NYCHA Is Now Cleaning and Restoring Individual Apartments Damaged in Storm
New York, NY – November 21, 2012 – (RealEstateRama) — Now that electricity, elevators, heat and hot water have been restored in all developments impacted by Hurricane Sandy, the New York City Housing Authority has moved to the next phase of its recovery plan: remediation and repair for individual housing units. NYCHA will clean and remove mold or mildew created by Hurricane Sandy inside individual apartments, in addition to efforts to remove all trash and debris from hallways, stairs and common areas. The work will first be concentrated in NYCHA developments in Far Rockaway and Coney Island where there was significant flooding. Residents of any unit sustaining water damage as a result of Hurricane Sandy should contact NYCHA’s Customer Contact Center at (718) 707-7771 and advise the representative that their unit sustained water damage from Hurricane Sandy.
“Now that we’ve restored essential services to our residents impacted by Hurricane Sandy, the task before us is to ensure a safe living and working environment for our residents and employees,” said NYCHA Chairman John B. Rhea. “Although NYCHA was fortunate that the buildings that house our 400,000 residents sustained limited structural damage, there still is much work we have to do in making our developments clean and healthy, and offering our residents alternative living areas while we accomplish this work.”
“The goal is to clean, sanitize and restore all areas at the 26 public housing developments that experienced flooding from Hurricane Sandy, including residential apartments, building lobbies, basements, stairwells, mechanical rooms and management offices,” said Cecil R. House, NYCHA’s General Manager. “We want to help to get people’s lives back to normal as quickly as possible.”
NYCHA will work with residents of these impacted apartments to identify temporary housing solutions pending the cleaning and repair of their apartments. In some cases, NYCHA will offer a temporary or permanent transfer to residents in impacted apartments. NYCHA’s Family Services staff will provide coordination services, including child care services and assistance linking children to neighborhood schools.
NYCHA staff performed initial assessments of over 400 buildings in storm-impacted areas across Brooklyn, Manhattan’s Lower East Side, the Rockaways and Staten Island in the days after the storm, including community centers, management offices and general public spaces. Over the past week, NYCHA also dispatched over 100 crews from janitorial companies, along with 60 NYCHA crews from non-impacted sites, to remove garbage, clean stairwells and halls, and generally sanitize the buildings in an effort to improve sanitary conditions in all impacted developments.
Contact:
NYCHA: Sheila Stainback
Zodet Negrón
media (at) nycha.nyc (dot) gov
