporting: Law & Order

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Chinatown tenants today began a hunger strike in an ongoing fight for their homes. It’s the latest development in a two-year battle between the tenants of 85 Bowery and their landlord, Joseph Betesh.

Two weeks ago, the Department of Housing and Preservation issued a vacate order for the 75 people living at 85 Bowery. City officials deemed the building uninhabitable because of an unsafe central staircase. They required Betesh to make repairs before the tenants would be allowed back in.

Meanwhile, tenants have been living in nearby hotels and shelters because Betesh missed the city’s deadline to complete the repairs.

Tenants say that Betesh is using the lack of repairs as a tactic to force them out and raise the rent with new tenants.

E-Joo Young was at home with her grandchildren, a four-year-old and a newborn baby, when she was forced out of her apartment.

“I’ve lived in the building for twenty-some years, but they kicked us out in two hours,” she said.

Joe Betesh, the owner of 85 Bowery, said in a statement, “Our team is working diligently each day to repair and replace the severely damaged infrastructure of 85 Bowery and make the building safe for habitation.”

The strike began on the eve of the Chinese New Year, which starts on February 16.

Sarah Ahn, an organizer with the Coalition to Protect Chinatown and the Lower East Side, said the holiday focuses on the importance of family and people’s homes.

“The new year for the tenants is very symbolic,” she said. “It has a lot to do with home.”

Without access to their apartments, the tenants can’t use their ancestral shrines to properly celebrate the new year.

“We are supposed to be celebrating the lunar new year,” said E-Joo Young. “Instead we are out on the street.”

Six tenants say they will continue the hunger strike until the city pressures Betesh to make the required repairs and allows the tenants back in their homes.

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Ruth Christie, an LES II resident, lifts up a frame she hung to hide a hole in her wall. She said her home is making her sick. Photo by Rachel Wise

Betty Buck was sleeping in her apartment in Lillian Wald Houses when she heard a loud crash from the kitchen.

“It was the middle of the night and suddenly I was wide awake because I heard a huge noise in the other room,” Buck recalled. “It was late so I was nervous.”

She walked cautiously out of the bedroom and immediately saw the source of the noise – her cabinet unit had detached from the wall and crashed onto her stovetop.
“The last thing I expected was to see those huge cabinets come off of the wall,” Buck said. “How could that even happen?”

Buck, a tenant for more than 40 years in Wald Houses on Avenue D, quickly reported the incident to New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) and a maintenance worker showed up just days later but did little.. The worker simply moved the cabinet unit from the top of the stove to the floor directly beside it. The cabinet unit now crowds Buck’s small kitchen area and prevents her from using the stove. The wall from which it fell remains bare; on the white plaster surface covered with holes, she uses a thick black marker to tally the months that have passed without repair.

The Housing Authority says it will be back to repair the damage in June of 2012.

“It’s ridiculous,” Buck said.

More on this project in the New York Daily News, which includes video produced by Reinhard Cate

Residents say serious repair issues within NYCHA developments are spiraling out of control as buildings age and funding dwindles. Countless public housing tenants, like Buck, have come to expect two-year delays on maintenance requests.

Meanwhile, residents and health experts say the failure to repair serious problems – like water leaks that often lead to mold – are making some tenants sick.

Ruth Christie believes her home is killing her. A longtime resident of East Village public housing, Christie says she will die prematurely if she cannot be relocated. “(The doctor) told my manager that if I don’t move, this building’s going to kill me,” she said. Christie, 59, had emphysema and asthma prior to moving into her Lower East Side II apartment in 2004, and said her condition has worsened in recent years because of poor housing conditions. “I wasn’t on oxygen until I moved here,” she said. “Since (2007), I been getting worse.”

Christie is not the only tenant in the New York City Housing Authority public housing developments to blame poor housing conditions for difficulties with breathing and asthma. In every public housing development in the East Village — except LES III, the newest development — residents specifically pinpointed mold for respiratory problems, which raises concern about whether the state of disrepair in these houses poses a serious health issue.

NYCHA owns and maintains 21 developments in New York City. In the East Village, there are seven: First Houses, Bracetti Plaza, Campos Plaza, LES II, LES III, Riis Houses and Wald Houses. Public housing is largely populated by black and Hispanic families — and, according to both the New York City Department of Health and medical experts at Columbia University, both ethnic groups have a disproportionately high prevalence of asthma.

NYCHA resident Toni Footman, took the agency to court. Photo by Rachel Wise

Toni Footman, 42, has lived in a large three-bedroom apartment in the Lillian Wald Houses with her sons for the past eight years. One of her children has been diagnosed with asthma, and Footman described some worrisome new developments with her own health.

