Investigators: Family living in deplorable conditions despite thousands of vacant NYCHA apartments

BROOKLYN (WABC) -- A family from Brooklyn is pleading for help over what they call deplorable conditions in a New York City public housing apartment.

They've asked NYCHA to move them, but their requests have been rejected even though thousands of apartments are sitting empty.

The Eyewitness News Investigators have seen a lot of stories through the years about bad conditions at public housing, but reporter Jim Hoffer says this one probably tops them all. It is an apartment that's more sieve than shelter, and the city housing authority is seemingly uninterested in placing the family into one of their many empty units.

For 10 years, Paul Levine, his wife and son have lived with leaks.

"This is the way I've got to live," he said. "We covered everything up last night because water coming in. These buckets were changed at 11 last night, three-quarters full."

About a year ago, the leaks became so bad that maintenance workers at the city-run Glenwood Housing put up metal catch basins with drainage hoses.

"It catches the water," he said. "It's tin, catches water comes down here, flows down there, across furniture and into the bucket."

With a ceiling covered in tin, drainage hoses hanging down the wall and buckets covering the floor, life has been tough. And the threat of collapse scared him enough to move his son's bed into the living room.

"This is dangerous," he said. "Pans filled up with water, you hear water coming down on the pans, you hear water between the walls."

He has asked repeatedly for an emergency transfer to another NYCHA apartment, but so far, nothing has happened.

"Paperwork gets put in every six months, they disappear," he said. "'Did you find me an apartment?' 'Can't find paperwork, fill another one out.'"

There has been no emergency transfer even though a newly-released audit by city Comptroller Scott Stringer says NYCHA is sitting on 2,342 vacant apartments.

"These are real apartments that could have been given to real New Yorkers in real need," Stringer said. "And it's shameful."

NYCHA has recently started repairing the roof in Levine's building, although he's not hopeful because he claims the leak troubles began a decade ago after roof construction. At this point, for his health and that of his family, he just wants out and to be placed into one of the thousands of NYCHA's vacant apartments until his is properly fixed.

"The more I ask for help or to go to another house, they say yeah we'll get back to you, or put a ticket in," he said.

In response to this report, NYCHA officials said they have no record that Levine requesting to be moved to another apartment. An agency spokesman says the temporary measures are an effort to contain the leaks until roof replacement work on the building is completed next month. Officials say they are spending millions to replace the roofing on all 20 buildings at the Glenwood Houses.