Long Island City Tenants Displaced by Fire Since January Demand Action

October 16, 2017, QUEENS, NY—A group of Long Island City tenants are demanding justice more than eight months after a fire forced them to leave their homes. This month, the tenants continued their fight against landlord Pui Yan Ho and Bethel Management Inc. in Queens Housing Court, where they are represented by Legal Services NYC’s Queens program with funding from the New York City Human Resource Administration’s Anti-Harassment and Tenant Protection Program.

After a January 25th fire caused severe damage to 10-38 47th Road, the City’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) issued an Order to Vacate, leaving residents unable to return to their apartments. In May, Queens Legal Services (QLS) asked Bethel Management for a timeframe in which the repairs would be made so that the residents could go home. The management company did not respond. The electricity and water in the 6-unit building are still shut off, the building’s windows are boarded up, and individual units still have extensive soot, fire, and water damage.

The tenants and their attorneys believe that the landlord and management company have been refusing to make the repairs in order to harass their low-income tenants into giving up their rent-stabilized apartments. Some of the tenants have health issues, and some have had to sleep on couches at friends’ and family members’ homes. They aren’t even allowed into the building to retrieve their possessions because of an alleged asbestos abatement issue. 

“The Rent Stabilization Code was established to protect affordable housing in New York City,” said Jennifer Fernandez, a Tenant Rights Coalition Staff Attorney at QLS. “When there is a full vacate order as a result of a fire, a landlord can circumvent these protections by delaying the repairs, causing the tenants to give up and find other housing and allowing the landlord to raise the rents.”

“New York City’s affordable housing crisis is exacerbated by some landlords who will refuse or delay making necessary repairs in an effort to drive out tenants from their rent stabilized homes,” said Jeannie Chung, also a QLS Tenant Rights Coalition Staff Attorney. “The purpose of filing this HP action is to make sure that the landlord is complying with the law.”

“Not only have they not even started on the repairs of the building, they have not been forthcoming enough to give the tenants an expected move-in date, or to tell us why they haven’t even started the repairs,” said tenant Claire Munday, who has lived in the building for more than 20 years and has had to stay with various friends since the fire. “There is no communication from them! Besides the loss of my personal property – some irreplaceable, I have suffered physical, mental, emotional and financial trauma from this whole experience. It is now October, and seeing no work being done on the building, I am deeply disturbed, still scattered and unsettled and feel taken advantage of by the landlords and Bethel Management. I need my affordable housing, in a location that has become unaffordable for the working class. I signed a lease in good faith. And I expect the current owners to hold up their end of the bargain: Do the repairs to enable me to move back in before the end of this very long year.”

“I just want to get back into my apartment!” said another tenant, Paula Sanchez, who has been staying at a family member’s home. As a result of her displacement, Ms. Sanchez was forced to recover from a February surgery in a living room with no privacy, and faces the possibility of having to do so again if she is not able to return home soon.

HPD has also brought the landlord to court to secure the repairs. Meanwhile, QLS continues to seek relief on the tenants’ behalf, including asking the court to hold the landlord in contempt, to force the landlord and management company to repair the building, and restore the tenants to their homes.

 
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