Proposed Rent Hikes Trouble Public Housing TenantsJuly 10, 2006 by Kendra Pierre
The walls of Agnes Martinez-Rivera’s apartment in the Wagner Houses in East Harlem are literally crumbling before her eyes. Because of water damage, she covers the walls with a tarp to keep her two, one-year-old grandchildren safe from any possible hazards. “I had to take New York City Housing Authority to court because of all the water damage from above floors,” says Rivera. “My walls are warped and decaying.”
Still despite the condition of her apartment, Rivera expects her monthly housing expenses to increase by $300 in the near future.
The increases are part of New York City Housing Authority’s Seven Point Plan to Preserve Public Housing (in pdf format), an effort to close the authority’s $168 million deficit that includes new fees and a proposed rent hike (in pdf format).
In May, the housing authority imposed fee increases to generate revenue (in pdf format).
Fee increases include charges for parking (increased from $5 to $75 a year), owning an air conditioner (from $7 to $10 a month), operating a washing machine (from $0 to $5.75 a month), and having a freezer (from $8 to $10 a month).
Even repairs cost more. For example, the cost of replacing an apartment door has increased from $372.42 to $620.36.
Proposed rent increases, if approved by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, would be phased in over two years and based on household income, household size and apartment size.
About three-quarters of the people who live in public housing will not be affected, according to the housing authority. However, some working families with incomes as low as $13,880 who currently pay less than 30 percent of their income for rent may see a hike.
The New York City Housing Authority estimates rent increases will be $52 more a month for a household earning $29,119 in annual income, $109 more for a household earning $41,137 in annual income, and $233 for a household earning $63,367 in annual income. (See chart for details in pdf format.)
Housing officials http://www.nyc.gov/html/nycha/downloads/pdf/annual-plan-2006-amendment-exec-summary-eng.pdf say rent is “a critical source of revenue for the day-to-day operations” of the city’s 344 public housing developments, and they argue that they have resisted increasing rent for 17 years.
Douglas Apple, the general manager of the New York City Housing Authority, has warned that the agency’s deficit “must be addressed or NYCHA will face significant financial risks that threaten public housing.”
To help the authority, Mayor Michael Bloomberg allocated $100 million in funding last fiscal year (in pdf format), and recently, the New York City Council fought for $20 million to enable 3,000 households on the waiting list to use federal vouchers for public housing.
Despite these efforts, many residents fear they will see their monthly bills increase. And many residents are angered by poor living conditions.
Ivonne Shields, a resident of Highbridge Gardens in the Bronx, who depends on public assistance and lives with her adult daughter, says she is unsure of exactly how the increases will affect her. However, she has already seen her food stamp allocation decrease and is concerned about how she will make ends meet.
Shields, who is a member of the group Community Voices Heard, which advocates for low-income people, also questions the parking fees, especially since the areas aren’t fenced in and cars are subject to vandalism.
“Parking is unorganized, it’s like a drive-thru,” she says. “People’s cars have been set on fire, all the time.”
Another resident, Ann Valdez, an unemployed single-mother from Gravesend Houses in Coney Island, Brooklyn, says that in the past she has had to deal with a bathroom ceiling collapse, an electrical fire, and handles that fall off of her stove and refrigerator.
“They get the cheapest contractors and materials and they expect people to pay for it,” Valedez says.
Valdez says she doesn’t understand why her low-income status didn’t spare her from fee increases. Since May, Valdez has been billed an additional $5.75 per month, because she has a washing machine.
Agnes Martinez-Rivera, who could soon be paying several hundred dollars more per month for her apartment, describes sewage backups that flood some apartments in the Wagner Houses every two or three months; Martinez-Rivera and her neighbors have cleaned out floodwaters together on numerous occasions. The maintenance workers for her building just leave a bucket, she says, for future floods.
“There is no accountability,” says Rivera. “If they were on The Apprentice, [they] would have been fired for mismanagement and jeopardizing people’s lives.”

