[
Photo on 6th Street from October 2017]
The temporary boilers that arrived after
Superstorm Sandy nearly became permanent sitting here for five years on Sixth Street at Avenue C outside the NYCHA-owned building officially known as Lower East Side Rehab Group 5. (The
Daily News once
reported that a temporary boiler costs $5,000 a month to rent.)
However, a new boiler arrived last fall, thanks to funding from FEMA. Still, by January, residents in the building said that they rarely have heat or hot water,
according PIX 11, who noted that the work there was "serving as a model for 17 other projects."
Today, the
Daily News reports that the residents have been without heat or hot water now since Thursday's snowfall.
“This is a harsh living condition,” said tenant Neicee Johnson, saying she has no heat and barely any hot water.
She wakes each morning at 5:45 a.m. to boil a pot of water on the oven and turn on two space heaters. Her family, which includes two teen children, sleeps with multiple layers of clothing and blankets.
“We barely hang out in the apartment,” she said. “We are hardly ever home. We go to the local library or community areas until it is time for us to come home.”
Local City Councilmember Carlina Rivera is quoted in the article... she is also tweeting about the situation...
Back to the
Daily News:
Resident Clara Rivera, 91, has also been shivering in her apartment since the snowstorm last Thursday.
“The house is really cold. They give nothing here in the morning or night,” said Rivera, who has asthma and arthritis. "We're dealing with this every day. I'm not going to die from this cold!"
There were an estimated 6,366 NYCHA tenants throughout NYC with the same problem, according to an online “service interruption” tracker, as the
News pointed out.
