NYC tenants in unsafe apartments to get $10.8 million for fight against bad landlords

WATCH at CBS News

NEW YORK - People living in unsafe and unhealthy conditions across New York City may soon be getting help from $10.8 million in new funding from the Housing Preservation and Development department.

The pledge is an expansion of the Partners in Preservation pilot program, which has already seen success in several buildings.

"We shift that power imbalance"

In 2020, a pair of buildings on East 103rd Street in East Harlem had been having problems for months, neighbors lived with mold and without working cooking gas before they gained community partners.

The city paired the buildings' tenants with the nonprofit Community Voices Heard. The support added pressure, helping an asthma patient make management remove mold and mildew from her apartment and others. The neighbors also organized a rent strike that successfully returned working gas to their stoves.

"We shift that power imbalance, and landlords make changes that are needed because they know that otherwise they will face consequences," said Jenny Weyell, HPD's assistant commissioner of neighborhood development and stabilization.

Farther north around the same time, people living in another building on E 181st Street in the South Bronx were suffering without a working elevator or boiler.

"I'm falling apart," lamented longtime fifth floor tenant Sandra Mitchell. "The stress is getting to me."

Mitchell has had six strokes, slowing her down significantly, but she gladly joined forces with the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition to knock on doors and rally neighbors, creating a team of building captains.

"We're walking into situations where people are so fed up that they just want to move away," explained Edward Garcia, the Coalition's organizing director, "and so often, our job is difficult because we really want to actually help people understand that, that's really what sometimes real estate wants you to do."

"People started getting hope again"

Through determination, the tenants now have a more reliable elevator and boiler.

"People started getting hope again and saying yeah, we can do this," Mitchell said.

Mitchell is still in limbo, though, awaiting clean-up from a years-long leak in her bedroom and repairs to plumbing problems. That is why she admits, the tenant association has to stay active.

"I'm tired," Mitchell said. "I should be resting, but I have to do what I have to do to have some semblance of life."

In East Harlem, neighbors have taken legal action against their building's owner and are transitioning into a community-based management model to preserve the property properly.

HPD is distributing the additional $10.8 million through four nonprofits in different neighborhoods. They will coordinate with smaller nonprofits to work directly with buildings that have the most serious outstanding complaints.