Culture

The Ticking Time Bomb of the Coronavirus in New York City Public Housing


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.



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