Build It Back is broke

NY1

 Last summer, several contractors told NY1 they were owed millions of dollars by the city's Hurricane Recovery Program build it back, and weren't getting paid because the program was out of money.

The city responded saying that was categorically false.

But now the de Blasio administration is doing an about face, seeking $92 million dollars to close out the beleaguered program.

"It's a shame that last year they felt the need to say everything is good when obviously it wasn't,” said Roque Schipilliti, a contractor for Build It Back.

Roque Schipilliti is one of the nearly two dozen contractors believed to be waiting for payment with debts first reported last summer by NY1.

Build It Back had blamed the late payments on the lengthy audits required before cutting final checks to contractors.

But in seeking new funds this week, Build It Back says the additional cash will be used in part, to pay contractors and close out construction permits.

"We were misled. Something wasn't right, and if there's new funding, you connect the dots. You have new funding; now you're paying. So that must have been the issue, right?" said Schipilliti.
Build It Back once hailed the rebuilding work at MaryLou Barcia's home as a success story. Mayor de Blasio visited four years ago to celebrate its completion.

But she says she's had to spend $25,000 of her own money since then to fix faulty work done under the city program,

And the contractor hired by Build It Back placed a lien on her home because he still hasn't been paid by the city.

"Where did that money go? It should have been there! Not now you're begging for money all over. That don't seem right," said Marylou Barcia, a Build It Back participant.

This isn't the first time Build It Back has asked for more money.

In 2016, the city requested and received an additional $500 million in an attempt to complete its recovery work.

That brought the total cost of the troubled program to $2.2 billion.

A little more than half of the additional $92 million needed would come from the U.S. department of housing and urban development; the rest from city taxpayers.

In addition to paying contractors, the money would be used to buy properties damaged by Sandy, and to build 37 flood-resistant homes on acquired lots in Staten Island, Brooklyn and Queens.

City is still sitting on billions of dollars of federal Hurricane Sandy recovery money for housing damaged by storm

NY Post


The de Blasio administration still hasn’t spent $8.1 billion in federal funds for Hurricane Sandy recovery six years after the storm — including $1.8 billion for NYCHA, according to a new report by city Comptroller Scott Stringer.

The city has used up just 54 percent of a total $14.7 billion allocated for infrastructure, homeowner recovery and resiliency projects.

Only 41 percent targeted for the New York City Housing Authority has been spent.

“All the talk of a monitor, all the NYCHA investigations from lead to boilers, there’s a pot of money, $3 billion, and NYCHA and City Hall could only allocate 41 percent! This is the tragedy of this moment,” Stringer said.

They're Building It Back badly

From PIX11:

After the tri-state area was hit hard by Hurricane Sandy back in October 2012, "Build It Back," a federally funded program supervised by New York City was created.

The goal of the program is to help people get their homes back.

We get a lot of complaints about delays in Build It Back projects and other issues, but Frank Scarantino has a new one. The Build It Back project next door is flooding his home.

“This wall — they just created it. And when it comes into the street from the high tide this gets all flooded,” Scarantino said. "And the water does not go away for a minimum of a week to two weeks.”

The program is supposed to be helping, but instead they’re causing all kinds of problems for the people next door. Scarantino and his wife fixed their home without the help of Build It Back.

Scarantino told me that the contractor said they will build a retaining wall. The only question is, when?

Sandy victims died waiting for Build It Back

From the Queens Chronicle:

More than 900 Howard Beach residents, and close to 6,000 others in Queens, have dropped out of or were booted from the city’s Build it Back program since 2014, according to an analysis by Comptroller Scott Stringer.

The comptroller’s study, detailed in a Sept. 25 letter to the Mayor’s Office of Housing Recovery Operations, states Queens had the largest drop in applicants to the trouble-riddled Sandy recovery initiative — from 9,284 who first sought help to 3,584 today.

Many of those dropoffs occurred in Rockaway, and mostly on the western end of the peninsula. In Howard Beach, there are now 936 fewer homeowners in the Build it Back pipeline. Broad Channel saw 530 applicants get out of the program.

Citywide, 20,275 people sought help from the initiative, first established by Mayor Bloomberg in 2013, but now only 8,310 have or are set to be assisted by the program.

