Andrew Friedman

Democracy Delayed

Madeline Provenzano is playing politics with the health of low-income New Yorkers.

It has been over a year since the Healthy Homes Act was introduced into the City Council. The legislation strives to create accountability for negligent landlords and to ensure that all New Yorkers live in a healthy environment. The bill is needed because the status quo is bleak.

According to one young mother in Brooklyn, Gregoria Rosas, "I live with my five children at 1466 Myrtle Ave in Bushwick. Months ago HPD found evidence of lead paint in my kitchen and my bathroom. The walls in the bathroom are broken and peeling and I am afraid my children are in danger. I have called my landlord and HPD over and over again to try to get help with repairs. I am still waiting."

Ms. Rosas experience is typical. Housing code violations that the City's Department of Housing Preservation and Development has classified as "immediately hazardous", such as peeling lead-based paint, or a lack of heat or hot water, often languish for months without being repaired.

The Healthy Homes Act would change all this. It would require HPD to re-inspect all immediately hazardous housing code violations within thirty days to ensure that landlords have brought their buildings into compliance with the law. If not, HPD would have to fix the dangerous conditions. HPD could bill the negligent landlords three times the cost of re-inspecting and repairing their buildings, so tax-payers don't have to foot the bill for slumlords. Low-income tenants would win because they would no longer have to live in hazardous living conditions for months at a time. HPD would win because they could collect bigger fines and pass the cost of their improved services onto abusive landlords.

After the legislation was referred to Provenzano's Housing and Buildings Committee last year, the bill has not seen the light of day. Provenzano, one of only a few City Council members who have not signed on to sponsor the legislation, has refused to schedule a public hearing on the legislation. So, notwithstanding the support of two-thirds of the City Council, and a broad coalition of over one hundred organizations supporting the legislation, the bill is stuck in committee.

When the bill's sponsor, Letitia James, asked Provenzano to schedule a hearing, she was told that the bill was "political" and, therefore, a hearing would not be scheduled until after the election. Since when has a healthy democracy sought to close off all public debate of important issues during periods of public accountability for public officials?

On October 12th, seventy tenants attended a meeting of Provenzano's committee to demand more open government and that she schedule a hearing for the Healthy Homes Act. Provenzano was so upset that ordinary New Yorkers had the nerve to show up at one of her "public" hearings that she told the gathered tenants that she now would NEVER schedule a hearing on the Healthy Homes Act.

So much for democratic process... So much for accountable government... So much for healthy homes.

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Posted at 8:11 AM, Oct 17, 2005 in Housing
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