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Q&A
Resident engagement in NYCHA's inspection process and communication
1:38:24
·
146 sec
Council Member Chris Banks inquires about including resident feedback in NYCHA's inspection process and discusses the lack of communication with residents. Lauren Gray acknowledges the need for improvement in this area.
- NYCHA's current inspection process does not include speaking to residents.
- Lauren Gray agrees to consider including residents in the oversight inspection process.
- Chris Banks points out that communication with residents has not been adequate.
- The discussion also touches on NYCHA's reliance on contractor-provided information for oversight.
- NYCHA implemented geofencing as part of a corrective action plan to address issues with Allied Universal's timekeeping and performance.
Chris Banks
1:38:24
Let me ask you this.
1:38:26
And and and and and your oversight or the inspections that, quote, unquote, done, where in in in in that approach by NYCHA includes speaking to the residents?
Lauren Gray
1:38:44
It hasn't, but that's something that we would take into advisement and let the, you know, the residents know that we're doing these oversight inspections and that we'll be on-site at unannounced times.
Chris Banks
1:38:56
I mean, would you agree that the the communications to the residents have been have have not been the best?
Lauren Gray
1:39:04
I agree with that, and we only wanna get better.
Chris Banks
1:39:07
The report indicated that even after NYCHA began documenting infractions, it often sent notices months after becoming aware of the problem.
1:39:18
Is there a reason NYCHA does not send an infraction notice much sooner?
Lauren Gray
1:39:25
So we were waiting for Allied to provide us the timekeeping.
1:39:29
We can't send an infraction, and we can't go after them for liquidated damages if we don't have the information before us.
1:39:35
They were very deficient in giving us proper timekeeping.
1:39:40
So for example, if we, were looking at April's at the April, they'd have two weeks to three weeks in May to give us that report, the timekeeping report.
1:39:51
We sometimes didn't get those reports until June or July.
Chris Banks
1:39:55
I mean, is there, in your internal investigation, is there any other ways to to to to to do a check or to inspect if they're not compliant with providing that information?
Lauren Gray
1:40:10
Well, now with you
Chris Banks
1:40:11
solely waiting on were you solely just waiting on them to report to you?
1:40:17
So Or being in a sense, being proactive Yeah.
1:40:20
As opposed to just waiting on that data.
Lauren Gray
1:40:22
So we actually, as part of the corrective action plan, required Allied to do geofencing because we just couldn't trust the time sheets that were coming into us anymore, and there was a lot of buildings to manage.
1:40:33
Allied assured us that they were going to implement geo fencing.
1:40:37
I believe this was in March of twenty twenty three.
1:40:40
And by May of twenty twenty three, when we didn't see any form of improvement, including the geo fencing and the time sheets, that's when we started to work to get new contractors at the sites.