Comptroller Stringer to NYCHA: Fix Heating Failures and Boiler Inspection Problems Now Before Residents are Left in the Cold

(New York, NY) — New York City Comptroller Scott M. Stringer released a new audit of the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), which found that the agency tasked with managing the largest public housing authority in the country does not have the ability to effectively track the status and resolution of heating complaints involving individual apartments. The Comptroller’s audit found that NYCHA lacked adequate procedures to verify the accuracy of repair information, and did not maintain adequate records of required boiler inspections.

“Heating during the cold winter months is not a luxury — it is a basic necessity.  NYCHA’s consistent lack of accountability in addressing heating complaints and maintaining boilers is unacceptable,” said New York City Comptroller Scott M. Stringer. “NYCHA developments are home to more than 400,000 New Yorkers who deserve habitable, safe living conditions and timely responses to their concerns.  Instead, our audit reveals NYCHA’s persistent failure to properly manage and resolve heating complaints and the agency’s sheer inability to track what’s broken and what’s not.   If there is a heating issue or broken boiler, then it must be recorded, addressed, and repaired promptly – period. The upcoming warmer months give NYCHA another opportunity to streamline and upgrade its current, ineffective process before temperatures drop. I urge NYCHA to use this time wisely and implement our recommendations now before thousands more residents are left in the cold again. Later is too late – there can be no more excuses for NYCHA’s incompetence.”

NYCHA’s internal procedures require the agency to provide heat to its residents between October 1st and May 31st when the temperature falls below 55 degrees Fahrenheit, and the agency’s own regulations require a 24-hour response time for all heat-related complaints. Comptroller Stringer’s audit found a persistent failure by NYCHA to address heating problems and track the status of much-needed repairs, undermining the agency’s ability to provide heat to its residents.

Comptroller Stringer’s audit of NYCHA’s heating and boiler issues revealed the following findings:

• NYCHA’s tools to oversee and track heating issues were both inefficient and ineffective, hindering the agency’s ability to manage and resolve heating complaints.
• NYCHA lacks the ability to readily track the status and completion times of repairs needed to resolve residents’ heat complaints because its system tracks only the disposition of individual work orders and not the ultimate resolution of tenants’ heat related complaints that affect only their apartments.
• NYCHA cannot identity the number of individual heating repair requests that have not been resolved or the length of time those requests have been open.
• NYCHA’s records indicate that in the 2017-2018 heating season, 23 percent of heat-related work orders were not closed within the agency’s own target of 24 hours.
• In addition, work orders are closed for many other reasons than that a repair was completed.
• For example, NYCHA closed 14,257 work orders during the 2017-2018 heating season because its staff reported that the resident was not home or that maintenance staff could not gain access to the building or apartment.
• NYCHA lacks adequate procedures to verify that its work orders were properly closed and that work reportedly done was in fact done and properly completed.
• NYCHA solicits feedback from residents concerning their satisfaction with work performed in response to their complaints, but does not use it to review the quality of the work done under any particular work order, to improve training of heating staff, to allocate resources, or to better organize and perform its operations.
• NYCHA does not maintain an accurate and complete inventory of all of its boilers, undermining the agency’s ability to properly ensure that boiler issues are identified and repaired.
• NYCHA does not maintain adequate records of mandatory boiler inspections and as a result, it cannot assess the degree to which the agency’s boilers are being inspected to ensure that the boilers are up to standards and functioning properly.
• NYCHA was not able to provide evidence that deficiencies identified during boiler maintenance inspections were addressed and so was unable to establish the extent to which the cited conditions were corrected and the amount of time it took to address those conditions.

Comptroller Stringer’s audit recommended NYCHA take the following steps to address the agency’s lack of adequate heating and boiler inspections:

• NYCHA should create a system that effectively tracks all heating complaints and addresses those complaints in a timely manner.
• NYCHA should take all necessary measures to determine and monitor on an ongoing basis the adequacy of its staffing levels and processes related to heating.
• NYCHA should develop a process to independently verify that work orders were closed out properly and that work was completed as reported.
• NYCHA should formally analyze the feedback that it receives from residents with regard to their satisfaction with the heating-related work performed and use that data to highlight specific areas that require action.
• NYCHA should complete and update their lists of all boilers in their inventory to better track and monitor any problems with boilers to address them promptly.
• NYCHA should ensure that it disseminates its inventory listing to those units within NYCHA that are involved in processes related to the boilers.
• NYCHA should formally document tracking of all boilers that require inspections and the status of inspections to ensure all deficiencies are resolved within a legally mandated timeframe.
• NYCHA should continue to develop a tracking system to identify work orders to ensure residents’ complaints are addressed and resolved in a timely manner.

In its response, NYCHA effectively rejected the recommendations that current practices need to be improved by only agreeing to three recommendations.

Comptroller Stringer’s audit of NYCHA’s oversight of heating complaints and boiler inspections follows a July 2019 audit of the agency’s roof repairs, which found that NYCHA wasted millions of dollars on roof repairs and failed to perform basic oversight and preventive maintenance of roofs, putting the health and safety of thousands of residents at risk. The audit revealed deficient conditions across 35 roofs including roof sag, pooling water, open seams, and damaged masonry across 88 percent of the roofs inspected, while the agency’s own rules all but ignored these problems — placing the health of residents in harm’s way.

To read Comptroller Stringer’s audit of NYCHA’s heating issues and boiler inspections, click here.

To read Comptroller Stringer’s audit of NYCHA’s roofs, click here.

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