“Lately my chest been really bothering me,” she said. “I’m really a healthy person. I’m a vegan; I work out. And it’s only when I’m inside of my home that I feel like I can’t breathe.”

Worried she might be developing asthma, Footman said she has visited the doctor multiple times. Her breathing problems persist, but a diagnosis has yet to be made.

Residents say a new centralized system designed to streamline repair issues has only made matters worse.
“When people say they have to wait two years for a leak to be fixed, and that’s in their kitchen or bathroom, that really is a problem,” said Assemblyman Vito Lopez.

To improve service delivery to residents, NYCHA introduced the Customer Contact Center, a centralized maintenance request system. Tenants with repair issues are now instructed to file maintenance requests with the CCC, rather than reporting to decentralized housing assistants. Initiated in 2005 and rolled out borough by borough until 2007, the CCC serves each of NYCHA’s 403,665 authorized residents who occupy 178,407 apartments.

Although the new system was created to decrease maintenance delays, tenants agree that repairs now take longer than ever before. According to community leaders, the level of resident dissatisfaction has risen in recent months.

“People are really getting upset,” said Assemblyman Lopez. “In the last three or four months, people have been calling local legislators and pushing me to speak. They’re really scared.”

According to General Manager Kelly, standardized data entry was a major reason for the creation of the CCC. The decentralized system, he said, did not provide critical measurements for service improvement.

“The CCC allows us to use data for intelligent reporting, so that we can continue to improve the system,” Kelly said. “For the first time, we know, authority-wide, what our needs are.”

At a recent public hearing, NYCHA General Manager Michael P. Kelly was asked to provide information on work order backlog. He was unable to do so. “We tried to pull [the information] together for this hearing,” Kelly said, “But we don’t have it for you today.”
Kelly recognized the gravity of the maintenance issue and sympathized with residents.

“Clearly it’s a situation that we are not happy about,” Kelly said. “No one wants to resolve this problem more than NYCHA.”
Unfortunately for Nilda Gomez, Kelly’s sympathy can’t solve the repair problems in her Jacob Riis apartment.

The most prominent features of Gomez’s bedroom are the disconnected pipes, jutting diagonally across the wall beside her bed. Contractors ripped the pipes out of the wall during the process of repairing Gomez’s heating system.

A dirty bathroom towel now haphazardly covers the end of the pipe that is meant be attached to the ceiling. According to Gomez, rather than removing the broken pipes, workers said that the towel would suffice.

“This just looks bad now,” said Gomez, “but when the heat comes on, hot water and steam will be coming out.”
The pipes weren’t the only casualties of the maintenance visit.

Gomez is also dealing with major ceiling leaks. Dressers, chairs and ironing boards are piled on top of one another in a heap in the middle of the living room.

“We have to leave everything in the center of the room because of the ceiling leaks,” Gomez said.

While the furniture may be safe from dripping water in the living room, Gomez isn’t so lucky herself. She is often awakened on rainy nights, her sheets and clothing wet because of leaks in her bedroom ceiling. Water also comes in through the bathroom and kitchen ceilings.

Like many tenants, Gomez is confused by NYCHA’s maintenance system.

“If the workers came to repair the pipes, why can’t they do the lock, ceilings and doors while they’re here?” she said. “It doesn’t make sense.”

Consolidating these tasks into one visit would appear to be the most efficient option. But according to Gloria Finkelman, NYCHA Deputy Manager of Operations, the division of labor is necessary. “We’re a union shop and we’re glad to be a union shop,” Finkelman said at a recent public hearing. “Certain union members have certain job descriptions that don’t allow them to do other union work.”
Iris Betancourt, a tenant in Lillian Wald, was appalled but not surprised by the condition of Gomez’s apartment. “I’ve seen this before. Take them to court,” Betancourt advised. “Or else nothing will get done.”

Like Betancourt, many tenants consider legal action to be the only solution when it comes

Footman continued to call the CCC and received several separate repair dates, all between 2012 and 2013. She decided to fight back and brought NYCHA to court on September 14th, demanding action.

Following an inspection, the court ruled in Footman’s favor. Judge Sheldon J. Halprin ordered NYCHA to exterminate for roaches within 30 days, plaster and paint the kitchen ceiling, east wall, and bathroom walls and ceilings, and paint the north wall and closet. Although the ruling seemed like a victory, Footman has yet to see results.

“The only thing they did so far was to come back and look, again,” she said. “Nothing was touched, nothing was done at all.”
Three days after the court ruling, a NYCHA inspector came to assess the condition of Footman’s apartment. According to Footman, the inspector recorded the damages and instructed her to call the emergency number again and put in tickets for each maintenance request.

