NYCHA's Isaacs Houses (left) and the Holmes Towers.BrigitteThree Upper East Side projects run by the scandal-scarred New York City Housing Authority were given the system’s worst quality ratings in years — and even were ranked among the most troubled in the nation — after recent federal inspections, The Post has learned.
The Holmes Towers, Isaacs Houses and Robbins Plaza — each run by the same managers — notched a dismal 25 points out of a possible 100, according to data compiled by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.
That’s far below the 60 points needed to pass and the lowest score handed out to any NYCHA management team since January 2015, records show.
The projects also tied for 13th worst among more than 3,800 scores tallied nationwide by HUD inspectors last year.
Residents said the findings were no surprise, with tenants at the Isaacs Houses — which has 1,263 apartments in three 24-story buildings — complaining that they’ve been forced to make repairs on their own.
Evette Beasley, 52, said NYCHA workers “wait until things are really bad before they finally fix it. And they never do a good job.
“We’ve given up,” she fumed. “We decided we’re going to pay our own contractors to fix stuff.”
At the Holmes Towers, a pair of 25-story buildings with 634 apartments, Angeles Torres says she’s been waiting more than a year for bathroom repairs.
“There’s a leak in the bathroom above mine, and that’s what’s doing this,” the frustrated 82-year-old said. “I go to the management office and they just say, ‘You’re in the system. Just wait for the painters.’ ”
Tenant Meleney Leneras said she and her daughter suffer from asthma caused by mold in their bathroom. When she called
NYCHA to fix the problem, “They said, ‘Just spray it with bleach,’ ” said Leneras, 39, who works at a JC Penney store.
“So that’s what I keep doing and the mold keeps coming back,” she added. “It’s disgusting.”
The HUD inspections determine whether NYCHA buildings meet federal standards for “decent, safe, sanitary housing in good repair.”
They’re also part of an annual review that determines whether the troubled agency — which receives more than $2 billion a year in federal funds — is fit to oversee the city’s 326 taxpayer-subsidized projects.
The online HUD data don’t detail the individual failings at the Holmes Towers, Isaacs Houses and Robbins Plaza, a 150-unit building for senior citizens.
But public-housing expert Susan Popkin of the nonprofit Urban Institute said they likely involved “major structural problems,” such as elevators, boilers and roofs that need replacement.
In March 2015, the three developments scored 86 points, high enough to exempt them from annual inspections.
But a suit filed in June by the Manhattan US Attorney’s Office alleged that scores since at least 2010 were suspect because
NYCHA “trained its staff on how to deceive HUD inspectors” by using tricks that included hiding defects with painted plywood, spray foam or even cardboard.
The lawsuit and settlement came as scandal consumed NYCHA’s management after the authority revealed it lied for years about conducting required lead inspections.
NYCHA copped to the problems at the three buildings and pinned the failures on its ongoing financial difficulties.
“This development score demonstrates the work ahead for our new leadership team, and our new General Manager is already addressing staffing and operations issues portfolio-wide,” said NYCHA spokeswoman Jasmine Blake.
Keep these in mind as you contemplate the direction of the American government over the past 50 years and especially since the Obama election.
The Goals of Communism
(as read into the congressional record January 10, 1963, from "The Naked Communist" by Cleon Skousen)
1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.
2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.
3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.
4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.
6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.
7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.
8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.
9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.
10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.
11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)
12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.
14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
18. Gain control of all student newspapers.
19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.
34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.
36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand.
39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems.
43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.
44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.
45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.
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