VIDEO: Tenants and Housing Advocates Take NYCHA to Court

Attorneys from South Brooklyn Legal Services representing three public housing developments in Fort Greene announced this morning they are suing the New York City Housing Authority for forcing residents to live in unsafe and unsanitary conditions.

The lawsuit -- on behalf of the tenants in Whitman Houses, Farragut Houses and Ingersoll Houses -- was announced at a rally led by Families United for Racial & Economic Equality (FUREE), outside of the Brooklyn Housing Court building.

Joining FUREE at the rally were members of Good Old Lower East Side (GOLES), Mothers on the Move (MOM), District Leader Lincoln Restler (50th A.D.), City Council Member Charles Barron (42nd District) and a handful of public housing residents.

Sharon Davis-Night, a tenant of Farragut Houses, was in the crowd holding up an old toothbrush, furious about an unanswered complaint she made to NYCHA in 2010 regarding mold that has taken over her home.

“I’m holding this toothbrush here today, because it’s the same one I use to clean the mold and mildew from around my bathtub in order to take a bath,” said Davis-Night.

“Then recently, I started coughing up blood. I had to go to the hospital and found out that I have a terrible respiratory infection from the air I’m breathing in my own home! And NYCHA still has not done anything. They’re telling me I can’t open up a new ticket because the one from May 2010 is still open.”

“The reason we’re out here today bringing legal action against NYCHA is because housing residents are human beings and need to be treated with dignity and respect,” said Valery Jean, executive director of FUREE.

“There’s this stigma around public housing residents that just because they’re poor and mostly people of color, they do not deserve to live in quality housing. What we’re asking for are basic things that are not required only of the housing authority, but landlords across New York State.”

Brent Meltzer, Housing Unit Co-Director at South Brooklyn Legal Services, shared a story of a woman, Cynthia Morgan, of Farragut Houses, who experienced a small fire in her home a year ago.

Although her apartment sustained limited damage from the fire, the fire department was forced to break two windows, a door and remove her kitchen sink and cabinets, which NYCHA has yet to replace or repair, despite repeated calls.

So Metzler, with Morgan on the line, called the agency’s Centralized Calling Center and was informed that Morgan was in fact scheduled for repairs… on December 26, 2012.

“It is unconscionable that NYCHA believes it is okay for tenants to wait two or three years for repairs,” said Meltzer. “What message does it send when a city agency is acting like a slumlord?”

Following the rally, Meltzer and other attorneys for South Brooklyn Legal Services filed a group lawsuit against NYCHA to force repairs for thousands of backlogged complaints across the three housing developments.

As of 4:00pm today, NYCHA representatives have started to visit the homes and have started repairs in the apartments of Davis-Night, Morgan and other housing residents named in the law suit, according to Jean.

“It took a press conference and a lawsuit to get them to pay attention,” said Jean.

But, she added, the suit will go forward.