New York Attorney General Letitia James announced Monday morning she’s bringing a lawsuit against the owners of the Kenney Apartments in Newburgh. The suit alleges tenants of the affordable housing units have been without proper heat or hot water for years. Residents have allegedly made hundreds of calls to management without the conditions being improved.
The attorney general is seeking a court order that would require the apartments’ owners to repair the facilities so that they are safe and livable within 30 days and also pay restitution to the tenants.
“No family should have to spend winter choosing between freezing or risking a fire by leaving their oven on for heat. No senior, no parent, no child should be forced to endorse sewage flooding from their apartment, mold in their walls or rats in their kitchen, while their landlords ignore their pleas for help.” James said at the press conference Monday.
Residents have also reported damaged floors with holes, unstable stairs, sewage flowing out of toilets, leaks, moldy paint, exposed wiring, and broken appliances that weren’t fixed for years. The apartment complex has over 160 different building code violations.
Most recently the suit alleges there was no consistent heat or hot water from October until January.
In order to stay warm, residents have used electric heaters and had to boil water or leave ovens on, which can be dangerous and also result in high utility bills.
Gwen Griffin told WAMC, “I was running my oven, boiling water on top, and that did heat up. We’d make a thing out of it, just pow wow in the living room, all of us together, watch TV, make popcorn or something. Just make the best of it.”
“You have to laugh to keep from crying sometimes, because that's how bad the situations were.”
Another resident who suffers from diabetes and needs a working refrigerator for her insulin, couldn’t get it fixed.
One Newburgh City Council member, Omari Shakur, said that this is part of a much larger problem. He said there are other affordable housing complexes in Newburgh that are also in serious need of repair. Shakur said a big part of the problem is the rent is going up so high because people who are moving up from New York City and landlords and developers are taking advantage of high-paying residents.
“We need a real renovation in some of these older spots, and we also need to make sure single residents are taken care of too, because we have over 8,000 residents that are suffering in the City of Newburgh, and it's an everyday problem.”
The council member said that rent for a single bedroom can be $1,500 in Newburgh. But the problem is the average income in the city is about $35,000 dollars but the rents are based on Orange County, where the median income is closer to $90,000.
Residents are afraid to speak out because they’re afraid of losing their homes.
The owners of the Kenney apartments did not immediately return WAMC’s request for comment.
