Stair collapse at 1568 Sterling Place

capt. planet · November 2007

Crown Heights is again in the news. A stair collapse at 1568 Sterling Place has displaced 50 people in the Weeksville section per the NY Times. This time the landlord is us: NYC Housing Authority. The huge budget deficits at NYCHA and the lack of public money for affordable housing are surely the real culprits.

wirenut · November 2007

how does the lack of affordable housing cause a staircase to collapse?

budget deficits I can see - leads to lack of maintenance

lilbangladesh · November 2007

Because people are forced to occupy substandard housing, that's why.

wirenut · November 2007

The building where the stairs collapsed was owed and managed by the NYC Housing Authority.

Their mission is to provide affordable housing.

If we had more affordable housing like this, would more stairs collapse?

lilbangladesh · November 2007

Well, if there were more affordable housing, they could move out of the projects!

Which were never paragons of maintenance to begin with.

wirenut · November 2007

The Housing Authority is required by law to follow the same housing code that private landlords have to follow (The Housing Code is for the protection of tenants). Shouldn't the government set a proper example?

If the government which is backed by emormous tax income, can not properly maintain a building and provide affordable housing at the same time, how is a private landlord supposed to achieve this goal?

paraderest · November 2007

Sometimes "poop" happens and it's not really anybody's fault. In Mayor Bloomberg's "do more with less" administration it's just possible for the city to be everywhere all the time. Is it possible that the problem with the staircase was obvious to the tenants but none of them were bothered with call NYCHA or 311? The DOT doesn't patrol for potholes or broken traffic lights and EMS doesn't do "proactive medicine". The problem can only be addressed if it is brought to somebody's attention.

lilbangladesh · November 2007

And more likely, it was brought to someone's attention, and then ignored.

Private landlords can and have done better than the government in maintaining their housing. It's not that difficult if you care and pay attention to your housing stock. My landlord does it. It's why you hire superintendants. The city is one of the largest landlords, however, has a spottier budget for repair, and its housing stock has suffered under malign neglect for decades now.

paraderest · November 2007

lilbangladesh wrote: And more likely, it was brought to someone's attention, and then ignored.

Private landlords can and have done better than the government in maintaining their housing. It's not that difficult if you care and pay attention to your housing stock. My landlord does it. It's why you hire superintendants. The city is one of the largest landlords, however, has a spottier budget for repair, and its housing stock has suffered under malign neglect for decades now.

How much time have you spent inside public housing? Have you ever actually taken a urine coated elevator to the top floor and then walked floor by floor until you hit the ground? If you did you would have seen feces on the walls and floors, garbage left everywhere (beer cans, cigar tobacco, used condoms), graffiti, broken doors, broken lights, broken elevators, chicken bones, shell casings left on the rooftops after some recreational gunfire. I've seen all of these things and more. I'm gonna lean towards the "if something was visibly wrong, no tenants called" side.

sweet tea · November 2007

wirenut wrote: how does the lack of affordable housing cause a staircase to collapse?

budget deficits I can see - leads to lack of maintenance

Capt. Planet wrote: the huge budget deficits at NYCHA and the lack of public money for affordable housing are surely the real culprits.

capt. planet · November 2007

wirenut wrote: how does the lack of affordable housing cause a staircase to collapse?

budget deficits I can see - leads to lack of maintenance

It's two sides of the same coin. Money for affordable housing goes to fill the gap between what it costs to operate a housing project and the revenue from rents. That would be operating subsidies for affordable housing.

Money for affordable new construction fills the gap between what it costs to build the housing and what a bank will lend for the construction.

Unfortunately our current regime is all about cutting taxes, and taxes pay for affordable housing, both new construction and paying for upkeep of existing affordable housing.

lilbangladesh · December 2007

ParadeRest wrote: [quote=lilbangladesh]And more likely, it was brought to someone's attention, and then ignored.

Private landlords can and have done better than the government in maintaining their housing. It's not that difficult if you care and pay attention to your housing stock. My landlord does it. It's why you hire superintendants. The city is one of the largest landlords, however, has a spottier budget for repair, and its housing stock has suffered under malign neglect for decades now.

How much time have you spent inside public housing? Have you ever actually taken a urine coated elevator to the top floor and then walked floor by floor until you hit the ground? If you did you would have seen feces on the walls and floors, garbage left everywhere (beer cans, cigar tobacco, used condoms), graffiti, broken doors, broken lights, broken elevators, chicken bones, shell casings left on the rooftops after some recreational gunfire. I've seen all of these things and more. I'm gonna lean towards the "if something was visibly wrong, no tenants called" side.

I think it's more likely that tenants have tried for years to get something done about living conditions and then gave up in despair. The city is famous for being non-responsive to tenant issues. Even with private landlords, it takes ages for the city to do something about them.

Stair collapse at 1568 Sterling Place

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