New study reveals extent of mold problems at NYCHA apartments
NEW YORK (WABC) -- A new study is revealing a pattern of mold problems in NYCHA apartments.
The study comes as New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is speaking out on the troubled agency, saying NYCHA is in crisis.
On Thursday the city announced that it is moving to fix broken boilers faster. But that may not be enough to stop the state from declaring an emergency and taking over NYCHA.
"You'll see it...dark, darkish gray and the spores are growing, and they turn to black," said NYCHA tenant Danny Barber.
And Danny Barber says it's the kind of mold that killed his mother.
As story after story emerges of the deplorable conditions inside New York City Housing Authority Apartments, this is the latest.: a new study on mold in which public housing residents and state lawmakers polled over 200 NYCHA tenants across the city.
59 percent said they had mold problems and a whopping 72 percent said NYCHA failed to complete the repairs.
And then there's the way they are being completed.
"Where NYCHA workers who no fault of their own, because they are not being trained, are sent into an apartment with mold with a bottle of Clorox, cleaning up and painting over it, that's not how you remediate mold," said New York State Senator Jeff Klein of the Bronx.
Klein is pushing through legislation in the New York State Senate that would approve a state monitor. He'd also like all NYCHA fixes to come under New York's "Design and Build" program.
A spokesperson at NYCHA Thursday welcomed that, calling it "an important tool that would make a real difference in how quickly we can deliver capital projects."
But on the heels of bad news about lead and a class action lawsuit, will Gov. Cuomo issue an emergency executive order and take over NYCHA? There was no doubt on his mind Thursday.
"Act quickly. Because if you don't act, the federal government will act, and that will be the worst case scenario," said Cuomo.
What is clear, is that the problems at NYCHA involve even more than public health, they involve politics at this point.
A takeover is likely in the works. It's just a question of who.
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