ICED-OUT tenants of a Bushwick public housing complex say their apartments are frigid despite months of complaints and a court order to fix the heat.
“There are people with kids here,” Evelyn Velez, 56, told the Daily News. “They’re really freezing.
Velez and her family have cranked up their stove during the recent cold snap, and they take turns with a portable heater at night to fight the chill in their Hope Gardens apartment, she said.
Their new indoor wardrobe includes coats and sweatshirts.
“I usually don’t wear layers,” Velez said. “I’m hot-blooded, so if I’m wearing layers, it’s cold.”
She and 35 other tenants sued the New York City Housing Authority in November, alleging the agency ignored complaints about black mold, sewage floods and broken heaters.
A housing court judge signed an order on Dec. 16 that compelled the city to inspect the problems and make repairs as necessary, but tenants and their advocates said they’re still waiting.
Lawyers from the Safety Net Project, a branch of the nonprofit Urban Justice Center, are representing the tenants.
“NYCHA needs to prioritize these repairs and act quickly,” said Safety Net Managing Director Denise Miranda. “The real question is, how long is this going to go on?”
The housing authority blamed heat and hot water problems on a flood at the aging complex, but said staff responded quickly.
“While service is restored, staff has continued to monitor the situation and work on the lines to improve hot water circulation,” the agency said in a statement. “At NYCHA, heat and hot water complaints are emergency repairs and generally handled within 24 hours.”
The authority noted it had taken steps to slash a backlog of city-wide complaints to about 80,000 from a peak of 430,000 in 2014.
But as the icy weather barged in, Bushwick tenants said that wasn’t helping them.
“Sometimes they come here and say, ‘Move everything away from the radiators, and we’ll come tomorrow,’ and then they don’t come,” Marisela Ramos, 57, said.
She, her husband and 21-year-old daughter share electric radiators and turn to the stove for warmth.
“We use the oven almost for the whole day,” Ramos said. “It’s a terrible situation.”
