HARLEM — Despite monthly visits from an exterminator, residents of a family homeless shelter on 132nd Street say there is a massive cockroach infestation in their building.
Aqita Hernandez, who lives in Adam’s House III on 228 W. 132nd St. with her four children, has seen the insects in her microwave, refrigerator and bed sheets.
“They eat with me, they cook with me, they sleep with me, they shower with me,” she said. “I showed pictures to my case worker a month ago — one of them screamed.”
On Wednesday afternoon, the same day exterminators sprayed her apartment, there were roaches crawling up the bedroom walls, behind the clothes bin, and in the bathroom.
Hernandez, who is nine months pregnant, fears that they will crawl over her newborn.
“They are going to climb on his crib,” she said. “What if they go into his mouth?”
Residents also said the shelter, which is owned by the Migdol Organization, forces them to live in unbearable heat by not allowing them to buy air conditioning units, and does little to help them find permanent housing.
"I've been waiting for two months to get an air conditioner," said Maria Molina, who has been living in the shelter with her 11-year-old daughter for a year. "I can't sleep, it gets so hot."
The organization declined to comment and referred all questions to the Department of Homeless Services.
The conditions in the shelter are not uncommon. A report released by the Department of Investigation in May found that family shelters they inspected were “unsafe and unhealthy for children and families.”
According to the report, the city pays an average of $2,840 per month to keep a family in a shelter.
Although the Department of Homeless Services inspects shelters, they don’t have a formal follow up inspection process to make sure shelters improve poor conditions and there are no financial consequences for landlords who do not correct violations.
The inadequate conditions stem beyond the physical condition of the shelters. Many of them do not offer adequate services to get families out of temporary shelters, according to the report.
Molina is a certified medical assistant and has applied to more than 50 jobs in the medical field since moving into the shelter. Because of their 9 p.m. curfew, she cannot accept any night shift positions, she said.
“They don’t help us,” Molina said. “We have a housing specialist who tells us to go on the Internet.”
Molina and her 11-year-old daughter live in a small room “about the size of a jail cell,” that has a small refrigerator, a toaster, microwave, bunk beds and a bathroom.
She lost her job as a medical secretary at NYU Medical Center in 2008 because a lengthy custody battle caused her to miss too many shifts, she said. In 2013, she became homeless.
To do something about the roach problem, Molina recently started to call 311 to complain about the roaches.
The family shelter gets a monthly visit from the exterminator and passed their last DHS inspection in May, according to the DHS.
“DHS takes the concerns of clients very seriously and works with providers to ensure appropriate physical conditions in our facilities. We have conducted several inspections at this site, which did not find any issues, however we will continue to work with the provider and clients going forward,” a spokeswoman said.
Despite the fact that an exterminator cleared her room, there were several roaches inside Wednesday afternoon.
“They spent $3,000 to keep us here,” she said. “That’s more than I used to pay for rent. I don’t understand.”
After her 311 complaints, the shelter offered to transfer Molina to a different unit in another facility. Molina refused because moving to another shelter wouldn’t solve the roach problem and it would not get her any closer to getting out of the shelter system, she said.
