Tenants at Woodside Houses denounce monthslong
gas outage and ‘ongoing’ maintenance issues
BY ANGÉLICA ACEVEDO
Tenants of Woodside Houses
denounced NYCHA for a
monthslong cooking gas outage
at some apartments as well
as other “ongoing” issues with
maintenance on Tuesday, Jan.
19.
There are currently six
apartments in Woodside Houses
that have been without cooking
gas since Nov. 5. The outage
is attributable to a broken gas
cock, according to a NYCHA
spokesperson. Residents were
given one hot plate to cook with
until the gas is fully restored,
similar to when tenants at
an entire building in Astoria
Houses were left without gas
for nearly three months.
A group of Woodside Houses
tenants and dozens of community
members gathered by the
management office Tuesday afternoon
in a press conference
organized by the Justice for All
Coalition (JAFC), a grassroots
organization based in Astoria
and Long Island City.
JFAC said management is
not communicating with residents
about what caused the
outage and when it’ll be fully
restored.
“NYCHA hasn’t provided
any additional support to residents
during this time, in the
form of assistance with food
preparation or rent abatements.
Utilities are included
in NYCHA tenants’ rents — so
this means that tenants are
paying for a service they are
not using right now,” JFAC
wrote in a statement.
Tomasine Reyes, the treasurer
of Woodside Houses Tenants
Association, is one of the
tenants without the service.
“This here, is an ongoing situation,”
Reyes said. “It doesn’t
start with just me, it started
before me, and it just doesn’t
stop. It’s not just gas, but that’s
a major part of it. We got a lot
of tenants that are dealing with
other repairs that are not being
repaired as they should.”
Reyes added that maintenance
tickets are often closed
without repairs being made,
an issue tenants from NYCHA
complexes across the city have
also reported.
“It’s not fair,” Reyes said.
“We pay our rent, we do what we
gotta do, but we’re not getting
the treatment we deserve … in
our apartments, in our living
grounds, in our whole development.
It needs to be cleaned up,
it needs to be repaired, it needs
to be done now.”
A NYCHA spokesperson
said they are scheduled to install
the new gas riser for the
six apartments this weekend.
Once that work is complete,
they will continue the process
of restoring gas to those units.
“While we understand gas
service interruptions are inconvenient,
we also want to
ensure our residents’ safety
as we work to restore service
as quickly as possible,” the
spokesperson said. “We ask
that all residents continue to
use the MyNychaApp or call
the Customer Contact Center
at 718-707-7771 to create a work
order ticket for any maintenance
needs, including service
interruptions.”
A separate gas outage in six
apartment units in Woodside
Houses was restored on Jan.
11.
But Woodside Houses is not
the only complex without cooking
gas.
At Ravenswood Houses in
Astoria, six apartments have
been without cooking gas since
Nov. 19. A NYCHA spokesperson
said the outage is due to a
raiser valve that was shut off in
the basement. They added that
after asbestos abatement work
is complete this week, they can
begin repairing and restoring
TIMESLEDGER | Q 2 NS.COM | JAN. 29-FEB. 4, 2021
the gas to those units.
At the press conference, other
tenants of Woodside Houses,
Ravenswood Houses, Astoria
Houses and Queensbridge
Houses aired their grievances
with repair and maintenance
issues they say they’ve dealt
with for years.
Catherine Cummings,
who has lived her whole life
at Woodside Houses, said it
took her a long time to get her
bathroom fixed – it was finally
fixed on Tuesday – but is now
concerned that her building’s
main door is broken.
“That is very serious. There
was a person who slept on
my floor and I didn’t know it.
So, it’s dangerous,” she said.
“When I was a kid this place
was heaven. But now, it’s going
down, people are going down.
They don’t care.”
Other Woodside Houses tenants
spoke about maintenance
issues that included mice and
cockroach infestations, as well
as trash pile ups. One tenant
said her building doesn’t have
water at certain hours of the
day, and has a room with mold
that management still hasn’t
fixed.
She said when she tries to
speak to management, they
“give you the hand.”
“What’s the hand for? I pay
rent here, I want to live comfortably,”
she said. “You walk
downstairs, there’s trash,
there’s mice. It’s too much. It’s
really too much.”
Edwin Cadiz, who’s lived
in Ravenswood Houses for
more than 40 years, also spoke
about repair issues similar
to the ones experienced by
Woodside Houses tenants.
“Every time I go around,
the rent goes up, and our service
goes down,” Cadiz said.
Annie Cotton Morris,
president of Woodside Houses
Tenants Association, said
the issues extend to NYCHA
housing from Long Island
City to the Rockaways.
“All our developments are
having issues that NYCHA is
not addressing,” Cotton Morris
said. “We pay rent here,
we’re not squatters here, we
live here legally, the majority
of us. We deserve to live a
clean, safe life in our communities.
This is not fair to us
that do the right thing.”
She said a 10-minute walk
to get a newspaper takes her
two hours because she runs
into tenants with issues.
“I already spoke to the
managers … they need to get
up off their behinds in that
office, come outside and look
at what we’re living in, look
at how we’re living,” Cotton
Morris said. “It’s not fair to
us, because we pay your salaries.”
JFAC has been organizing
tenants across western
Queens’ to fight for their
housing rights, calling on officials
to fully fund NYCHA
and advocating against the
Rental Assistance Demonstration
(RAD) program.
Stan Morse, a lead organizer
with JFAC, said they are
preparing lawsuits against
several NYCHA developments
in Queens.
“Too many people are suffering
for too long, and the
only way we’re going to get
their attention is to show up
and then to stop paying rent,”
he said. “I grew up in NYCHA,
this is a decades-long
problem. We got Joe Biden in
office now — Joe Biden, what
are you going to do? Who are
you going to hire to run HUD
United States Department of
Housing and Urban Development,
and are you going to
fully fund NYCHA? Because
nobody should be living in
these conditions. It’s incredible,
it’s criminal.”
Assemblyman Brian Barnwell,
who attended the press
conference, and told QNS that
while “money is an issue,
there’s no accountability”
from management.
Senate Deputy Leader Michael
Gianaris introduced
the NYCHA Utility Accountability
Act in November, after
Astoria Houses was left without
cooking gas and tenants
reported little to no communication
from management
about a restoration timeline.
The bill, which is co-sponsored
by Queens Assemblyman
Khaleel Anderson, is
meant to not only provide
relief for impacted tenants,
but also provide a financial
incentive for NYCHA to fix
service outages more quickly.
If enacted, the act would reduce
a tenant’s rent obligation
in an amount prorated per day
of utility outage, such as gas,
heat, water and electric outages,
by 10 percent of the tenant’s
rent, or $75 per month.
“Ongoing utility outages
are unacceptable for any New
Yorker, and NYCHA residents
should not be expected to pay
full rent when they are not receiving
the services they are
paying for,” Gianaris said.
“That’s why I introduced the
NYCHA Utility Accountability
Act, which would reduce
rent obligations during extended
utility outages and
ensure we treat all our neighbors
with respect.”
Tenants at Woodside Houses denounce maintenance issues at development on Jan. 19.
Photo by Angélica Acevedo/QNS
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