Public Employee Press

Part 2 in a series

Mismanagement at the New York City Housing Authority
Schumer wins $100 million for new boilers at NYCHA

By DIANE S. WILLIAMS

IN an agreement spearheaded by U.S. Sen. Charles E. Schumer, Washington will provide $100 million to help the city Housing Authority replace 60 heating systems covering 110 public housing buildings severely damaged by Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and get rid of its costly, malfunctioning portable boilers.

"For more than 16 months, bureaucratic infighting and red tape have denied New York City Housing Authority residents the most basic of necessities - reliable heat and hot water," Schumer said March 23 at a news conference with Mayor Bill de Blasio and new NYCHA Chair Shola Olatoye. "We are firmly on the path to righting a wrong that has too often left residents in the cold during the winter and in the dark at night."

After much wrangling, Schumer and de Blasio negotiated a Federal Emergency Management Agency aid package to reimburse cash-strapped NYCHA the $56 million it has spent on the temporary boilers and repairs to storm-damaged elevators and electrical systems. FEMA also will fund NYCHA's purchase and installation of new, elevated, water-resistant gas-powered boilers.

The agreement goes beyond FEMA's usual policy of repairing but not replacing damaged infrastructure. Some boilers in NYCHA buildings are more than a half-century old and are so outdated that even if repaired, they could not meet current building regulations.

After Superstorm Sandy's floodwaters devastated their neighborhoods, nearly 80,000 NYCHA residents in Coney Island, Red Hook, the Lower East Side and Far Rockaway suffered through two winters with little or no heat and hot water. The Bloomberg administration was slow to respond to NYCHA families in desperate need of basics like clean drinking water, working toilets, heat, lights and electricity, as well as food and medicines.

Initially NYCHA residents helped each other. Some relief came from volunteers with Occupy Wall Street and other grassroots groups, and later NYCHA helped seniors and tenants on public assistance with food vouchers. Eventually the Bloomberg administration trucked in mobile boilers from as far as Tennessee, costing taxpayers $3 million a month on a contract that extends to 2016.

But residents say these temporary boilers are a failure. Parent Coordinator Tamika Hardwick bundled her 4-month-old twins in layers of blankets, but they frequently awoke to bitter cold in their NYCHA apartment near Coney Island. Through one of the coldest winters in decades, when temperatures outside fell below 40 degrees, the mobile boilers died and left tenants without heat or hot water. In milder weather, they overheated apartments to unbearable levels and spewed obnoxious fumes into children's bedrooms, said Hardwick, a member of DC 37's Local 372 (PEP, April 2014).

DC 37 organized among its 15,000 members living in NYCHA developments, and NYCHA tenants in the 8,862 apartments who depend on the shoddy mobile boilers for heat and hot water are suing the city and the Housing Authority.

The $100 million FEMA grant will let NYCHA begin work in September and replace the temporary boilers before its previous 2016 target, Schumer said, and is a major step toward rebuilding New York City after Sandy.

Schumer continues to push for $175 million in FEMA funding for backup generators and flood-protected heating and electrical systems at several NYCHA housing complexes, and DC 37 is supporting the senator's pursuit of more federal aid for public housing.