Stringer — along with Councilman Mark Treyger (D-Brooklyn), chairman of the Council’s Recovery & Resiliency Committee — said “the reasons why individual applicants have left the program” are not clear, but are “likely attributable to many causes,” including dissatisfaction with projected timelines, people turning to other sources of aid, getting lost in “the tangle of bureaucracy,” and some being removed for not meeting “stringent entry requirements.”

And in some cases, according to the comptroller, some applicants died while waiting for assistance.

Build-It-Back still a disaster

From the Daily News:

After admitting it would not meet Mayor de Blasio’s pledge to fix all Hurricane Sandy-damaged homes by the end of the year, the city has now completed work on 60% of homes in the Build It Back program, new stats show.

The number, out of 5,349 construction projects, is up from 44% in October, when de Blasio confessed it would not be possible to wrap up the program by the end of the year.

Of the 8,374 homeowners still in the program, 90% have seen construction start or received a check to pay them back for work they funded themselves, in line with the lowered year-end goal that officials set in October.

The number of program participants has fallen from 8,585 since then, continuing a long decline as people drop out in frustration or are unable to meet the city’s rules and deadlines.

City & Feds overspent on Sandy recovery

From the Wall Street Journal:

New York City will use millions of dollars from its capital budget to fully fund dozens of storm-protection projects that were expected to be paid for by federal Sandy money, officials say.

Superstorm Sandy did an estimated $19 billion in damage and the city received a $4.2 billion federal grant to help rebuild from the October 2012 storm. The city initially planned to use more than $500 million of that amount on projects such as raising shorelines and rebuilding critical infrastructure.

Instead, the city ended up using the half-billion dollars in federal resiliency funds to pay for cost overruns in its Build Back Program, which fixes, elevates and rebuilds homes damaged in the storm.

The city is tapping the its more than $14.5 billion-a-year capital budget to fill the gap. The capital budget is used to fund long-term infrastructure projects.

Still Building It Back

From NBC 4:

Walk through the Queens community of Broad Channel with the head of New York’s Build it Back program, and every aspect of the embattled program is crystal clear: there are signs of construction everywhere, but homes are still in limbo. Pei-Sze Cheng reports.

Build-It-Back deadline will be missed

From NBC:

The "Build it Back" program will not make its goal to rebuild Sandy-ravaged homes by the end of the year. Pei-Sze Cheng reports.

Building it Back on the city's dime

From the Wall Street Journal:

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration plans to use $500 million in New York City taxpayer money to fund initiatives related to superstorm Sandy that were expected to be fully paid for with federal aid, city officials said Wednesday.

The city’s plan to infuse half a billion dollars into Sandy recovery and storm-protection programs comes as the cost to U.S. taxpayers for repairing and elevating some of the houses damaged by the 2012 storm could hit about $1 million a home, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Tishman Construction submitted a package of bids to the city earlier this month to elevate 53 homes in Queens damaged by the 2012 storm for $50 million, according to documents and a person familiar with the bids. Tishman is overseeing hundreds of properties in the Build It Back program, an initiative dedicated to assisting owners whose homes were damaged by Sandy.

Build It Back has, to date, been bankrolled with federal Sandy relief funds allocated to the city by Congress through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The federal government is also funding a number of storm-protection initiatives aimed at protecting the city in the future.

But significant cost overruns in Build It Back appear to be leaving city taxpayers on the hook for some of the storm-protection initiatives. The program is about $500 million over budget.

Build-It-Back project topples over in Brooklyn

From NBC:

A Sandy-damaged home in Brooklyn that was undergoing construction under the city's Build It Back program collapsed Wednesday, just as a family was getting ready to move back in, neighbors say.

The home at 70 Beacon Court in Gerritsen Beach was badly damaged during the 2012 storm, and was finally being repaired, according to neighbors.

It toppled over Wednesday, leaving beams sticking in the air and separating the floor from its foundation.

Build It Back still hasn't built in Rockaway

From DNA Info:

In a sign that his administration meant business, the city moved roughly 150 families in Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island out of their homes in the weeks before the Oct. 29 anniversary so the homes could be elevated. City contractors put up fences around the houses in preparation for expedited work.