“I was like, ‘I just did that, and I went to court.’ Why do I have to keep putting tickets in?” Footman said. “Nothing’s going to get done.”

According to NYCHA officials, the backlog of repairs is a result of insufficient funding rather than poor management and flawed systems. Scheduling availability for maintenance requests is based on staffing capacity, and lack of funding has made it difficult to find solutions.

“Given the severe budget deficit of recent years, between 2000 and 2009, our operations lost 1,540 employees,” General Manager Kelly said. “Currently, NYCHA only has $1.5 billion to address such repairs.”

Still, Huff believes there must be a middle ground. Residents must respect and care for the aging buildings, she said, but NYCHA must take responsibility for making desperately needed repairs in a timely manner. “I don’t want to live like this,” she said. “It’s not my fault.”

According to a recent study published in the Journal of Urban Health, frequent asthma attacks may be more common in housing that is old or in a state of disrepair. Common symptoms of deteriorating housing are “water leaks, holes that pests can pass through, poor ventilation, and peeling paint.” Water leaks are considered a significant problem because they can lead to holes and mold growth in homes.

Residents from every apartment visited cited some or all of these symptoms as problems NYCHA failed to repair. The most apparent problem was mold growth from water leaks, and it was most severe in Campos, Bracetti and First Houses. Though NYCHA does not qualify mold as an emergency that warrants immediate attention, there is reason to consider it a serious health concern.

According to the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, mold exposure “may cause or worsen asthma symptoms, hay fever, or other allergies.” But in addition to exacerbating asthma, it is possible that mold may cause the disease, according to Dr. Matthew Perzanowski, an associate professor of environmental science at Columbia University. “What’s been shown mostly in European studies is that children who grow up in damp homes…are more likely to develop asthma.”

In Campos Plaza, 12-year-old asthmatic, Angela Nicholson, said she couldn’t breathe in her bathroom when mold is present. Nicholson, who has lived with her aunt for the past six years, was diagnosed with asthma as a baby. Her asthma has worsened since this September, and she said it is most often exacerbated in the bathroom when she as at home. But, there is no way to ventilate the humid room because the only source of air circulation doesn’t work.

“Sometimes the vent smells a little nasty and it smells like mildew,” Nicholson said.

Nancy, a resident at Bracetti Plaza also complained about her inoperable bathroom vent. “If you put your hand there, you don’t feel a thing,” she said about the stagnant airflow. “So, that’s what causes the mold.”

Many East Village NYCHA housing residents blamed leaks from upstairs neighbors’ bathrooms as the reason for leaks and mold growth in their own apartments. According to the Department of Health, a persistent mold presence signifies an underlying problem, such as a water leak. To completely stop growth, the water problems must be fixed. Due to lack of staff and funding, however, NYCHA has been unable to make the needed repairs. Instead, if a contractor is available to come, the answer is to camouflage the problem.

Nancy, who declined to give her last name out of fear of repercussions from the housing authority, said she had already filed several requests for mold removal with NYCHA’s Customer Contact Center, but was unsatisfied with their temporary fix. “I had a problem with the (mold), a lot of mold,” she said, “and they kept repainting and repainting and repainting.”

This type of solution extends thoughout all developments, including LES II, where residents said it takes only three to six months for mold to grow back. In the past, Christie was told she would have to wait up to two years for NYCHA contractors to come to her apartment for repairs—and even then the solutions they offered were only superficial.

At one point, she had so much mold growing in her bathroom that the entire ceiling was black. Workers tore down the walls for emergency cleanup, but only painted over the mold on the ceiling.

“The mold is gonna still be there,” she said. “It’s just paint over it, so it’s coming back in my bathroom.”

In Wald, Footman has one child who is asthmatic, and another may also be at risk of developing the disease. Of the two sons currently living with her, the elder, William, 16, has been diagnosed with asthma. She said he recently started to complain about difficulty breathing and she believed his problems could be related to the state of disrepair in her home.

“I have damage to my bathroom’s walls; I have leakage; I have mold growing,” Footman said.

Footman’s younger son, Kevin, who does not have asthma, has had severe allergic reactions to allergens in the home. “(My) little one is nine, and he’s been having more breakouts because the mold is in the bathroom,” she said. “He’s inhaling that. He’s been scratching; his fingers all broke out.”

Another reason why asthma is so prevalent in children who live in public housing is because of exposure to pest allergens, said Dr. Marc Wilkenfeld, a board certified physician specializing in occupational and environmental medicine at Gouverneur’s Hospital in New York City.

