The city is sending homeless families to vermin-infested shelters plagued by fire, health and safety code violations for which taxpayers are paying crazy rent that’s sometimes triple the going rate, a Department of Investigation probe has found.
The report released Thursday follows recent Daily News exposés of poor conditions at shelters, and singles out buildings targeted by The News, a shelter run by Gov. Cuomo’s sister, Maria Cuomo-Cole.
At one address, investigators encountered a dead rat in an apartment with four children.
At another, the Department of Homeless Services wound up spending $637,000 to post guards near a rusted-out stairwell after investigators discovered it was too dangerous to use.
“DOI has found that the family shelters it inspected and reviewed are too often unsafe and unhealthy for children and families and that the family shelter system is in need of aggressive immediate as well as long term reform efforts,” the report states.
DOI Commissioner Mark Peters said the problems pre-dated Mayor de Blasio’s arrival at City Hall, but added, “To be clear, these problems have continued and there can be no further delay in addressing them.”
Peters said DHS adopted several reforms in response to his investigation which once implemented, “will break the bluntly Dickensian cycle that we have seen in our shelter system for the last decade.”
DHS said they had already increased and toughened up inspections of shelters. As of Monday, the city’s shelter population was 58,000, including 24,400 children.
DHS Commissioner Gilbert Taylor said, said he “will use the report’s recommendations to further inform our system-wide reform work that is currently underway.”
“These efforts build upon our goal of making shelters conducive environments for homeless families to return to self-sufficiency and stability. There is nothing more important to DHS than the safety, security and well-being of our clients,” Taylor said.
In February The News reported on dangerous, unhealthy conditions at so-called “cluster site” transitional shelters, including some cited in DOI report, and on Sunday The News reported on problems at the Tier II shelter run by HELP USA, where Cuomo-Coles is chairwoman of the board of directors.
All told, DOI found 621 code violations at 25 randomly selected shelters, and alleged that DHS did little to punish landlords or the non-profits that run these sordid flophouses.
In fact, DHS routinely gives shelters with dozens of serious code violations a “passing grade,” and does little to follow up when problems are identified, DOI charged.
The Hamilton Place Hotel, run by HELP USA, the non-profit overseen by Cuomo’s sister, got a DHS passing grade in April but DOI found 31 open violations in June.
DHS gave another HELP USA Tier II site, HELP I, a passing grade in June, but in August DOI found 32 open code violations, including nine from buildings, eight from the fire department and 15 from Housing Preservation & Development.
Meanwhile, the taxpayers are paying too much for these substandard hovels: The average rent was at least $2,451 at family shelters, DOI found.
In a transitional housing program called Tier II, which serves 74,000 families, the city pays on average $24.9 million each month.
That’s at an average monthly rent of $3,222, compared to $528 to $1,200 per month in the surrounding neighborhood.
So-called “cluster sites” — which house 3,143 families, up from 2,918 when de Blasio took office — “are in need of the most immediate action.”
Security is “so lax that tenants feel unsafe in their buildings,” and tenants are subjected to unhealthy conditions such as roaches “scattering as inspectors knocked on doors.”
DOI visited the building on Tinton Ave. in the Bronx where 4-year-old Juan Sanchez died last April. DHS placed the family there despite prior warnings from another city agency that the building was “unacceptable,” DOI found.
A DOI inspector visited May 1 with inspectors from FDNY, the buildings department. FDNY issued 23 vilations, and the Buildings Department issued three.
The building was “filthy, badly maintained and with garbage in the common areas.” The security guard had been there one day, didn’t check people in or out.
And it got worse. A DOI inspector found a dead rat in an apartment of four children, noting, “The decaying smell permeated into the hallway outside the apartment.”
In fact, DOI found “extensive vermin infestation” throughout the five cluster sites it visited.
DOI was especially critical of the homeless services department’s weak response to obvious violations. The agency “fails to insure corrective actions are implemented and when they are not, the agency has historically taken little action against the landlords and providers who are neglecting their legal responsibilities.”
DHS had previously found violations at 19 of the 25 sites visited by DOI within the prior year. Still, the agency gave 10 of those sites “passing grades,” even though they had racked up 47 of what DHS calls “life safety hazards.”
DHS had just given a “passing grade” to units in some hotels in which it places families, which DOI said were rife with serious code violations.
Investigators discovered a dead mouse inside a bureau drawer at Mike’s Place, a hotel in the Melrose section of the Bronx. In other hotels, bunk beds and cribs blocked windows to fire escapes, “but because the rooms were so small there was no other way to configure the furniture.”
The average hotel rent per month was $2,841 for families of four living in a one-room with bathroom and kitchenette. The Frant Hotel in Northern Manhattan owes $191,000 in city fines for code violations, while the Ellington Hotel a few blocks away owes $45,277.
DHS gave Regent Residence, a city-owned shelter on the Upper West Side, a passing grade with the caveat “needs improvement” on May 14. When DOI showed up June 4, investigators found 35 open violations, including seven cited by DHS.
One violation that didn’t make DHS’ list was a rusted-out stairwell, which was “literally falling apart and dangerous to walk on.”
This left only one means of egress for 140 families, and DHS had known about the hazard since 2012. After DOI showed up, DHS paid 24-hour-a-day “fire guards” to prevent anyone from using the stairs.
The cost for these guards from June 5 through Sept. 28 exceeded $637,000 – or $5,493 per day.