But most of those homes have since sat untouched for months, according to homeowners and sources involved in the Build It Back program.

“We forced people out of their homes just to get fences up and make it look like there was construction going on,” one source within the program said last month. “We were not even close. Only now is construction beginning. It was all a lie.”

The source and others said the mayor’s push last fall was all about optics and boosting Build It Back’s numbers — even though, at the time, the city hadn’t approved permits for the work and its contractors weren’t ready.

Homeowners who were moved out told DNAinfo New York that the Build It Back program hasn’t improved under de Blasio. Many said they had difficulty getting in touch with program representatives. Others said they waited months to be reimbursed for rent while they were out of their homes.

A lot of Sandy damaged homes are still not repaired

Forgotten-NY recently visited Broad Channel and stumbled across this house. Many others are sill in disrepair, years after Sandy. Electeds are blaming the DOB.

Legislation to stop DOB from penalizing disaster victims

From Sheepshead Bites:

City Councilman Mark Treyger has introduced a bill to block the Department of Buildings from penalizing homeowners and tenants who are trying to recover from natural disasters.

“Nobody should be left worse off by the recovery process than if they never participated in it at all, and the onus should be on the city and contractors to comply with rules and regulations related to Sandy Recovery work, not residents,” Treyger said in a press release. ” It undermines the public’s trust, faith and willingness to participate in recovery programs.”

Treyger cited several examples of Sandy victims being penalized by the DOB while awaiting long-overdue assistance from storm recovery programs. He highlighted the story of a Brooklyn resident received a $500 penalty for failing to repair his Sandy-damaged property. The man testified at a hearing that Build it Back had investigated the damage and he was “was waiting for promised financial relief and advised not to make any repairs until he received it.”

Build It Back bungled

From the Daily News:

Consultants raked in at least $17 million while victims of Hurricane Sandy waited for help from the city’s bungled Build it Back program, according to an audit released Tuesday by City Controller Scott Stringer.

The program, which was designed to help storm-ravaged homeowners, was a “case study in dysfunction,” Stringer said during a press conference in Rockaway, where residents are still struggling to recover more than two years after the floods and fires.

Stringer said subcontractors were paid for flawed and incomplete work while frustrated applicants had to submit duplicate paperwork.

Hurricane Sandy victims still waiting for Build it Back

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DeBlasio better at Building it Back

From the Queens Chronicle:

Approximately 6,400 homeowners across the city — half of those still actively seeking help from Build it Back — have been made offers for reimbursement checks or reconstruction. At the beginning of the year, that number was only 451.

That’s when the de Blasio administration overhauled the program, eliminating income eligibility requirements, embedding staffers directly in the communities affected by the storm and putting Amy Peterson in charge of the program, which the mayor said was “his favorite change” to Build it Back.

De Blasio said there have been 727 construction starts and 878 reimbursement checks sent to date. That’s several hundred more just since Labor Day.

At the beginning of the year, those numbers were zero ... and zero.

The mayor has also set new benchmarks for progress. By Dec. 31, his administration is aiming for 1,000 construction starts and 1,500 reimbursement checks cut.

Build It Back having major issues

From the Queens Chronicle:

Kathryn Mallon, the head of the city’s problem-plagued Hurricane Sandy recovery program, Build it Back, abruptly resigned last week as residents’ frustration with the program she ran is reaching a peak.

Just this month, Mallon met with Assemblyman Phil Goldfeder (D-Rockaway Park) and civic leaders in his office to discuss issues with Build it Back, including changing the way people enrolled in the program are prioritized. Build it Back was also criticized for being slow to release funds.

For thousands of people in areas ravaged by Sandy on Oct. 29, 2012, including Howard Beach, Hamilton Beach and Broad Channel, Build it Back has not been helpful at all, instead becoming a source of frustration as the program is riddled with issues from missed appointments to lost paperwork to complaints about little to no communication about documentation needed to receive money under the program, and ill-informed staff.

Less than 2 percent of the $1.5 billion allocated to the program has been released, according to city records, and not one house has been fixed by the program since it was created last June.