Heven Barhanet on 3333 Broadway water restrictions and DOHMH failures

Good afternoon.

My name is Heven Barhanet.

I am a resident of 3333, which is on the west side of Harlem on 135th and Broadway.

We have been living with Legionnaires since January.

We have had water restrictions in our building since January.

One of the things that I want to bring up

Unfortunately, I didn't have a time.

I will write a full testimony and submit it.

But I do want to...

You can...

You have...

By the way, you have 72 hours from when this hearing ends to submit.

Okay.

Perfect.

Thank you so much.

My biggest concerns that I want to mention are the failures of the health department.

And I heard earlier today the health department speak.

And it was quite frustrating to hear the things that they were saying that were not actually happening in reality for those of us that were experiencing Legionnaires.

I want to note that when we first found out that we had Legionnaires in our building, when the health department showed up, they sent one community health worker.

She did not understand what she was talking about.

She shared incorrect information with us, which I think leads to the...

I saw in the legislation regarding having a hotline, right, where people can speak to those who understand what Legionnaires is.

The fact that you had a community health worker show up, and she was speaking so cavalier about this, about the fact that we had Legionnaires in our building, and was not providing any resources.

She had no literature with her.

She had nothing.

She just had herself.

And as she was speaking, the management was there, and we asked them, I said, what are you going to provide in regards to a timeline regarding how you're going to address this issue?

Because now you're telling us that we're going to have water restrictions in our building, and this is during the wintertime, telling us that we can't use our hot water, telling us that we have to take cold showers and a cold bath.

That part.

I don't know if you've ever had to use a shower hose, which is literally the same hose that you use when you're out in your back garden to shower yourself.

It is the most demeaning thing.

And as someone that has literally migrated here from another country, I come here to not have to deal with those things.

And it's extremely frustrating to have to literally shower with a shower hose.

So thank you for mentioning that because that was disgusting.

Let me just say these last things, a couple of things that I do really want to mention about the failures of the health department, because I think that when they were up here, they were just being disingenuous.

When they showed up to our meeting, they did not have, our building has predominantly Spanish speakers.

They had nobody there to translate in Spanish the health issues around what Legionnaires were.

They had to have a resident from our building translate.

health issues, like talking about Legionnaires, and there was massive confusion in that meeting.

In addition to that, the fact that nobody from Mayor Mamdani's office showed up was disturbing.

To this date, nobody from his office has showed up.

And the fact that we have the conversations around what are the resources that you're going to provide residents post-putting water restrictions.

I don't care that you're giving free U.S.

Open tickets for $100.

For the last six months, I've had to accumulate an additional cost.

I've had to go to the hairdresser to shower, to wash my hair.

I've had to go to friends'houses.

I've had to buy water.

I've had to get a gym membership that has a shower.

All of these additional costs.

I'm currently in housing court because our landlord refuses to give us a discount on our rent.

These are the things that are just extremely frustrating.

In addition to that, the health department has not shown up since that time that we had the meeting because we had a huge press conference.

And I really want to shout out the Harlem Legionnaires Task Force because if it wasn't for them and their support, we would have been drowning.

We would have had no attention.

We would have had nothing.

But it was us as residents that stood together to stand up and the failures of the fact that Mayor Mamdani and the health department, they have not shown up once since that meeting.

They have not tabled.

And to hear that the Upper East Side has had all of these resources, but those of us in West Harlem.

Black and brown people have not had anything.

It's disgusting.

And honestly, I want to call out also our councilwoman, Shaun-Abreu.

I haven't heard from him.

I haven't seen him.

He hasn't said anything.

We don't even know where we are.

I am still under current water restrictions.

I'll bring this back.

But I just want to make sure that you guys bring this back to the health department.

I just want to make sure that they have additional training for their staff because their staff does not understand what Legionnaires is.

They don't understand what equity is when it comes to addressing health concerns in black and brown communities, which means that you should have translators, that you should have materials that are speaking in Spanish and other languages.

The simple fact that these little things are not being done post what's being happened is disgusting to me.

And the last time they showed up to our building, which was like a couple months ago,

the person that was tabling didn't know why they were there.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you for sharing that.

But make sure, please make sure to submit something.

It's testimony at council.nyc.gov.

Okay.

And you can, if you forget, you can go up on the council website.

It's there.