Local apartment residents boiling mad over lack of heat

It’s been a cold winter for tenants of 3333 Broadway.

Residents of this 35-story West Harlem high-rise apartment complex on the corner of 135th and Broadway have not had dependable heat for over a month, according to many tenants and members of a tenants association.

That’s because the heating system in the complex has recently undergone repairs, said several residents. One tenant, who requested anonymity to avoid possible retribution from the management, said the problem had to do with an oil tank.

A temporary oil tank sits outside the building to assist the six boilers that were recently installed. The rupture of one of the tanks, which may have occurred as early as last summer, alerted Urban American Management, the owners of the building, to a problem in the heating system, the member said.

She added that residents and management discovered after inspection that the leak was coming from the oil tanks that supplied the boilers for the apartments. The heating has been sporadic for four weeks, but is now back on.

Representatives from Urban American Management, who bought the building from the state housing subsidy program called Mitchell-Lama in 2007, said that they have been striving both to improve the building’s relationship with its tenants since the shift, as well as to address all maintenance concerns.

“After years of neglect by the previous owners of 3333 Broadway, Urban American has invested millions of dollars into the property in order to ensure that the residents are safer” and that “management is more responsive to their needs and requests,” Douglas Eisenberg, Urban American’s chief operating officer, wrote in an e-mail Tuesday.

But for some residents, the recent chill of inconsistent heating is difficult to ignore.

“We had to keep the oven running the whole time,” said Bella Martin, who has lived in the apartment complex for seven years. “For some people who have larger apartments, the oven isn’t enough to heat the space to a comfortable level, and people are cold,” she said.

Carl Brown, a tenant who has lived in the building since it opened, said, “Of course you feel affected. You have to use electricity when you should be getting heat provided.” And for resident Sandra Cartar, the problems are a major offense. “The problem is that they turn the heat down so damn low that you can hardly feel a thing.”

Some, though, think the problem is relatively minor. “I own an electric heater in case of emergencies,” said tenant Jannae Morre, who has also been in the complex since its opening, “but it’s nothing major.”

Local housing advocates argue that this recent problem is symptomatic of larger tensions.

Hannah Weinstein, a representative from the advocacy group Tenants and Neighbors said that this kind of inaction is purposeful neglect. “We believe the 3333 is a predatory equity building and that they know exactly what they’re doing, in that they don’t do repairs in order to force people out of the building so that they can bring in tenants who will pay more money at market rate,” she said. “It’s probably been happening as long as the ownership has been there.”

Alicia Barksdale, president of the tenants association, did not comment on the specific heating issues, but said, “We’re trying to find out what’s going on with the tenants in their apartments and what’s going on in the building. The owners never met with us last year.”

Many residents who live in the building are on Section 8 Special Housing Choice vouchers, a federal subsidy program that allows lower-income families to live in the building by paying a portion of their rent. The complex was originally built in 1976 to house lower-income residents.

Now, with recurring heating problems, some tenants have accused Urban American of purposefully neglecting maintenance requests in an attempt to force the lower-paying Section 8 tenants out of the building so that the company can accumulate more income from higher-paying tenants who don’t use subsidies.

Eisenberg contested this claim, and wrote in e-mail, “Urban American never discriminates against or harasses tenants who have Section 8 contracts. All residents in properties managed by Urban American are provided the same quality of service no matter the rent that the resident is paying.” Speaking of the improving relationship, he wrote, “This work and capital infusion will continue and we will continue to work with all of our residents and address any issues that they have in a timely manner. ... This is a process which will take time but we are certain that we are on the right track and that at the end of the day all of the residents at the property will be happy to call 3333 home.”

Some residents said they have noticed improvements. “Some of my windows have fallen off,” Chabley Mena said. “But when you have a problem, they fix it really fast. They came really quickly.”
Other tenants said they are much more skeptical.

“I have had flooding for years and they took their time fixing it,” Morre said. “I lost all the carpet in my bedroom.”

But despite this perceived purposeful neglect, Morre said management could not force her out of the building.

“I won’t leave, not until I retire,” Morre said.

lindsey.ward@columbiaspectator.com