I've been writing this blog for over 10 years now as a public service to tenants of Kenmore Hall. I hope it's been useful to tenants over the years. I'll continue to provide information and weird humor indefinitely...
If it's at all useful and/or entertaining to you and you'd like to support the project, consider making a donation!
Want to contact Mayor Adams? Got an issue about Kenmore Hall that you'd like to have looked into? Here are a few ways to reach him & his staff:
Text: (917) 909-2288
Follow this link for more options, including a webform which allows users to send a message: https://www.nyc.gov/office-of-the-mayor/contact-the-mayor.page?emci=8cbafb00-9458-ee11-9937-00224832eb73&emdi=040d4908-c358-ee11-9937-00224832eb73&ceid=4528096
Mayor Eric Adams is patting himself on the back for expanding programs to help at-risk tenants in NYC. Hopefully, these initiatives will actually help; here's an article I received from his office in my email this afternoon:
Last week, a neighbor called me with an all too familiar story. Her landlord had spent months refusing to make critical repairs to her apartment because he wanted to sell the building. She was told she would have to move out immediately. My neighbor did not realize she had a right to insist that these urgent repairs be made, and to stay in the home she had lived in for over 20 years.
Too many New Yorkers are unaware they have rights and that city government has resources to protect them.
That is why this summer Mayor Adams and the Mayor’s Public Engagement Unit (PEU), which I am proud to lead, announced a vital new resource to support New York City tenants – a one-of-a-kind Live Tenant Helpline where New Yorkers facing eviction, harassment, or unacceptable living conditions can learn about their housing rights and access a wide array of resources.
The initial version of our tenant helpline launched during the pandemic and received over 100,000 calls, providing invaluable support to New York City tenants during a period of extreme uncertainty. But tenants had to leave a message and wait for a call back, sometimes holding their breath for days until they got the answers they deserved.
Mayor Adams was clear that the city needed to do better. Thanks to new funding from the Adams administration, the helpline is now staffed by live operators.
When New Yorkers call 311 and ask to connect to the “Tenant Helpline,” they are directed immediately to one of our Tenant Specialists – compassionate housing experts who often come from the communities they serve and have their own stories of experiencing housing instability.
Through the helpline, we are supporting tenants in the fight against unfair evictions. We are helping low-income seniors and New Yorkers with disabilities freeze their rents. We are guiding others through the process of applying for financial assistance.
And now, thanks to the live call system, we are doing it all much more quickly.
But we know that housing instability does not take place in a vacuum, which is why our helpline does not either. Connecting tenants to a broader network of programs and benefits is essential to improving tenant outcomes for the long term.
Just last week, one of our specialists connected with a tenant facing the threat of eviction due to rental arrears. By working closely with other agency partners, our team helped her secure enough money from a One-Shot Deal, a loan for tenants provided by Human Resources Administration, to pay back her rent and keep her in her home. But we didn’t stop there. We also walked her through the process of applying for SNAP benefits and Medicaid to put her on a better financial footing.
The PEU Tenant Helpline is only one piece of our tenant support infrastructure. Mayor Adams knows we cannot just react to incoming phone calls; we have to be proactive about identifying New Yorkers who need our help. That’s why PEU is out every day knocking on doors to share information with tenants about their rights and connect them to critical city resources. We are working closely with other city agencies on Partners in Preservation, a coordinated effort across city government, legal services providers, and tenant organizing groups to proactively address tenant harassment in rent-regulated buildings. With our partners at the Department of Homeless Services, we are supporting small landlords to ease the administrative burden of leasing to New Yorkers with housing vouchers.
These steps are important. They are equipping New Yorkers with the resources they need to combat illegal evictions and harassment. But they are not enough on their own.
We also need to ramp up enforcement against landlords who fail to meet safety requirements or make repairs. Last month, Mayor Adams announced our administration had taken successful enforcement actions against safety violations found in over 5,000 apartments that resulted in almost $500,000 in civil penalties.
While the city continues its fight to build more affordable housing, the most important thing we can do to tackle the housing crisis right now is keep New Yorkers secure in their existing homes. PEU is proud to be there to answer the call.
If you want to contact the Public Engagement Unit, follow THIS link: https://www.nyc.gov/site/mayorspeu/about-peu/about-peu.page
I just heard from a tenant that there's a rumor that the Health Department paid Kenmore Hall a visit earlier today.
Anyone have any details on this? Were they actually there? Did they inspect something? Who called them? Please leave comments below (you can do it anonymously if you like)
HSI's mission statement, as posted on their website, is this:
permanent supportive housing: HSI builds communities that help tenants achieve their fullest potential for housing self-sufficiency by assessing their individual needs and building respectful and caring environments to overcome barriers to their success. Our programs employ a housing first, harm reduction approach that is person-centered and outcome-oriented. Our primary goal is to keep residents housed, reduce crises, and help those most vulnerable re-integrate into social networks that they have long been excluded from; decreasing isolation, and promoting improved quality-of-life.
The website goes on to describe HSI's programs as follows:
⦁ We employ a housing first, harm reduction approach that is person-centered and outcome-oriented, enabling homeless individuals to address the complex barriers to their health and housing stability by:
⦁ delivering safe, clean, permanent homes without conditions - our tenants are not required to meet any prerequisites before moving into HSI housing including attaining sobriety, going through rehabilitation programs, or receiving mental health treatment.
⦁ providing access to wide-ranging on-site services that are elective and customized - targeting the root causes of homelessness that resulted in displacement originally including poor health, untreated mental illness, chemical dependency and lack of educational and vocational opportunities. HSI programming is comprehensive, tailored to each individual's needs.
