Tens of thousands of New York City residents made calls reporting lack of heat and hot water in January, with several private and public housing tenants telling the New York Post they are stuck in unlivable conditions and are blaming Muslim socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani for failing to respond to the crisis.
Approximately 80,000 New Yorkers called 311 last month — the highest monthly total on record — reporting a lack of heat and hot water during frigid temperatures below ten degrees, according to the report. Tenants throughout the city reported days without heat, freezing-cold showers, and overnight shutoffs.
“We’ve had over 40 days of no hot water over the last 11 months. And we’re now on day eight or nine straight of no hot water,” Williamsburg tenant Alex Hughes told the publication. “I had to walk 15 minutes in the snow and ice to a friend’s house so I could shower.”
In Astoria, Queens, 31-year-old Nicole Pavez, a city planner, said the heat in her building has been going out almost every night, forcing her to bundle up inside and dress her dog in sweaters to wait out the cold weather.
Public housing tenant Malik Williams, 27, told the outlet his apartment at the Lehman Houses were without heat for most of January, and he had to boil water on the stove “just to keep the house warm.”
The Post obtained data showing that the city logged more than 215,000 heat complaints to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development since October 1, which surpasses the more than 187,000 complaints during the same time period the previous year.
“The surge comes as Mamdani has touted the appointment of housing activist Cea Weaver as the city’s new tenant protection czar, positioning her as a champion for renters and a key figure in the administration’s push to crack down on negligent landlords and improve living conditions citywide,” according to the report. “Weaver has previously argued for stronger tenant protections and less reliance on private ownership models, an approach that has drawn renewed scrutiny as heating failures mount across both private buildings and public housing.”
Mamdani has been called before the City Council to answer for the city’s emergency response to the burst of extremely cold weather, per the report. Lawmakers are asking if the socialist mayor has done enough to protect tenants as heat complaints reach record highs.
Officials with New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), which manages one of the nation’s largest public housing systems, told the outlet they run a 24-hour heat desk and emergency response system and noted that they have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on upgrades to heating infrastructure in recent years.
“NYCHA faces an estimated $78 billion repair backlog, underscoring the scale of the challenge confronting City Hall as it pledges to prioritize tenants while temperatures remain unforgiving,” the report detailed.
City Hall Deputy Press Secretary of Housing Matt Rauschenbach told the outlet the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants is “taking a long, hard look at the Housing Maintenance Code and how it’s enforced.”
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