00:23
[Mike] As the Coronavirus tears across New York,
00:25
the New York City Housing Authority,
00:27
better known as NYCHA has done almost no outreach
00:30
about the pandemic according to residents I spoke to.
00:36
Over the past weeks, I found many residents
00:38
with almost no information about the dangerous flu.
00:45
My name is Mike Kamber.
00:47
I live in this neighborhood,
00:48
and my family members li`ve in these projects.
00:53
Volunteers from the Bronx documentary center
00:55
put up fliers in NYCHA lobbies and around the neighborhood
00:58
to counter the lack of information.
01:01
[Gregory] I don’t know, I mean,
01:02
we sent notices and posters to each property.
01:06
[Gregory] Well, actually we sent pretty much the same,
01:09
I can’t remember, it’s a Department of Health notice.
01:12
We sent that to the management offices,
01:15
and asked them to post as many as they had in common areas
01:20
and the management office.
01:22
[Mike] Most of the few notices that we found
01:24
were designed to protect NYCHA management
01:26
but gave no information for tenants to protect themselves.
01:32
There is no hand sanitizer here in these crowded lobbies.
01:35
No alcohol wipes, and no apparent plan for help.
01:38
[Gregory] We have two vendors cleaning.
01:39
The senior buildings are being cleaned at the touch points
01:43
by one vendor, and that’s five times a week.
01:48
The family sites are touch point cleaning
01:50
three times a week, so we are checking on the vendors.
01:54
The report back is that they’re out there.
01:58
[Mike] Touch point is door handles
02:01
and elevator knobs, or–
02:02
[Gregory] Yeah, it’s, so if you’re walking
02:04
in the building, it’s your door handles,
02:06
both sides obviously.
02:08
Mailboxes, and they would do all the surfaces
02:13
It might be, like if you had the door knob or the handle
02:18
to the stairwell, that would be done.
02:20
So there’s a lot of people using this elevator.
02:22
Yeah, I know, it’s the only one working.
02:25
This one’s not working.
02:27
[Mike] Lobbies and elevators are filthy,
02:28
and residents say cleaning has been cut back in recent days
02:31
as thousands touch door handles and elevator buttons.
02:37
We’ve heard from other people
02:38
that there’s been less cleaning lately in the elevators.
02:41
I haven’s seen, yeah, I haven’t seen them at all lately.
02:44
[Mike] You haven’t seen them cleaning?
02:45
Mmm-mm, or in the hallways.
02:47
So, yeah, I just do what I have to do, for like my floor,
02:51
and I clean and Lysol spray.
02:56
[Mike] With elevators frequently out of service,
02:59
tenants crowd into the one working elevator.
03:05
If the coronavirus takes hold here,
03:08
it will be like a bomb going off.
03:12
[Gregory] I don’t have an elevator number in front of me,
03:14
but it’s in the billions.
03:15
And, yeah, for NYCHA, one of the things
03:19
that is so extraordinary is, you know, the governor
03:23
in the past two fiscal years, well,
03:25
the state’s appropriated $450 million,
03:29
but that’s against maybe, you know,
03:31
you know, billions of dollars in need.
03:37
No one is kicking it, but you’ll get a portion of elevators,
03:41
and a portion of boilers out of that.
03:43
[Mike] You’re going to be behind.
03:45
There’s just no other, no way around it.
03:48
This group of housing projects cuts a wide swath
03:50
up the middle of the south Bronx.
03:53
This is the poorest urban Congressional district
03:56
in the United States.
03:59
Tens of thousands of people are packed together
04:02
in these dilapidated buildings.
04:04
Some of the half million New Yorkers
04:07
who live in New York City Housing Authority Buildings
04:09
Have they put anything under your door?
04:12
[Mike] Have they called you?
04:15
[Mike] NYCHA’s not giving you any information
04:21
[Gregory] By the 17th of March,
04:23
we have done over 900,000 communications,
04:27
when you count the robo-calls, the emails, and so forth.
04:32
[Mike] I mean, again, as you know,
04:33
many people there don’t have working,
04:35
you know, sporadic email.
04:36
[Gregory] Yeah, that’s why we did,
04:39
that’s why we also did calls, and we also,
04:43
the MYNYCHA app, which I think,
04:47
since the whole things has started,
04:50
we’ve seen an uptick in people using it.
04:52
They can get to the website on a phone as well.
04:56
I mean, I know it looks better on the computer,
04:59
but they can use the phone to access the website
05:03
and get COVID information there.
05:07
I think it’s on the right-hand side of the website.
05:12
[Mike] Excuse me, how are you?
05:17
[Mike] Many here have no internet service
05:19
and little access to reliable information,
05:23
so people repeat rumors or snippets of information.
05:25
And you get your information from Facebook?
05:28
From Facebook, and a little research I do on Safari.
05:32
[Mike] To make matters worse,
05:34
residents have some of the worse health indicators
05:36
in the country: diabetes, asthma and heart disease.
05:41
Nearby, Lincoln hospital is already short of ventilators.
05:46
Many, especially the young, have not heard
05:49
about Governor Cuomo’s request for social distancing
05:52
and are congregating in groups.
05:54
Well, do you think people know how to protect themselves?
06:01
Can’t protect properly if you’re not given the information
06:03
to take care of it.
06:06
[Mike] In the midst of a calamity,
06:07
New York’s poorest residents are on their own.