Teisha Jones shows no signs of stopping her quest to increase the standard of living at her building managed by the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), the beleaguered agency that recently received a rare $550 million infusion of state funds and the resignation of its CEO.

Jones has taken on NYCHA before, with a Bronx jury awarding a $57 million judgment against NYCHA for failing to inspect her apartment at Fort Independence Houses for lead. Conditions left her four-year-old daughter developmentally delayed. Jones’s daughter had lead levels 10 times the normal rate.

She’s since left Fort Independence Houses, moving to Bailey Houses on Bailey Avenue just blocks away. Her experience earned her a spot as president of the building’s Resident Council, responding to a frustrated group of residents who seek a decent quality of life.

It’s conditions in the building, home to the elderly, the sick, a World War II veteran, and children, that compelled Jones to summon the New York City Council’s recently appointed chair of the public housing committee for assistance. Jones and resident council members gave the tour to Brooklyn Councilwoman Alicka Ampry-Samuel, stopping by five apartments filled with questionable lead, exposed ceilings, falling bathroom tiles, and an unreliable plumbing system.

“The pipes are old, they need to be repaired, and they’re just bandaging everything and not doing anything,” said Jones.

Representatives from state Senator Gustavo Rivera, who represents the district where Bailey Houses resides, were also on hand.

Among the more egregious observations Ampry-Samuel witnessed was a bathtub continuously running hot water since early March, creating a sauna-like effect that stifles the apartment and led the paint on the bathroom walls to rise. The apartment’s tenant, Lenore Porter, put in a work order to NYCHA weeks ago. As of press time, the problem remains unresolved, and the thousands of gallons of water just keeps flowing down the drain.

On the 20th floor, Joe Rosado, another tenant, shimmied his refrigerator out of its spot to reveal patchwork covering a slowly crumbling wall. He blamed the damaged roof, which siphons rainwater straight into his wall. In some cases, water has been known to jut out of light fixtures and fuse boxes throughout the building. At the foot of the entrance to the roof, dried blood is spotted on the floor.

At another floor, Juana Vazquez showed Ampry-Samuel a bathroom ceiling on the verge of collapsing. “My ceiling was like that—it fell on my head, and I was six months pregnant,” Jones recalled.

The tour was organized by the building’s Resident Council with assistance from the Northwest Bronx Community & Clergy Coalition (NWBCCC) in hopes of raising awareness of the building’s deplorable standard of living.

The redundancy of NYCHA’s problems is familiar territory for Ampry-Samuel, even as her home base is Brooklyn, representing the neighborhoods of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brownsville, East Flatbush, and Crown Heights. The problems in Brooklyn’s housing projects mirror those in the Bronx.

“This is nothing new at all. Families have been suffering like this for many years,” Ampry-Samuel told the Norwood News shortly after her walkthrough, a rare visit for the Councilwoman. “With all of this attention, we need to be focused on what’s next.”

NWBCCC, whose signature goal involves tenant organizing, drafted a report mandating a top-down review of repairs needed for the property.

Jones also wants “the whole development to be tested for lead and not visually.”

Ampry-Samuel’s visit represented a number of tactics Jones has employed to bring equity to Bailey Houses. She’s also written to Community Board 7 (Bailey Houses is the only NYCHA complex to fall within CB7’s borders), and met with elected officials. Among them was Councilman Fernando Cabrera, the sitting council representative for the neighborhood. Cabrera successfully allocated funds for surveillance cameras. But after giving the money to NYCHA, nothing has yet been done.

Filing a Work Order
But even with an infusion of funding, repair work at Bailey Houses is marred by NYCHA’s institutionalized bureaucracy that forces progress to lumber at a snail’s place. With unchecked progress, NYCHA remains its own worst enemy when a work order comes through, testing a tenant’s patience.

For each reported issue, a work order is placed, with maintenance allowed 48 to 72 hours to respond. After verifying the problem, maintenance employees will reach out to an employee dubbed a “skilled laborer,” to perform the work. A response can take more weeks. But with NYCHA overwhelmed with a list of repairs, the latest work order stands in a queue that can take months to respond.

“I put a ticket in for plaster two years ago, and yesterday they came to my house,” said Helene J. Wilson, vice president of the Resident Council.

In some cases, Jones has noticed that work orders, or tickets, are erased well before NYCHA addressed the problem. “Then you have to start the process all over again,” she said.

Should the work be completed, Wilson compared NYCHA’s tools to “Band-Aid and Krazy Glue.”

Wilson cited the approach to fixing the mold issue. The fix? Painting over it, she said, as usual. “[T]hey’re painting the building, but no one is eradicating the mold. They just scraping and painting, scraping and painting and the next time it rains, by the summer that same issue will bring things back right where they started,” said Wilson.

NYCHA has since partnered with community-based groups to introduce a weatherization program, though Bailey Houses is not on the list. The state-funded service upgrades aging buildings with new windows, boilers, rooftops, and lighting.

Political Pressure
On April 10, Shola Olatoye resigned as NYCHA chair, following pressure to step down.

Olatoye, who was present at an event with Mayor Bill de Blasio in Far Rockaway, Queens to promote improvements at a NYCHA complex there, called the day “bittersweet.” She conceded that some work went overlooked.

“For residents to be uncertain about possible lead paint hazards in their homes or unable to stay warm on the coldest days of winter, it unnerves me that we have failed here,” Olatoye said in prepared remarks.

Olatoye’s resignation may come as welcomed news to NYCHA residents like Jones. “I think [NYCHA chair] should consist of maybe a NYCHA resident that has experience…and can do the job,” Jones said.

In a statement following Olatoye’s resignation, Bronx Councilman Ritchie Torres, the former chair to the Council’s Committee on Public Housing, relieved, said “finally!”

Torres, a fervent advocate for improving living conditions in public housing, said “[Olatoye’s resignation] should be seen for what it is: less a choice than an inevitable consequence of collapsed credibility.”

Torres describes newly-appointed interim chairman Stanley Brezenoff and General Manager Vito Mustaciuolo as “first-class.”

News of a $550 million cash infusion came after Governor Andrew Cuomo visited two NYCHA complexes in the Bronx and one in Manhattan. He declared a state of emergency for NYCHA, saying it’s a “public safety and health risk.” He’s ordered the creation of a three-person panel—one from de Blasio’s office, another from the New York City Council, and a third from a NYCHA development. The panel will appoint an emergency manager to oversee NYCHA. They will also appoint a contractor that will be entitled to circumvent NYCHA’s overloaded bureaucracy.

The news could reverse the years of deterioration at the 46-year-old building. Wilson, who’s lived in the building for 28 years, hopes something is done soon. “We’ve been off the map,” she said.

Additional reporting by Martika Ornella