Tenants of Section 8 Lower East Side Housing Haven't Had Gas for 40 Days

UPDATE, Oct. 13: Tenants are hungry, cold and beaten down after 40-plus days with no gas — and no signs of abatement. "It's a struggle just to live for me," one resident tells Patch. Get the full story here.

Original post, from Oct. 10, below.

LOWER EAST SIDE, NY — The hundreds of people who live in the Section 8 housing complex Grand Street Guild Residence in the Lower East Side haven't had gas for 40 days, and they testified that they are extremely frustrated in a meeting Sunday night with a representative from the management company, the Lo-Down reported.

The tenants said their gas was shut off in August because there was a leak found in an inspection in the laundry room. Three of six gas lines have been repaired, but plumbers have had trouble getting into some people's apartments, tenants told the Lo-Down. There are 200 units in the affected buildings at 131 Broome St.

Tenants have no idea when their gas will be up and running again, and in the mean time, they have had to spend hundreds of dollars on take-out and restaurant service, they said. The building's owner, the nonprofit Archdiocese of New York, offered them $200 rebates, but last night they said it wasn't enough and some of them were ready to sue.

Tenants were given hotplates by management, which they said were insufficient.

On Oct. 4, several local elected officials — State Senator Daniel Squadron, Assemblywoman Alice Cancel, City Council member Margaret Chin, U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, and Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer — wrote a letter to the development's manager, Wavecrest Management, demanding that repairs happen more quickly and that they offer more financial assistance to tenants.

"As this process moves forward, please keep in mind that tenants continue to bear the brunt of the daily costs – financial and otherwise – of the gas outage," the letter said. "Tenants continue to contact our offices about compensation for loss of basic building services. While we appreciate the recently proposed $200 rent credit per apartment, we feel the proposed credit is not enough to offset the hardship that tenants are facing. We urge you to consider additional programs and compensation to address the outage's impact on tenants."

Patch has reached out to Wavecrest Management, and we will update if we hear back.

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