By ROSE ITZCOVITZ

In a city of thousands of building landlords, a pair of Bronx lawmakers has pegged the New York City Housing Authority one of the worst landlords. 

At a news conference, Sen. Jeff Klein (34th Senate District) and New York City Councilman Ritchie Torres (15th Council District), flanked by government officials and members of housing advocacy groups, said money and accountability are necessary to fix rundown conditions of New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) buildings throughout the city.

Keeping their message fresh on the minds of public opinion, the pair released a study of NYCHA complexes throughout the city. The report found consistent problems included stairwell and hallway fires, malfunctioning heating systems, leaky roofs, mold and more.

Klein’s Independent Democratic Conference, on which he serves as its president, teamed with Torres’ office to draft the study, randomly choosing five NYCHA housing complexes to represent each borough. The Bronx was represented by Marble Hill Houses, an 11-story complex that geographically falls in the borough but belongs to Manhattan. According to Klein, no one borough fared worse than the other.

“The sad part is that they’re all the same,” Klein said. “We found the same type of debris in hallways in the Bronx as we found in Manhattan.”

Senior citizens often comprise some of NYCHA’s demographic, which can be a burden to living in the building, according to state Sen. Adriano Espaillat. “What worse can happen to a senior citizen who lives on the 17th floor than to have—you know, months—without their elevator working properly,” Espaillat, a Democrat, said. “That’s inhumane.”

Espaillat proposed it gets the money from $5 billion in legal settlements worked out between the state and financial institutions. The funds are due to New York State this year.

Separately, Klein and Torres proposed the state and city each invest a total of $500 million in funds to fix NYCHA buildings.

“One option is to simply stand by idly and watch the public housing stock deteriorate beyond repair,” Torres said. “Or the second option is to save it; for the city and the state to come together, form a partnership, and make a real coordinated effort to preserve our public housing stock.”

It’s not just money that’s needed to fix these nagging problems, but transparency on where allocations from lawmakers to NYCHA went. Klein has consistently questioned where money invested in NYCHA has gone. “I’ve allocated hundreds of thousands of dollars to individual and NYCHA developments in my district,” Klein said. “That money still hasn’t seen the light of day.”

A NYCHA spokesperson did not comment about the missing monies, but agreed with legislators in allocating more funds to preserve housing. “As a landlord, NYCHA recognizes the urgency and enormity of the problems that affect our residents’ quality of life, and the de Blasio administration has made it a priority to address this since day one,” said the NYCHA spokesperson in a statement. “Thanks to [Mayor Bill de Blasio’s] unprecedented support, NYCHA has streamlined repairs and made safety and security upgrades. There is still much more work to be done.”

Despite Klein’s stance that allocations to NYCHA were unaccounted for, the “Worst Landlord” report cites NYCHA burdened by an operating shortfall of $60 million annually, depleted reserves and a 27 percent reduced workforce headcount since 1998.

At Marble Hill Houses, some residents said deplorable conditions are often ignored even when they called the city’s 311 system.

“All they want is their rent money,” Tito Astacio, a 23-year-old Marble Hill Houses resident, said. “They don’t care that here’s roaches out here, rats. They don’t care, they just fix the little things to make it look like it’s good, but it’s not really good.”

Other residents said conditions could be worse. Pedro Hernandez has lived in one of NYCHA’s Marble Hill buildings for 47 years. He said tenants are to blame because they litter and don’t take care of their homes.

“Unfortunately, some tenants make it bad for others,” Hernandez said. “Other than that, the buildings are mostly well-kept, well-maintained.”

Editor’s Note: An earlier draft of this story said the Independent Democratic Conference had proposed using $5 billion in settlement fees from financial institutions subsidize NYCHA repairs. Sen. Adriano Espaillat proposed the idea.