By Albert Amateau
A group of Chinatown residents who had been ordered on Nov. 13 to leave their single-room-occupancy quarters because of dangerous conditions, were able return for the first time on Fri., Aug. 28, to check out the condition of their rooms.
Although the Department of Buildings had determined three weeks ago that fire and safety violations on the fourth floor of 81 Bowery had been corrected, the S.R.O. cubicles, which 30 tenants call home, were not fit to live in.
Most of the tiny rooms had no doors, there was no electricity and the common bathrooms were not working properly.
But the landlord, Donald Lee, who has tried to evict the tenants several times in the past few years, met with tenants along with organizers of the Chinatown Tenants Union and lawyers with MFY Legal Services in front of the building, and agreed to begin negotiating a repairs timetable that would allow tenants to return home permanently.
“After initially saying he would not open the doors, the landlord, in the face of enormous pressure from tenants, advocates and elected officials, decided to let tenants go home, at least temporarily,” said Helena Wong, director of the Chinatown Tenants Union. “Now it’s a matter of giving tenants a date when they can move home for good.”
For two hours before Lee opened the doors to the building, tenants along with supporters, including Councilmember Tony Avella, a candidate for mayor, demonstrated on the crowded sidewalk in front of the building just north of Canal St.
Avella said he thought landlords who allowed buildings to deteriorate and become so dangerous that tenants had to be evicted should be thrown in jail.
An aide to Councilmember Alan Gerson read a statement outlining legislation that Gerson is drafting to prevent similar situations. The legislation calls for the city to impose corrective-action schedules on negligent landlords so that violations are cured in a timely fashion. If vacate orders occur because of failure to cure violations, the landlord would be responsible for relocating tenants to places equivalent to the homes they vacated. If an owner doesn’t cure violations that result in structural problems, safety or critical service issues, the city should cure the violations and bill the landlord for the expense, the statement said.
When the multi-agency task force that descended on 81 Bowery at 6 p.m. on Nov. 13, the low-income tenants who pay about $200 a month rent were first told they had to find their own temporary housing or go to a homeless shelter. But the city Department of Housing Preservation and Development gave tenants who did not have a place to go temporary apartments in the Bronx.
One tenant said through and interpreter on Friday that he was fired from his job in Chinatown because the two-hour commute from the Bronx frequently made him late for work. Another tenant said he was arrested after he made a robbery complaint in the Bronx because police thought he was the suspect.
Meanwhile, the Chinatown Tenants Union repeatedly demanded that the dangerous conditions be cured. After D.O.B. found the safety violations cured and lifted the vacate order nine months later, Lee told MFY Legal Services that he would not allow tenants to return. Tenants went to Housing Court on Wed., Aug. 26, and won a ruling that Lee had to let them return to their homes within 48 hours.
The next day, Lee’s attorney, Peter E. Sverd, went to State Supreme Court Justice Eileen Rackower for a stay of the Housing Court order. Rackower denied the stay, and two hours later, Sverd filed an appeal from the Housing Court order. But by 4 p.m. Friday, Lee relented and promised to restore the rooms to acceptable conditions.
