Why Are So Many of New York’s Basement Apartments Still Death Traps?

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It’s been a year since floodwaters drowned 11 New Yorkers in their homes, and it's a great moral stain on our city that nothing has been done to stop it from happening again, writes ErrolLouis

read like the grim, shadow side of New York’s celebrated immigrant-powered diversity. 48-year-old Darlene Hsu drowned in Forest Hills. In Jamaica, 43-year-old Phamatee Ramskriet and her 22-year-old son, Khriskah Ramskriet, both died in a basement unit. In Cypress Hills, Roberto Bravo, 66, drowned in his home. And inAnd a year after the tragedy,displaced by the storm are still homeless, living in hotels.

Even more frustrating is the fact that New York’s not-so-small army of clever urban planners, passionate politicians, and idea-driven charities have spent years collectively fashioning one plausible, inexpensive solution after another to the problem of illegal apartments — but many of those ideas have died due to a lack of political will.

“Let’s put some basic protections in place. Let’s make sure everyone’s got a smoke detector, that everyone’s got just a backflow preventer that prevents water from coming in the sewer main, that everyone has some basic protections so they can’t be evicted without due process And then let’s move to this legalization step,” Lander says. “We’ll ultimately make these units safer, but we don’t have to wait until we can make every unit up to code to provide these basic safety protections.

 

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