“The same way you can be allergic to cats, you can be allergic to cockroaches,” Wilkenfeld said. Cockroach allergies cause the lungs to swell and close up; “If you have asthma, your allergy is going to make it a lot worse.”

Citing multiple safety code violations, Footman filed a lawsuit against NYCHA in late August of this year. On Sept. 14, New York City Housing Court Judge Sheldon J. Halprin ordered NYCHA to fulfill Footman’s work order — exterminate roaches, fix leaks, plaster and paint walls damaged by leaks — within 30 days. As of late November, Footman reported that none of the court-ordered repairs were made.

Christie also took NYCHA to court in September for failing to make repairs in her LES II home. Problems with doors, cabinets and walls existed even before she ever set foot into the apartment, neighbors said. Christie appealed to both building managers and called the NYCHA hotline to submit requests for repairs. With a letter of support from her doctor, Christie applied to transfer out of the building because of her various health concerns, but said NYCHA denied her.

The letter outlines Christies sensitivity to allergens caused by garbage, gnats, grass and mold. “The smell of the garbage and…when they cut the grass is so problematic to her breathing,” a doctor at Community Healthcare Network’s Downtown Health Center wrote. “When the sewer system backs up, knats appear all over the house…Her current living conditions are a problem and she urgently needs to move.”

Christie won her court case and the judge ordered the authority to make repairs. After years of waiting, NYCHA finally sent contractors to plaster holes in the walls; however, Christie was told she would still have to wait until 2012 new doors and cabinets.

After applying for a transfer two more times, Christie was finally approved. She has yet to receive word from NYCHA about when and where she will be relocated.

As part of a three-month investigation, the Local East Village requested a series of documents under the Freedom of Information Law from NYCHA. The authority responded that it had 30,000 to 35,000 documents that might be responsive to a request for copies of tests, reports or other statistics involving health concerns related to housing conditions. However, the authority has yet to make the documents available for inspection.

The LEV also made numerous attempts to speak with the New York City Health Department on how problems — such as mold, poor air quality and allergens — might affect the overall respiratory health of residents, but was declined an interview every time. According to a spokeswoman with the department, “There is no one available for an interview on this.”

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An out-of-service elevator sign is displayed in Wald Houses. ( Photo by Rachel Wise)

David Ortega, 27, lives on the 4th floor of the Wald housing projects on Avenue D. He is confined to a wheelchair. Last year, when his building’s elevator was out of service for a week, Mr. Ortega said he could not leave his home.

“I was stuck inside my apartment,” Mr. Ortega said. “I missed doctors’ appointments. I was just trapped.”

A three-month LEV investigation – including a search of hundreds of city buildings department and environmental violations – shows Mr. Ortega is not alone in his experience with malfunctioning elevators in East Village public housing projects.

Shoddy maintenance remains an ongoing issue at housing projects in the East Village, records show. Problems cited in the violations include malfunctioning doors, dirty or water damaged elevator pits, and non-working emergency stop switches.

The elevator malfunctions often hit the project’s most vulnerable residents – specifically the elderly and infirm – the hardest, limiting their ability to shop, keep medical appointments or socialize with others. And elderly residents complain they do not receive other basic services – like sufficient heat at night – that impact them more than other tenants.

“Some of the residents here are incredibly ill,” says Sarah Augustin, a resident of the all-senior –citizen housing development known as Meltzer. “We’re older, you know? The cold goes straight to our bones.”

More on this project in the New York Daily News, which includes video produced by Reinhard Cate

The East Village projects have been hit with more than 60 building violations over at least the last three decades for failure to maintain elevators.

Twelve of the elevator violations at East Village projects are open, meaning the Department of Buildings (DOB) has not received a certificate indicating the problems that prompted the violations have been fixed. One of these open violations is an Environmental Control Board violation, the most serious type of infraction. These types of violations are issued when problems are found that have direct, immediate impacts on residents.

More than 20 elevator violations were issued against the Housing Authority for not submitting annual elevator inspection reports. The fine for not filing these reports is $1,030.

The Housing Authority takes anywhere from two months to seven years to address elevator problems in the eight housing projects it owns in the neighborhood, records show.

“If the elevator breaks and you’re a senior citizen, you have to walk up 18, 20 stories and come down 20 stories. That is a serious risk of harm,” said Assemblyman Vito Lopez at a recent public hearing in October on Housing Authority repair issues.

Brian Clarke, deputy director of technical services at NYCHA, said at the hearing that his department takes elevator issues very seriously. “Elevators are essential services and they are a priority,” Mr. Clarke said. “We try to respond to elevator emergencies as quickly as possible.”