⦁ promoting community - HSI strives to reconnect residents to social networks, knowing the strength community participation promises. With the opening of Kenmore Hall's learning center in 2007, HSI introduced RISE, our creative arts and educational programming that supports life-long learning. Classes and activities include computer literacy, job search, theater workshops, writing classes, visual art courses and so much more.
Sounds nice, right? Here's the thing, though. For many years, tenants were hounded by social workers to keep regular appointments to make plans to meet personal goals, and tenants were threatened and harassed if they declined services they didn't need. Many of the tenants at Kenmore Hall struggle with sobriety, mental illness, lack of educational and vocational opportunities, and similar issues - but there ARE tenants who don't share these problems. They became homeless (and were NOT chronically homeless) due to loss of jobs, divorce, medical crises, or similar issues. Some tenants have college degrees. Some have worked for most of their lives in fulfilling, relevant jobs. HSI fails to recognize that tenants have much more diverse backgrounds than what's described on their website, and frankly, it's insulting and inappropriate that everyone be given a limited range of "treatment" plans. One size does NOT fit all, and tenants who do NOT need HSI's help in achieving their personal goals are often harassed and treated as though they're being uncooperative when they request either NO services, or more personally relevant services that would better meet their individual needs. This is a problem that seriously needs to be addressed, and isn't - there's not even an effort being made to meet in the middle and compromise. That's not a problem for HSI; they don't feel that they need to invest - but it can cause incredible complications for tenants. In some cases, it's more than inconvenient and obstructive, it's potentially criminal. I've been talking about these issues on this blog since 2009, and it's time to make some big changes.
Robert Tucker lives in apartment 8G at Kenmore Hall, an SRO located at 145 East 23rd Street in Manhattan. Over the course of several years, roughly 2014 through 2017, he filed numerous complaints with 311 about his unit because he experienced repeated floods to his unit (there were at least 5 that he mentioned to me), and he feels that there is a pervasive mold infestation in the walls that has not been properly addressed by management (Housing & Services, Inc., doing business as Kenmore Associates LP). He directed many of these complaints to city agencies including the Department of Buildings, the Department of Health, HPD, etc. He wants the mold remediated properly by an outside company that is licensed to do this specialized work, and HSI/Kenmore Associates keeps dismissing the problem and trying to have building maintenance simply repaint. Mr. Tucker has repeatedly stated that the mold situation in the room is triggering severe difficulty breathing whenever he is in the room, and that this has sent him to the Emergency Room at the local hospitals, requiring nebulizer treatments to stabilize his ability to breathe. He claims that he cannot use the room as a residence at all at this time because the condition is so severe.
Mr. Tucker would also like assistance moving some of his property from his unit to his storage facility in an effort to make room for licensed workmen to professionally (and legally) remediate the mold situation in his unit, but it is difficult and/or almost impossible for him to do the work on his own without assistance. He would like to have assistance from management and/or an outside agency like APS. Mr. Tucker feels very strongly that H.S.I. is not fulfilling its mission of providing supportive housing to its tenants, because rather than helping him by having maintenance staff (or arranging for helpers from an outside agency such as APS), they choose instead to punish him by taking him to Housing Court, publicly ridiculing his alleged mental state by having the staff psychiatrist talk to him about personal issues in the building's lobby (also violating his right to privacy should he actually choose to seek professional help), and in general avoid addressing or cooperating with the issue directly in any productive or helpful way by having his caseworker be essentially invisible or unavailable for long periods of time. APS has also, according to Mr. Tucker, dropped the ball for many months by assigning him a caseworker who never met with him, was extremely unresponsive, and did not even create a case file for him, and then mysteriously quit, according to Mr. Tucker's account.
Since January of 2023, Mr. Tucker has been forced to find alternative accommodations because he is unable to use his room. Between January and June, he was able to stay with a neighbor (Anthony Ramirez) in the building as an unofficial "roommate", sharing the neighbor's unit. However, the neighbor passed away in June of this year, so that was no longer an option. Since then, Mr. Tucker has had to find alternative places to sleep at night, including the M103 bus, which runs from 125th Street to City Hall, and a nearby drop-in center where clients can spend the night on a chair on a first-come, first-served basis. Meanwhile, a room he can't use because of unresolved health and safety issues is being paid for by HPD. This situation is not acceptable for Mr. Tucker, whose health and well-being is being adversely affected by this situation. The mold that has been in the walls of Mr. Tucker's unit for almost a decade is ALSO a violation, and one that legally MUST finally be resolved appropriately by the building.
Mr. Tucker wants to resolve this correctly. He is willing to seek funds from HRA to hire a moving service to pack and move his property to storage. He needs cooperation from the building staff in order to accomplish this successfully - part of what he needs is less interference with moving his property through the halls and out to the moving truck or van. Since there is a long-standing mold issue in the room, and dangerous spores are causing severe breathing issues for Mr. Tucker, he would like to request that the building provide him with an air purifier that incorporates HEPA filters and an electrostatic feature to reduce the airborne irritants. This should help him spend more time in the room participating in cleaning & organizing what needs to be removed. Kenmore Associates could also help him by providing him with KN95 face masks to help filter out particulates he'd otherwise be breathing while working on the room. This kind of cooperation would help both Mr. Tucker AND Kenmore Associates achieve the required goals.
Can a reasonable accommodation be worked out so that both issues can be successfully dealt with? Simply repainting does not completely address the mold issue; he feels that his Warrant of Habitability is being compromised, and that the remediation of the mold issue should be in accordance with Local Law 55.
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