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NYCHA tenants sue city, saying agency does not disclose rats, lead, other hazards
By
David Brand
Published Nov 5, 2024
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Richard Levine/Corbis via Getty Images
By
David Brand
Published Nov 5, 2024
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Three New York City public housing residents are suing a top city official, saying his agency failed to publish violations for hazards like rat infestations, mold blooms and lead paint in an online database, as required by law.
The residents, all of whom live in New York City Housing Authority apartments, accuse Housing Preservation and Development Commissioner Adolfo Carrión of ignoring a 2022 state law meant to make conditions in the city’s 177,000 public housing apartments publicly available in an online database. That database, known as HPD Online, already publishes information about privately owned buildings in the city — including violations and bedbug reports.
The complaint, filed Oct. 30 in Manhattan Supreme Court, cites Carrión’s own past comments, in which he called his agency’s online portal “a bridge, breaking down the barriers between New Yorkers, their local government and building owners.”
Tenants in privately owned buildings can use the HPD Online tool to scour details about their apartments or apartments they are thinking of renting. They can also present the information to a judge in housing court cases. But public housing tenants searching for information about conditions in their buildings hit a brick wall — despite a state law approved in 2022 requiring the city to post the violations.
Users attempting to find information about a public housing apartment through the online resource instead encounter a notice stating that “This property is under the jurisdiction of the New York City Housing Authority” or “buildingIsNYCHA.” Staff who conduct inspections inside public housing units are explicitly instructed not to enter the information into HPD’s online portal, according to the lawsuit.
Stewart Gracia, a resident of the Jacob Riis Houses in Lower Manhattan and one of the lawsuit plaintiffs, said that by failing to report the violations, the city is depriving him and his neighbors of a vital resource that could help them decide whether to move into a new apartment or challenge their landlord in court.
“Certain things need to be more transparent and easily accessible,” said Gracia, a building manager who lives with his three daughters. “People [would] like to investigate before they actually move.”
Gracia, 43, said he has dealt with routine heat and hot water outages, cockroach infestations, and other problems since moving into his top-floor apartment in 2020. He said his waterlogged ceiling burst, flooded his unit and destroyed his electronics a few months after he moved. But he said that he had no way of knowing about the conditions before signing the lease.
“We walked into water problems, heat problems,” Gracia said. “It's a daily fight to see who’s going to win in this house when it comes to the roaches.”
HPD has so far failed to follow the state law despite Mayor Eric Adams’ stated goal of breaking down “silos” between the city’s housing agencies and including NYCHA residents in efforts to improve apartment conditions.
“I want this to be a city where people living in NYCHA can get repairs made as quickly as someone living in a condo building on Park Avenue,” Adams wrote in the introduction to his 2022 housing plan.
HPD spokesperson Ilana Maier said she could not comment on active litigation but added that the agency is “working to further strengthen transparency.”
“We are reviewing the suit and — most importantly — want to reassure New Yorkers that our top priority is keeping them safe in their homes,” she said in a statement.
Attorneys from the nonprofit New York Legal Assistance Group are representing the tenants in their lawsuit and submitted a letter demanding HPD begin reporting the violations, as required by law, in August 2023. They say they have yet to receive a response.
The number of housing code violations citywide has surged in recent years, according to the most recent Mayor’s Management Report on agency performance — and that’s without counting NYCHA apartments.
“All New Yorkers, whether they live in public or private housing, deserve to know the truth about their living conditions,” said state Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal, who sponsored the reporting legislation.
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housing
David Brand
David is a reporter covering housing for Gothamist and WNYC. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or Signal 908-310-3960.
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