It’s shelter skelter
Homeless housing a vile mess: report
The city’s homeless shelters for families are plagued by health and safety hazards, vermin infestations and other deplorable conditions that are routinely uncovered by inspectors — but rarely corrected, authorities said Thursday.
The Department of Investigation identified 621 violations for unsafe or unsanitary conditions at 25 shelters visited last year by its staffers, who witnessed “roaches crawling on the walls, fly traps completely covered with flies . . . and holes in the corners and under the sinks allowing rats and mice access.”
Investigators also found a shocking lack of security at apartmentlike shelters — known as cluster sites — and little to no social services.
What’s worse, the Department of Homeless Services found many of the same hazards at 19 of the 25 sites just months before the DOI visits but gave passing grades to all of them because of the inflated way it rates conditions at facilities.
“Not only are there no financial consequences to the providers and landlords for not correcting issues, but DHS does not follow up to ensure violations are corrected,” the DOI report found.
“As a result, many shelters operate with existing violations that make life unsafe for its chil dren and family residents.”
The city houses nearly 12,000 families at more than 150 sites in the five boroughs.
At the Regents Family Residence on the Upper West Side, investigators found a stairwell that was deemed defective and dangerous back in 2012, but that still wasn’t fixed as of June 2014.
At that point, DHS had to pay nearly $650,000 just to station fire guards there for four months to keep people from using the stairs. The stairway cost an additional $750,000 to repair.
DOI Commissioner Mark Peters also noted the city often paid too much for substandard housing. The average costs to house families ranged from $2,451 to $3,322 a month — often two to three times the market rate paid by local residents.
Peters has said he is focused on bigpicture, systemic reforms — like the ones proposed in the new report. But he didn’t rule out potential criminal charges or disciplinary recommendations in this case, which is ongoing. “Stay tuned,” he said. DHS agreed to implement many of the recommended reforms, including stricter enforcement of violation repairs and changes to the way it scores building conditions.
The agency said it would sign contracts with all providers within three years, and drop those that can’t meet required standards.