Mold KOd: NYCHA

Agency says progress made against spores

Mold complaints from public housing residents are down by more than 1,000 a month since NYCHA rolled out a new program to combat the unhealthy spores.

Dubbed Mold Busters, the program is credited with driving down complaints to 1,414 complaints this month compared with 2,651 registered in September at the program’s start, data from the New York City Housing Authority show.

Over the past three years, the numbers have fluctuated but have shown an overall upward trend.

Tenants made 42,047 complaints in 2017, 54,821 in 2018 and 50,319 last year.

Response times have also jumped, from an average of eight days in 2017 to 14.5 days last year.

Nevertheless, NYCHA officials view the stats as a sign of progress.

“Since rolling out Mold Busters in September, there has been a reduction by more than 1,000 work orders,” said NYCHA spokeswoman Rochel Goldblatt.

“We are making progress and will continue to do the work needed to ensure we are following the law.”

NYCHA officials said over the short term, response times are decreasing, with 78% of mold complaints taking four days or less to address in January compared with 63% of complaints addressed within that span in September.

According to an analysis of NYCHA records conducted by the Legal Aid Society, residents of the Edenwald Houses in the Bronx lodged the most complaints, 973, in 2019 from January to September.

A quarter of those cases took 13 days or more to be resolved, the group noted.

“This data sheds more light on the myriad of issues NYCHA residents battle each and every day,” said the Legal Aid Society’s Judith Goldiner.

To ensure mold complaint stats continue to go down, Goldiner demanded “all levels of government — Washington, Albany, and City Hall” — pony up more cash for NYCHA. Goldblatt agreed. “We need more she said. resources,”