Icy hell for ma & 2 young kids
Home’s owner killed, building falling apart, no heat or water
A landlord’s death and a recent water leak have left in the cold a low-income Bronx woman and her two young autistic sons.
After Eileen Hernandez, 31, was robbed at a homeless shelter five years ago, the city helped move her and her kids to an apartment inside a two-story home east of Van Cortlandt Park, she said.
But since the building’s owner was slain in March 2021, no one has been maintaining the home on E. 214th St., she said.
A large pipe leak prompted firefighters to turn off the water and gas early Monday, saying heat would create a fire hazard, Hernandez told the Daily News.
“I just need a home for my kids. That’s all I’m asking for,” she said. “I never owed rent, I never owed Con Edison, nothing. I just need a warm place — before it burns down.”
Hernandez said she had been using three space heaters to keep her and her sons warm.
But when she learned the massive blaze that killed 17 people at a Bronx high-rise on Sunday was caused by a space heater, she turned off two of her heaters, explaining, “I don’t want to be next.”
She now keeps the third heater on in the room where her sons, ages 5 and 6, sleep.
“As long as my kids [are] warm, I’ll sleep with two coats if I have to,” she said.
The mom, who works the overnight shift at a Home Depot in New Rochelle, is loath to move back into the shelter system, where she was the victim of a robbery about five years ago, she said.
Prior to Monday’s pipe leak, her building racked up 55 violations with the Department of Housing Preservation and Development for problems with roaches, lead paint and more.
City agencies have been no help with her predicament, Hernandez said.
“I have reached out to 311, 911, Homebase [a city Department of Homeless Services program] ... and housing courts and was told to either ‘Go to a shelter because they have no landlord they can serve’ or was not provided any form of assistance,” Hernandez lamented.
Con Edison told The News it reached out to the owner it has on file for the property, saying that person has to get the pipe leak fixed before the heat can be turned back on.
However, the owner was slain in March 2021, and her son was later arrested for the crime.
While ownership of the building gets sorted out — Hernandez said there’s been no one to accept rent since last spring — the city should take turn on the heat right away, said Jessica Bellinder of the Legal Aid Society, which is not representing
Hernandez.
“The courts really struggle with the dead-owner problem because they don’t really know who to sue,” said Bellinder, a lawyer. “That’s going to cause everything to be in limbo for quite a while.
“However, the city does have an emergency repair program,” Bellinder said. “They do have the ability to at least go in and make sure heat and hot water and electricity are on and make emergency repairs. They should be pursuing that rather than telling this lady to go into shelter.”
City agencies referred requests for comment to Mayor Adams’ office, which said Housing Preservation and Development’s emergency repair unit would restore heat to Hernandez’s building soon.
“All New Yorkers are legally entitled to heat and hot water, and this case is no exception,” mayoral spokesman Charles Lutvak said in an email.
“We are in the midst of a robust, coordinated emergency response with the support of several city agencies to improve the conditions of the building and provide the residents with the resources and support they need in the meantime,” he added.
For now, Hernandez is trying to cope with the frigid cold spell which has led New Yorkers to lodge more than 20,000 heat and hot water complaints with 311 since Jan. 1, according to the city’s Open Data website.
Hernandez’s younger son Jamari Prince is nonverbal, but indicated he didn’t want to enter their house on Thursday.
“He knows it’s cold upstairs,” Hernandez said. “He did not want to come in. He was dragging his feet. So I told him, ‘Let’s go sit in the car.’
“It hurts me so bad that my kids have to go through this,” she added.