Engine Company 36 -- A Continuing Fight in HarlemAugust 7, 2003 By Catherine Shu
In a neighborhood bustling with pedestrians doing their grocery shopping, chatting outside beauty parlors, or hurrying to the Metro-North station, the firehouse stands empty, a handful of curling fliers taped to its chipping red paint. A spray-painted "No Fear" decal remains inside one of the darkened windows, left by one of the 26 firefighters who once worked at the house, and are now scattered throughout the boroughs. On 125th Street, Harlem's main thoroughfare, Engine 36 serves as a testimonial to both the city's financial woes and local resident's frustrations.
In this densely populated area with aging buildings, a large senior citizen population and the highest documented asthma rate in the city, residents and community leaders have a hard time believing that budget cuts were the main reason for disbanding the 115-year old company.
"It's not about the money," said Woody Henderson, the former president of the National Action Network's New York City chapter, "It's about how they are trying to impact and demoralize our communities. There's got to be another agenda."
Geoffrey Eaton, chief of staff for East Harlem's Councilmember Philip Reed, said, "Could the mayor re-open the firehouse? He chose not to, and I don't know what that's all about, but I feel that it's a union thing instead of a tax thing."
The city maintains it closed that Engine 36 largely because another firehouse, Engine 35, is one block away on 125th Street. It will now serve Harlem as well as portions of the South Bronx.
Activists point out that even while Engine 36 was open, both stations were among the busiest in the city. According to saveengine36.com, a site run by the Defense Committee of Harlem, each house answered approximately 3,000 calls a year.
"Engine 35 is making twice as many runs now," Henderson said, "They're making almost one run every hour. They're going to run them to death. Someone's going to get hurt."
The owners of 125th Gold Market have noticed the difference. About two years ago, co-owner Nathan Aronov stated, the jewelry store had a fire that Engine 36 responded to within two minutes. The store had another fire this June, about a month after the firehouse closed. Aronov said firefighters took 20 minutes to arrive.
"They were very responsible," Aronov said about Engine 35, "But it's a big difference. We need Engine 36 for the neighborhood."
The fire department acknowledged on August 7 that the response times in the area increased 47 seconds since the closing. The average time of 5 minutes 35 seconds is 25 seconds slower than the citywide average.
Eaton points out that Harlem has a large number of high rise housing buildings, including Taino Towers, a complex of four 35-story apartment buildings. On March 26, before Engine 36 was closed, a fire gutted the 17th floor of one of the towers. No one was hurt, and Maria Cruz, the residential director of Taino, credits the prompt arrival of firefighters.
"Engine 36 was one of the first ones here," Cruz said. "If anything happened here now, and Engine 35 was in the Bronx, then we'd be in big, big trouble."
One in four children in the area has asthma, and the firefighters of Engine 36 were specifically trained and equipped to deal with respiratory attacks.
David Evans, an associate professor of clinical public health at Columbia University, said that, despite the closing, most sufferers of asthma attacks will find ways of getting medical attention without calling emergency services. "There are a few people who do die from asthma attacks," he said, "but it's probably less because of emergency response time than that the attack came on suddenly, or that they didn't make the decision to go to the emergency room quickly enough. It's hard to lay on emergency services."
Activists, however, worry that the closing of Engine 36 will have repercussions for area asthma sufferers. "Given the extraordinarily high rates of people with asthma visiting hospitals with asthma attacks, anything that would impact response time threatens an already vulnerable population," said Swati Prakash, the environmental director at the West Harlem Environmental Action Organization.
"I would say that people are very depressed," Cruz said about the residents of Taino, "People believe that Bloomberg decided to close an engine where there are a lot of African Americans and Latinos."
Eaton, however, disagrees, pointing that the city has a host of problems (see related story). "You are dealing with an administration that has no money," he said. "At the end of the day we were unable to save the firehouses, but senior programs and summer programs are still open, daycare slots are still available, and there have been no additional layoffs. When you weigh all of those issues, what can you do?"
Many Harlem residents remain dedicated to restoring Engine 36. The Defense Committee of Harlem has a schedule of rallies planned for the summer and says it will continue to organize until the firehouse is reopened. On July 17, Save Engine 36 held a rally in front of Gracie Mansion.
These activists find encouragement in the city's history of closed firehouses in past budget crises later being reopened. "The morale in Harlem is always high," Henderson said, "because we are always fighting something."
For a look at the city-wide issue of firehouse closings, see Gotham Gazette's Issue of the Week, Firehouses.

East Harlem RezoningJuly 31, 2003 The Department of City Planning has decided to
rezone the area between East 99th and East 122nd Streets. The rezoning will affect approximately 57 blocks in East Harlem by increasing housing and encouraging the growth of small
business in the area.

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