That’s cold
Heat woes hit 80% of NYCHA tenants
MORE THAN 320,000 public housing residents — or a staggering 80% — lost their heat or hot water at some point this winter, the Daily News has learned.
The figures were turned over to the City Council ahead of a hearing delving into the New York City Housing Authority’s beleaguered boilers Tuesday.
Some 323,098 people were without heat over the course of the heating season, Councilwoman Alicka Ampry-Samuel told The News. NYCHA is home to about 400,000 residents.
“When you see a number that says 80% of the residents went without heat or hot water — that’s damn near everybody,” AmprySamuel (D-Brooklyn), chairwoman of the Public Housing Committee, said. “That’s outrageous.”
Ampry-Samuel has a long history with NYCHA — she grew up in public housing, helped tenants as a community organizer and eventually worked for the authority. But still, she said, she and others were surprised by the figure — saying she did not believe NYCHA had made clear to the public the extent of the problem.
“There’s a problem with almost every freaking unit,” she said.
NYCHA maintains a public website with information about which developments are experiencing outages — but often an outage is fixed only for a new one to appear. “They jump to react to what’s happening,” she said. “But if they had the proper systems in place and proper management, they would be able to possibly foresee what’s going to happen.”
A NYCHA rep said they’re doing the best they can. “This winter had the worst cold snap in 50 years and it’s pushed our aging equipment to the breaking point,” NYCHA spokeswoman Jasmine Blake said. “While we regret that any resident had to suffer an outage, our team works 24/7 to get equipment back up and running as quickly as possible.”
The hearing — which will be co-chaired by Ampry-Samuel and Councilman Ritchie Torres, who heads a new investigations committee — comes as NYCHA Chairwoman Shola Olatoye is under fire for not only the heating woes, but a lead paint scandal that has led to the departure of many of her deputies.
Olatoye is expected to testify — if she can get out of jury duty, to which she must report Tuesday morning and seek a postponement, NYCHA has said.
At a press conference with tenants at the Gowanus Houses on Monday, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams urged the authority to spend the $48 million it has saved on energy costs in recent years to step up boiler repairs and heating improvements.
“We’re going to demand the services we deserve,” Adams said.