Rats! NYCHA can’t exterminate in time
Broken-public-housing buck stops at City Hall
These unwelcome NYCHA residents aren’t getting evicted any time soon.
The embattled housing authority admitted Thursday it will blow a federally imposed deadline to slash the rat population that’s terrorizing tenants in 70,000 units.
NYCHA is supposed to have the infestation cleared up by the end of the month but acknowledged it still doesn’t have the staff to get it done — infuriating residents who will have to keep living with the scourge.
“[Mayor] de Blasio tells us, ‘ We are going to fix this,’ ” said Manuel Medina, 80, a resident at East Harlem’s George Washington Houses.
“He’s supposed to keep our homes livable, and it’s not happening. The rats are taking over. I have no peace of mind under my roof.”
The disclosure comes after federal monitor Bart Schwartz recently revealed NYCHA only has 108 pest exterminators — and will need to hire more than 850 others to meet deadlines from the legal settlement that placed the authority under partial federal control.
The January 2019 agreement required NYCHA to come up with a list of apartments and neighboring units where residents reported rat problems at least twice in the last 12 months by August — and officials came back with 71,394 units.
NYCHA is now supposed to tackle the rats in those places within 30 days — but Schwartz said it would be impossible with current staffing.
“In light of this backlog and its existing headcount, NYCHA [needs] . . . at a minimum 853 additional exterminators to immediately meet this second 30-day targeted relief obligation,” his report disclosed in a footnote.
At the Washington Houses, Medina said he sees rats almost daily.
“The garbage compactor has been closed for a year, and the employees are scared to go down beccause of the rats — they’re beat up bby the critters,” he said.
NYCHA officials insisted They’re making headway in the war on pests and are working with the feds on a new schedule.
“HUD and the federal monitor aare aware of the progress NYCHA has made to date,” said the agency’s general manager, Vito Mustaciuolo. “We are also working to increase staff with the required certifications we need to successfully implement our plan.”
The settlement sprang from a bombshell lawsuit brought by federal prosecutors that alleged NYCHA lied for years about lead inspections in public housing developments.
GROWING up in Washington Heights, I could see firsthand the impact New York City Housing Authority had on hundreds of thousands of families. NYCHA provided so many with a foothold to a brighter future.
It promised quality housing for working-class New Yorkers who would form the backbone of New York — seniors, immigrants and young families striving to make it. For poor New Yorkers or those who had suddenly fallen into money troubles, NYCHA was a lifeline out of homelessness.
That was the idea behind NYCHA back when Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia started building public housing in the 1930s — it was aspirational housing for the poor and working class. Nowadays, NYCHA has turned aspirational homes into a horror for too many of New York’s most vulnerable residents.
From busted boilers to leaky roofs to dangerous children’s playgrounds to years’-long maintenance backlogs to vacant apartments to non-working elevators, NYCHA apartments simply don’t work for too many of the people inhabiting them.
The list goes on: damaged doors, runaway contracts, lack of storm preparedness. Mold. Mice. Lead. All horrific.
Our 15 audits and investigations of NYCHA are a true catalogue of horrors that must be a roadmap to real, permanent solutions for the 400,000 New Yorkers who call NYCHA home. In fact, our newest
audit of NYCHA’s roof dysfunction shows how the mismanagement causes a cascade of harm — lighting millions of dollars on fire and leaving toxic living conditions for residents.
In our office’s review of public housing in the five boroughs, we found deficient conditions on 88 percent of the NYCHA roofs we sampled — sagging roofs, pools of standing water, open seams, debris and blistered and cracked surfaces.
Damage on just 19 roofs alone could cost New Yorkers $24.6 million to repair later on. But it’s not just future costs. NYCHA has already burned through $4 million at one development by forgoing a 20year warranty and replacing eight roofs just halfway through the term — instead of getting the roof repaired at no taxpayer expense, under the still-valid warranty.
It’s abundantly clear: City Hall must step up and put an end to the dysfunction. Because we are now past the point where leadership is called for — it’s already overdue.
We are either in the business of providing public housing, or we’re not — there’s no middle ground. We can’t fix NYCHA with a parttime focus. The massive challenges that exist — leaky roofs, lead paint, dangerous playgrounds, busted boilers — aren’t part-time at all, they’re persistent. They threaten the health and lives of children. This situation is no joke. It should sear and agonize consciences at City Hall.
Right now, with a new federal monitor and an incoming NYCHA chairman, we have an opportunity for change — to make the story of aspiration at NYCHA recognizable for those who grew up only knowing that story.
That can only happen with an engaged City Hall and a NYCHA chairman who jumps in with both feet to tackle the task of reform — 24/7. The same is true for Mayor de Blasio.
Because when leaders are away, NYCHA residents are here confronting the crumbling conditions of their homes. The ceiling won’t fix itself. The mismanagement won’t just fade. And systemic problems won’t get fixed if we only point the finger and pass the buck.
It’s time to return NYCHA to its original and noble mission — a place where striving, workingclass New Yorkers could find dignity in a decent home.
That means City Hall must look at all the issues we’ve raised, the issues raised by the Department of Investigation, the issues raised by the US attorney and most importantly, those raised by NYCHA tenants each and every day — and finally take some accountability and action. That’s all we are calling for.
It’s about damn time.
Scott Stringer is the New York City comptroller