QUESTION
What information is provided to tenants after a fire, and how is language accessibility addressed?
1:09:59
·
4 min
After a fire, tenants receive materials focusing on immediate needs and emergency housing, but additional guidance on rights and belongings is sought.
- Council Member Avilés notes the absence of clear tenant rights information and language accessibility in materials provided after fires.
- Deputy Commissioner Santiago states the materials primarily cover emergency housing and contacting services, including the Red Cross and HPD's emergency housing services.
- HPD tries to provide information in 10 languages and is open to adding more guidance about tenants' rights and belongings access.
- Avilés suggests utilizing existing materials from Council Member Gutierrez for broader information dissemination.
Alexa Avilés
1:09:59
I guess I'd like to follow-up with HPD in particular in your statement, in your testimony, you noted that information is provided to tenants at buildings where there have been a fire and DLB conducts the inspection and the American Red Cross is usually on-site, which absolutely I have seen the Red Cross in every fire that we've had along with personnel I have never seen, including in a personal experience where my sister had a fire and I was with her, ever receiving information that clearly articulated what her rights were And in in all of these instances, sadly, our experience has been, the landlords were antagonistic at best during these situations with their tenants.
1:10:55
And never provided affirmative information to them.
1:10:59
And certainly, American Red Cross provided their you know, here's some coffee, here's your immediate stuff.
1:11:05
You'll get a caseworker and eventually assigned a hotel, but that was it.
1:11:10
I have also never seen language accessibility, including Spanish or anything else provided on-site.
1:11:19
So I'd love to know what these materials are.
1:11:23
If you could provide them to counsel, and I'd like to hear more specifically, who develops them, how who is responsible for distributing them, and love to see the languages in which they are developed because I have never seen one in all my years prior to even being a council member.
AnnMarie Santiago
1:11:45
Thank you, Council member, and I appreciate your earlier kind of contextual discussion about what you're looking for for the with this bill.
1:11:54
And I think we should work together.
1:11:56
I think, you know, you pointed out another council member who had put something together that I guess you felt was appropriate and it's kind of a maybe we can look at it as what you are looking for.
1:12:11
The information we currently give out is really about the immediate needs, the emergency housing, how you contact the Red Cross, how you contact our emergency housing services, and I can certainly provide that to you after the hearing.
1:12:26
But I think, you know, what we understand from your bill is that the the tenants in trying to get access to the building, trying to get access to their belongings, need some additional guidance on what that means.
1:12:44
And what their rights are.
1:12:45
And again, you know, that what it means for each individual instance may be different depending on the situation on the ground.
1:12:55
So we can't be too specific with that information, but we'd love to continue the conversation with you about what is the right what is the right direction that we can provide to tenants Generally, HPD does try to provide all information in the 10 languages.
1:13:14
So including our ABCs of housing, including any information on our website is translatable, and we can certainly add more information there as well for people who may not be able to get the information at the time of the event.
1:13:27
They're not home.
1:13:28
They're unavailable to to take the information because they are dealing with the chaos at the moment.
1:13:36
So very open to continuing that discussion.
Alexa Avilés
1:13:39
Great.
1:13:39
Well well, thank you.
1:13:40
And, certainly, council member, Gutierrez Materials, are very helpful.
1:13:44
I mean, a basic know your rights
Carmen N. De La Rosa
1:13:47
Mhmm.
Alexa Avilés
1:13:47
Fundamentally
Pierina Ana Sanchez
1:13:48
Mhmm.
Alexa Avilés
1:13:49
With with generic information, obviously, and what to x expect who to call very clearly.
1:13:55
So we have we have some of this work already done by council member Gutierrez's staff but obviously, we'd like to see it rolled out city wide in a very seamless way given to people and obviously talk through it during the time of of trauma.
1:14:11
So I'd love to work with you on that.
1:14:20
Usually for the record so that people understand.