Some Decry Basement Units, Others Call Bigotry, After Storm Death

FOREST HILLS, QUEENS — Darlene Hsu, 48, was at home, in the basement unit of a Forest Hills apartment complex, when floodwater burst through her door on Wednesday night.

She tried to escape, the building’s property manager Patrician Fuentes told the New York Times, but, as water rushed in, Hsu reportedly got stuck in the doorway. Fuentes heard Hsu screaming for help as neighbors tried to free her, but the water quickly climbed to the ceiling, the Times reported. Hsu never made it out of her home.

As the remnants of Hurricane Ida inundated New York with record rainfall on Wednesday night, at least 13 New Yorkers died — 11 of whom drowned in their basement-level homes in Queens and Brooklyn, when water rushed in and trapped them inside, according to the police department. The youngest victim was 2-years-old, reports show.

The fatalities renewed calls from housing advocates and some elected officials to legalize basement apartments, most of which presently flout the city’s occupancy laws but still house upwards of 100,000 people — primarily including immigrants in Queens, reports show.

Opposition to basement units in Forest Hills

In Forest Hills, however, some neighbors took the harrowing basement deaths as a chance to voice opposition to so-called neighborhood overcrowding.

In a local Facebook group, one person said that illegal basement units “turn single-family homes in single-family-zoned areas into tenements” that “skirt the law and ruin neighborhoods.”

They acknowledged that the basement units often go to “vulnerable” people, including immigrants, and suggested that the city should force landlords to keep the units up-to-code in order to enforce safety and taxation codes.

Another neighbor called basement apartments a way that landlords “pay their mortgages and overcrowd neighborhoods,” writing: “Paying for basement apartments is no less than a regular priced single bedroom” — despite documented accounts that show otherwise.

A third person suggested that people who need affordable units should just move to a less expensive neighborhood, or look into city-sanctioned low income housing — which is limited to the point of a “crisis,” according to the city itself.

Aleda Gagarin, the progressive frontrunner in Forest Hills’ city council primary this fall, said that she’s seen people in her district voice anti-basement-unit arguments as a veiled attempt to hide prejudices.

“When I ran, the loudest voices of my local civic were adamantly against NYC Base,” she tweeted, referencing the NYC Base Campaign to legalize basement apartments. “They’re the same folks that constantly deny a life of dignity to non-wealthy, BIPOC in the name of ‘neighborhood character,’” she wrote.

A neighbor shared a screenshot of her tweet on Facebook, writing that Forest Hills “dodged a big one.”

'People need affordable housing'

Many other Forest Hills residents, however, responded to the thread in defense of the basement units — and the people who live in them.

“People need affordable housing. Sometimes a basement is all they can afford,” wrote one.

“People move into these basement apartments because they are typically much less expensive and this is the most they can afford,” wrote another. “This is all so heartbreaking!”

“Sad reality for so many,” wrote a third, echoing the sentiment that basement units are the only affordable option for some.

Those urging the city to legalize basement units shared many of these same sentiments in the wake of Wednesday’s storm.

Queens Borough President Donovan Richards, who grew up in basement apartments, told The City that he thinks New York should “definitely look” at legalization more seriously.

“It’s a Catch-22 because we always want to put safety first, but a lot of individuals would have no other option at this moment,” Richards said, describing basement apartments as a “lifeline” for many.

Annetta Seecharran, executive director at Chhaya, agrees that people always have, and will continue to, live in basement apartments, given the shortage of affordable housing in New York City.

“We need to bring basement apartments out of the shadows and into the light,” Seecharran told the Times, noting the importance of legalizing these units in order to help tenants, who might otherwise not seek help or repairs for fear of outing the unit as illegal.

Basement residents’ fears of speaking up are exacerbated by the fact that many are undocumented immigrants.

Mayor Bill de Blasio, however, stressed in a Friday news conference about the city’s future storm response plans, that people at risk of flooding should call 911, regardless of their immigration status.

"It's just about protecting you and your family and nothing else," he said.

The 'painstaking' way forward

De Blasio also said Friday that he hasn’t disregarded the idea of legalizing basement units, despite the fact that his administration’s pilot program to convert basement units in Brooklyn into legal homes all-but collapsed last year when he stripped it of 92 percent of its funding.

“Some [basement] apartments can be made safe, but it’s a challenge logistically, legally, and financially. I don’t think it’s realistic to say ‘let’s just have no one live in them’ because I don’t know where all those folks will end up. We have to figure out a way forward, [but] it may be a painstaking way forward that takes a long time” de Blasio said.

Seecharran, however, isn’t so sure that time is on the side of the city’s basement tenants.

She told The City that she is ready to see a more decisive step towards legalization, not another pilot program, from government officials.

“We don’t need to prove that [legalizing basement apartments] is important. We just last night got all the proof we need,” she said.