Quantcast

The DNAinfo archives brought to you by WNYC.
Read the press release here.

City Should Stop Contracting With Slumlords, Councilman Says After Tragedy

By Eddie Small | December 9, 2016 2:31pm | Updated on December 10, 2016 12:44pm
 Councilman Rafael Salamanca spoke outside of the building where two young girls were killed by a faulty radiator on Wednesday to announce his proposed legislation to prevent such tragedies from occurring in the future.
Councilman Rafael Salamanca spoke outside of the building where two young girls were killed by a faulty radiator on Wednesday to announce his proposed legislation to prevent such tragedies from occurring in the future.
View Full Caption
DNAinfo/Eddie Small

HUNTS POINT — A South Bronx councilman wants the city's Department of Homeless Services to stop contracting with notorious landlords to help prevent tragedies like the recent deaths of two young girls fatally burned by a malfunctioning radiator.

Councilman Rafael Salamanca, who represents the district where 1-year-old Scylee Vayoh Ambrose and 2-year-old Ibanez Ambrose were burned to death after a broken radiator filled their room with hot steam, proposed a suite of bills in response to the tragedy outside of the victims' apartment building at 720 Hunts Point Ave. on Friday.

One would ban the DHS from contracting with landlords who have outstanding stop-work orders or "C" violations, which the Department of Housing Preservation and Development classify as violations that are "immediately hazardous."

Moshe Piller, the landlord of the apartment where the two young girls died, had been renting it to the city under its cluster homeless shelter program.

"Here in the South Bronx, these landlords are getting paid above market value," Salamanca said, "and it's their responsibility to ensure that their families—the families that are put in these apartments—are safe."

The bills would also require apartments in New York where children younger than 11 live to have barriers or covers around their radiators, which Salamanca compared to the city's requirement for installing window guards, and mandate that DHS inspect radiators when they do their building inspections.

"When DHS comes in and they inspect apartments, whether it's scatter sites, whether it's clusters, whether it's hotels or whether it's an entire building that's a shelter, they should check those radiators, and they should check those valves," Salamanca said.

DHS does not comment on proposed legislation but will review it once it is introduced, according to agency spokeswoman Lauren Gray.

The tragedy at 720 Hunts Point Ave. occurred on Tuesday while the two girls were sleeping in the room with the faulty radiator and their dad was asleep in another room, according to Salamanca.

Their mother had gone out to run an errand, and the two parents went to check on their children shortly after she got back, only to find their room filled with steam, he said.

Salamanca also noted that the family had issues with the valve coming off of a radiator in another room of their apartment prior to Wednesday and said the problem may ultimately be with the pressure coming out of building's boiler.

Salamanca is partnering with Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. on the bill to stop DHS from contracting with landlords who have outstanding "C" violations or stop-work orders.

"The city should not be an enabler of greedy unscrupulous landlords," Diaz said, "and even worse, we should not be giving them the money when they are not only greedy, but they are putting the lives of families and children at risk."

Although Mayor Bill de Blasio described the tragedy as a "freak accident" on Thursday, Diaz said it was still unclear whether that was the case or whether factors such as criminal negligence or shoddy inspection work played a role as well.

He maintained that the city needs to do more to get rid of cluster sites and declined to say whether or not he felt this specific incident was the mayor's fault.

"I still want to await for the investigation to be completed," he said. "We don’t know whose fault it is yet."