Long Beach’s Channel Park Homes were neglected after Hurricane Sandy, according to a report released last week by ERASE Racism, a Syosset-based civil rights organization. It concluded that there had been a lack of remediation at the public housing development, and that mold-infested homes there continued to pose a health hazard.
Channel Park, in the city’s North Park neighborhood, is one of the areas most susceptible to flooding, according to representatives of the group, which presented its findings at a March 29 meeting at the Evangel Revival Community Church.
When Sandy hit in 2012, the first floors of homes and community facilities were flooded at the 106-unit Channel Park Homes, at 500 Center St. According to the Governor’s Office of Storm Recovery’s November 2013 status report to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, “The damage required mold remediation, replacement of floors and drywall, painting, replacement of appliances and kitchen cabinets, and repair or replacement of HVAC systems.”
But according to ERASE Racism’s seven-page report, based on surveys conducted from November 2014 to February 2015, the necessary maintenance was not completed properly or in its entirety.
The organization’s staff visited every home in the development. Forty households either refused to take the survey, could not be contacted or had residents who moved in after Sandy. Ninety-two percent of the 66 remaining homes reported that floor tiles had not been not replaced, 82 percent said that their kitchen cabinets were not replaced and 79 percent said that either their refrigerator, stove or both were not replaced.
“This is about real people who have been deeply impacted by what happened here and what did not happen here,” said Elaine Gross, ERASE Racism’s president.