Talk Bronx New York

New York’s Housing and Preservation department says this apartment building has nearly a 1000 open violations.

They’ve repeatedly shut off the heat to folks paying 800 dollars or more a month, and during a cold snap like this one, that can be deadly.

Exavien Saez, 5, was gasping with asthma last week in his heatless Bronx apartment, saying it only goes away when they put the heat back on.

“It’s aggravated by the cold. It was so cold that we had to rush him to the emergency room,” said his mother, Carrie Saez.

“That’s not my problem. I don’t own the building,” he said.

A week later the heat’s back on, at least for now. Exavien’s mom says it won’t last.

“They’ll turn it off in hour. It won’t be on all night,” she said.

Bronx Community Ward 7 District Manger Fernando Tirado got the city to fill the furnace with emergency oil last week, but folks who live here say there are still days when it’s just as cold inside and out.

“I know these people are freezing. Many complaints a week later that they are still freezing,” Tirado said. Read more..

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 Bronxite John Melton checks out audio equipment at Bronx Speakers Store on Boston Road and says he likes to blast car stereo, to the chagrin of many.

 You wouldn’t know it from all the noise, but the Bronx has gotten quieter this year.

Bronxites logged almost 8% fewer noise complaints to the city’s 311 hotline during the first six months of this year than they did over the same period last year.

There were 28,915 noise complaints from Jan. 1 to the end of June, compared with 31,411 last year.

“I have to give some credit to the weather,” said Councilman James Vacca (D-East Bronx). “We’ve had a mild summer so far and a lot of rain and those are both circumstances that are detriments to noise. That’s got to be a contributing factor.”

“I’m not surprised. It seems to be less noisy,” said George Dallas, 72, of Morris Park. “It’s just people blowing their horns. But that’s New York drivers. You have to live with it.”

For the second year in a row, Community Board 7, which includes Norwood, University Heights, Jerome Park, Bedford Park, Fordham and Kingsbridge Heights topped the list with the most noise complaints in the borough.

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Northwest Bronx program assist on evictions, problems with landlords 

Northwest Bronx residents with housing concerns can benefit this summer from a new pilot program.

The local community board has joined up with the West Bronx Housing and Neighborhood Resource Center to offer housing assistance to the more than 140,000 people living in the area.

“We decided to partner with them because they needed space, and we needed to help residents,” said Fernando Tirado, district manager of Community Board 7, which covers Jerome Park, Norwood and University Heights.

“It’s to deal with the growing problem of tenants being forced out or not getting the appropriate amount of services from their landlord,” said Tirado.

The program will provide such services as help with filing government housing forms, assistance contacting city agencies with complaints, and mediation of disputes between landlords and tenants.

A representative from the resource center will be at the board’s office at 229-A E. 204th St. on the third Tuesday of each month from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. to offer housing expertise.

Sandy Dunford, executive director of the resource center, said the board had been referring residents to her office for years, but it was difficult to get them to come in, which often had disastrous consequences.

“Then the problem deepens, and it may be too late by the time they come to us. If we can help earlier, there’s a lot of things we can do,” Dunford said.

“There’s nothing sadder than having someone come in a day before they are evicted or foreclosed on and knowing that if they had come in earlier, we might have been able to do something,” she added.

The first session took place on May 20, and the program is already having an impact.

Just a few people showed up, but several received guidance about how to organize a tenants’ association, and one woman facing foreclosure is receiving help with the problem.

“There’s no way she would have come in if not for this program,” Dunford said. “She didn’t know we existed, but she came to the board, and they said to come in when we were here the next day.”

The program is set to run through September, but if it is successful, it may be extended.

“We hope that people in the community will be supportive of it, so that we can continue our partnership on a permanent basis,” Tirado said.

SOURCE: NYDailyNews.com

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