7 On Your Side: Homeless shelter without hot water

NEW YORK (WABC) -- At just 10 months Arianna Flores is one of the littlest residents at a city run family shelter on Sutter Avenue in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn.

And her mom is sick with worry her asthmatic baby is going to catch a cold.

"We are all asthmatic in this house, so we all caught a cold," said her mom, Jessica Flores.

All four of her older kids caught colds when their building's boiler broke last week.

"I kept complaining every day when are we getting hot water. They kept telling us the next day, the next day," said Jessica.

Down the hall another mom, Janette Shaw, has had it with only freezing water for her family, "You gotta sit there, and boil water for everyone to take a bath," she said.

Diane Webb wound up in the family shelter with her son Taimon after losing everything in a fire.

"It's just not fair with normal children, imagine a mentally challenged child that loves the water," said Diane.

It's been a challenging week for the autistic teen who is most calm after his warm bath.

When families contacted us, we got in touch with HPD, New York City Housing Preservation and Development, right away. It was aware of the problem, explaining a part for the broken boiler was causing the repair delay.

After we contacted HPD, a contractor was there within a few hours, with that part to repair that boiler.

"Basically the guy told us he was taking the pump and gonna give us hot water," said Jessica.

For the first time in 7 days they can stop boiling water on the stove.

"Thanks so much for everything from me and my family," said Jessica.

Help USA which operates this transitional housing safety net for families told us they were on top of this, ordering that boiler part the day it broke and it was scheduled to be repaired with or without our involvement.

HPD thanked us for alerting them to the problem.