Mr. Clarke said NYCHA makes sure buildings with only one elevator car are fixed within about eight hours, on average. In some buildings, where there are multiple elevator cars, repairs could take longer. “With weekends, when we have a reduced staff, there could be situations where we could leave an elevator out for a few days,” Mr. Clarke said. “The building would have service, but reduced service.”

When asked to provide documentation verifying Mr. Clarke’s assertion, NYCHA Communications Officer Sheila Stainback suggested via email that the LEV file a Freedom of Information Law request to obtain the documentation. A request was filed, but no response was provided by deadline.

When asked to explain why the elevator in Mr. Ortega’s building was left unfixed for a week, Ms. Stainback said, “We will need more specific info and the person’s consent to share our findings about his personal situation.”

Yvette Quinones lives in the Riis projects, also on Avenue D. Like Mr. Ortega, Ms. Quinones uses a wheelchair to get around and, within the last year, she said her elevator has broken twice.

“The fire department had to carry me down seven flights of stairs,” Ms. Quinones said. “How can they do this to me? I’m in a wheelchair.”

Ms. Quinones said NYCHA took two days to fix the elevator.

On February 21, 2007, the buildings department issued a violation at 11-15 FDR Drive for failing to maintain the elevator at the Jacob Riis project. One of the doors wasn’t working and DOB demanded the elevator be put out of service until repairs could be made. It took the Housing Authority two months to issue a certificate to the buildings department, confirming it had resolved the elevator issue.

Marquis Jenkins, a public housing community organizer at Good Old Lower East Side, (GOLES), a housing advocacy organization, said elevator breakdowns are a common concern amongst many of the NYCHA building tenants. He does credit NYCHA for generally being diligent about quickly fixing elevators in buildings with only one car. Mr. Jenkins said the eight-hour average repair time mentioned by Clarke seems accurate.

“This has been a huge problem,” Mr. Jenkins said. “There are elevators being shut down on a constant basis. More often then not, we ask people how often do the elevators break, and a number of them say weekly.”

Elevator malfunctions are only one issue that plague elderly and infirm residents of the East Village housing projects. Seniors also complain that there are few activities for them and that general repair issues hamper their quality of life. . “I’m so embarrassed, really, I’m embarrassed,” said Virginia Proto, a Meltzer Tower resident for 24 years. “I can’t bring my friends around here!” she said, shaking her head. “They ask me, hey Virginia why don’t you invite us over? But I can’t, I’m just really embarrassed.”

Meltzer was originally designed as a project especially for seniors. But it hasn’t worked out that way, residents say. “Just ask them,” Proto says, pointing to the group of elderly residents chatting in Meltzer’s lobby. “You’ll see, they just sit here, sit on the radiator. All day. That senior center? These flyers? There’s nothing in there! There’s nothing to do, just sit here.” She blames this on the tenant patrol and tenant president. “She’s supposed to have things going, but they claim they don’t have the funds.”

According to the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) website, more than 35% of NYCHA residents are over the age of 62. One of their most common complaints is about the heat – or lack thereof.

The New York City Housing Maintenance Code requires that landlords turn the heat in buildings on between the hours of 10 pm and 6 am if the temperature outside reaches below 40 degrees. Many elderly residents complain the Housing Authority routinely violates that requirement and that they freeze as a result.

The Housing Authority maintained in an email that it meets heating requirements.

“…like other landlords in the City of New York, (the Authority is required) to provide heat during heating season—October 1 through May 31 under the following conditions: Between 6:00 AM and 10:00 PM, the indoor heat must be at least 68 degrees Fahrenheit whenever the outdoor temperature is less than 55 degrees; and, between 10:00 PM and 6:00 AM, the indoor heat must be at least 55 degrees Fahrenheit whenever the outdoor temperature is less than 40 degrees.”

But residents say no one responds when they complain about lack of heat. The Department of Housing Preservation and Development is the agency that enforces heating laws in the city. However, HPD spokesman Eric Bederman said in an email that his agency “does not have jurisdiction or the responsibility of enforcing the housing maintenance code in NYCHA properties.”

This is of little comfort to tenants who feel they don’t get enough heat. “Some of the tenants at the back of the building have an ongoing problem, getting sufficient heat. It needs to be checked out,” said Thelma Yearwood, the tenant association president for Meltzer.

Another issue is the alleged lack of help from the resident ‘Senior Advisors’, who are hired by the Authority to help senior citizens with independent living issues, and to provide aid and companionship. Two are working at Meltzer. They declined comment. “They aren’t really helping seniors. And it’s had an effect on the seniors. They don’t know where to turn,” said Yearwood.

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