Right to Repairs Bill

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LIVING LIKE RATS
NY Post, 5/13/04
By ADAM BONISLAWSKI

May 13, 2004 -- Juan Reyes, his wife and six children have been living in their Brooklyn apartment without water for more than two weeks. Before that, they lived for years without heat.
And Reyes isn't alone in New York's nightmare apartment hell.

Because it's been so difficult to get building-code violations inspected by the city, Bronx resident Laura Govan said she's had to endure trash in the elevators of her building for years, and another harassed Bronx tenant, Endia Marsh, complained she had to wait six months before her landlord hooked up electricity in her children's bedroom.

Reyes, Govan and Marsh are just three of the hundreds of New York tenants whose nightmarish living conditions will be highlighted today by the Association for Neighborhood Housing Development when they rally at City Hall at 11:30 a.m. in support of the Right to Repairs Bill - new legislation before the City Council to transform the building inspection process.

The new bill will give groups of tenants the right to request and receive comprehensive "roof to cellar" building inspections. Previously, city inspectors only responded to individual tenant complaints and while investigating one, would disregard other code violations in the building.

"The goal of the bill is to make it a more rapid, streamlined process to document and correct the violations tenants are reporting in their buildings," said Astrid Andre, ANHD's acting executive director.

During the rally, the Pratt Area Community Council will display photos of the city's most decrepit apartment buildings collected from tenant organizations in the five boroughs. They call it the "Wall of Shame."

Reyes, whose apartment at 677 Glenmore Ave., in East New York, is featured in the photographs, said conditions are so bad he's been forced to become his own repairman.

"I do it for my kids," he said. "I do a lot of repairs in the building. Small leaks in the building, I've been fixing them. I put in the whole boiler myself, with no help from no one."

Marsh, who lives at 1040 Boynton Ave. in the Soundview section of The Bronx, said she's had trouble since she moved in last July.

"There was no electricity in my children's room for about six months," she said. "There was mold in the bathroom. Everything leaked. The radiators leaked, the sink leaked, when the people in the apartment above me used their toilet, it would leak into my bathroom."

Despite The Post's efforts, management for Reyes' and Marsh's buildings and the others on PACC's list could not be reached for comment.

Additional reporting by Katherine Dykstra