School cafeterias are failing health inspections

 

NY1

Hundreds of city schools aren’t making the grade, flunking city health inspections, a NY1 investigation found.

The worst offenders?

I.S. 227 in Queens, one of the borough's most sought-after schools. Health Department Inspectors found 140 mouse droppings there, including in the students' dining area.

There was moldy watermelon at P.S. 277 in the Bronx, and at PS 42 in Queens, moldy green beans.

In all, inspectors last year found roaches crawling on 99 lunchroom floors, fruit flies in 80 cafeteria kitchens, and in 22 drains, flies where serving utensils are washed.

"It's not acceptable," said Richard Carranza, New York City's schools chancellor. Adding, "kids should never be served any kind of food that is not safe."

According to the records, in the first eight months of 2018, 934 schools had critical health code violations—the kind that would get any restaurant shut down.

That compares to 1256 violations in the 12 months of 2017 and 1456 violations in 2016

Cuomo gives Pan Am shelter providers 1 week to clean up their act

From the Daily News:

Gov. Cuomo’s administration on Tuesday gave the city a week to clean up homeless shelters perenially plagued by code violations, including a Queens hotel that’s hosting a vermin colony.

In a letter obtained by the Daily News, Sharon Devine, acting commissioner of the state Office of Temporary & Disability Assistance, warned the city homeless services department it could be facing big fines.

Devine cited a city Department of Investigation probe that found multiple code violations at 24 shelters, plus a News report Tuesday about a rat colony behind the Pan Am Hotel in Elmhurst.

Noting that these conditions “are not isolated,” Devine also singled out the Pan Am Hotel report in the News:

“Published reports today highlight substandard living conditions existing at the Pan American hotel in Elmhurst Queens,” Devine wrote. “We have concluded an independent inspection of that facility and have confirmed several serious violations.”

Devine ordered DHS to fix the problems within seven days. If DHS fails to comply, the state could withhold payments, impose daily fines, ask a court to appoint a receiver or even close problem shelters.

In response, a DHS spokesperson faulted the state for not providing more money to address what has been a steadily growing homeless population in the city.

The Pan Am opened almost a year ago, so what is the excuse? Why does DHS need more money when they have contracts with providers who are supposed to be taking care of conditions at these sites? Please sign the petition I posted in the sidebar. Maybe we can get Stringer to give this slimy provider, Samaritan Village,s the boot.

Roaches crawling all over Ozone Park block

From NBC:

Folks in Queens are dealing with a problem that would likely make your skin crawl. They say roaches, a lot of them, are taking up residence in their homes, and they know exactly where they're coming from. Brynn Ginras reports from Ozone Park.

Building containing human cages busted

From the NY Post:

Chinatown’s “human kennel” was hit with more than 60 violations from multiple agencies for unsafe conditions exposed by The Post, records show.

After the exposé, the Hester Street hellhole, where men live in cage-like rooms, received 47 housing-code violations from the city’s Housing and Preservation Department, records show.

The department issued summonses on each of the building’s six floors for obstructed exits and illegal alterations to fire escapes and windows.

The building’s owner was slapped with an additional 13 Environmental Control Board violations, and the Department of Health issued an order to abate “cockroach conditions.”

This exists in 2013?

From the NY Post:

It’s a human kennel.

Less than a 10-minute walk from Soho is the Sun Bright Hotel — where men pay $10 a night to live in tiny cells bounded by chicken wire.

It’s a single-room-occupancy hotel that has been operating since the late 19th century and where today men live side by side in filth.

Nestled on the edge of Chinatown between the Bowery and Elizabeth Street, the hotel on Hester Street is minutes from Balthazar, where the $135 côte de boeuf for two would cover half a month’s rent at the Sun Bright.

Only men are allowed in the units on the third and fourth floors, the hotel’s most hellish. The accommodations there measure 7 by 5 feet, smaller than the average 8-by-10 solitary-confinement cell in a state prison.

Roaches, bedbugs, fleas and other vermin infest the building. Hot hallways reek of rotting trash, sweat and urine.

More than 100 men on the floor share one bathroom with two shower stalls, four toilets and one urinal. Wet, moldy spackle peels off the ceiling like snakeskin. Black mold spreads over filthy walls in two shower stalls.

City sends Sandy victims to unsafe housing

From CBS 2:

Victims of Superstorm Sandy who are staying in temporary housing aren’t expecting room service, but some say that they are living in shocking conditions.

“We’re victims of Sandy but we shouldn’t have to be punished because of that,” a man who identified himself as Monroe, told CBS 2′s Steve Langford.

Residents of these temporary lodgings have complained of a lack of heat and problems with infestation.

“The roaches, and a lot of it has to do with, the mice,” said one man.

Some Sandy victims have been lucky enough to be put up in hotels like the Holiday Inn and the Double Tree, but more than two dozen former residents of the Rockaways are living in a pair of run down rooming houses in the Longwood section of the Bronx.

Those two buildings have reportedly received dozens of housing code violations and have numerous fire safety problems. When CBS 2 stopped by, a smoke alarm appeared to be running on a low battery; the building’s super said that he would replace it.

And the rapid home repairs aren't what they're cracked up to be.