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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Andrew Sokolof Diaz, Co-founder and Co-president of 89th Street Tenant Association, on Residential Displacement After Emergencies
2:28:54
ยท
4 min
Andrew Sokolof Diaz, representing the 89th Street Tenant Association, testified about his personal experience with displacement after an eight-alarm fire in his building in April 2021. He detailed the challenges faced by his family and over 500 others, including financial burdens, difficulties with temporary housing, and loss of possessions. Diaz then presented several recommendations to improve support for displaced residents.
- Diaz emphasized the need for more HPD housing citywide, especially in Queens, and better coordination between agencies for immediate response to displaced families.
- He called for measures to mitigate displacement, such as relocating residents closer to their homes and ensuring access to important documents and belongings.
- Diaz stressed the importance of protecting rent-stabilized tenants, providing nutritional food assistance, and extending minimum hotel shelter stays to one month.
Andrew Sokolof Diaz
2:28:54
Good afternoon.
2:28:55
My name is Andres Opla Diaz.
2:28:57
I'm the co founder and co president of eighty ninth Street Tenanto Needles Association in Jackson Heights, Queens.
2:29:03
When an eight alarm fire occurred in my building in April 2021, my wife and our two month old baby and dog were displaced and required to live in a hotel far away from home, which was Jackson Heights, Queens.
2:29:16
My mother-in-law was also split another way, separating our family, and this happened to over 500 of us length of an eye.
2:29:23
We faced enormous financial burdens as a result of our temporary housing.
2:29:28
For example, because my wife wasn't able to breastfeed our babies for several weeks due to the stress of the incident, we had to purchase expensive baby formulas for our child.
2:29:38
We didn't have a kitchen in the hotels, so we had to eat our daily meals from restaurants, often at fast food chains, or whatever was close and doable.
2:29:48
We even had mutual aid groups in our community and our own tenants association had to organize daily nutritious meals for several weeks on our own because we needed that.
2:30:00
Culturally relevant meals were also very important to our families.
2:30:04
While I tried sourcing nutritional foods and meals, particularly for my wife who was still attempting the nurse, it was really incredibly challenging because we were in a food desert at this hotel site.
2:30:15
HPD couldn't and wouldn't place us in a hotel or anywhere close to the home.
2:30:19
Adding to our issues, my car broke down, I had several unexpected expenses, which led me to giving up my vehicle.
2:30:26
Other than that, due to the fire, we had to replace our possessions.
2:30:30
Of course, my wife had to repurchase her maternity clothing, which is way more expensive than regular women's clothing, averaging several hundred dollars that we had to shell out very quickly.
2:30:41
We didn't have time to save money.
2:30:44
I also had to buy myself new clothes, our baby as well.
2:30:47
We lost all our inventory of, you know, diapers, all the things that we say about medicines, toys, pillows, bassinets, car seats, which was between a thousand and $2,000.
Kevin C. Riley
2:30:58
It's always expired.
Andrew Sokolof Diaz
2:30:59
Thank you for your testimony.
2:31:00
Possible, but during the pandemic and what
Pierina Ana Sanchez
2:31:05
Thank you.
2:31:07
Thank you Andrew.
2:31:08
You can we can let him conclude.
2:31:10
He's our last panelist.
Joann Ariola
2:31:15
Go ahead.
Andrew Sokolof Diaz
2:31:16
Thank you chair.
2:31:17
Okay so after the state alarm fire basically what we're asking the city council and the agencies to do which is so much more, and you're building on it, chair Sanchez and chair Eola, is number one, build additional HPD housing citywide, but especially in Queens.
2:31:31
We have zero HPD family shelters in Queens, the second most populated building in the city.
2:31:36
Number two, coordinate an immediate response protocol for displaced families with their local public hospitals.
2:31:42
So you can coordinate medications and prescriptions and disability equipment.
2:31:46
Third, mitigate displacement by relocating residents and our animal companions as close as possible to home and mandate that the owners foot the bill.
2:31:55
Fourth, and I'm almost done, ensure displaced residents obtain immediate access to their homes and their units, to obtain identity documents and vital financial documents, even their money.
2:32:06
Fire victims like us are almost always burglarized and forgotten.
2:32:10
Ensure displaced rent stabilized tenants and subtenants who are more vulnerable than us are better protected by having the agencies really hold the landlords accountable, especially when they allow their property to deteriorate.
2:32:21
This delays our displacement.
2:32:24
Provide nutritional food assistance on-site, streamline the DACR, $1 rent placeholder process.
2:32:30
They make it so hard for us to just get that going.
2:32:33
And finally, help us with housing discrimination and direct service deliveries so we can find housing and stop going through this madness on our own.
2:32:42
Extending hotel shelter stays for one month minimum is probably something that really makes sense as opposed to having us go through the violence of losing our hotel stays within three to five days every time this happens.
2:32:53
We have a ton of other information that we can share with the chair and the committees off offline, but we wanna thank the Liberal Aid Society for representing us and providing us a dignified approach to rebuilding our lives.
2:33:03
Thank you so much.