NYC-WTC_000195741

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

If you were affected by the World Trade Center attack and receive rental assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), you may use the funds to clean your residence. ‘We’re giving people the option to decide what makes most sense for them - either cleaning their dwellings or finding someplace else to live,’ said Michael Cosbar, FEMA housing officer. Instead of using the check to rent another place, renters can use the funds to clean their residences. However, if vou use the funds for cleaning, you will be ineligible for more FEMA rental assistance lycflnSsfi ynu will Hp. aHlf* tn Tnnvft hade intn ymir

Unfortunately, for those lower income individuals whose apartments are highly contaminated (and therefore are neither habitable nor able to be remediated with the meager funds provided), this situation presents an untenable dilemma. FEMA rental assistance is quickly ruiuiing out for these individuals and therefore, their temporary residences are no longer going to be available to them. The worst case result: either homelessness or forced habitation of residences known to be a direct health.

Commercial tenants, particularly smaller businesses, have had similar problems to those of the residential tenants (large financial services firms were necessarily in better shape “ they had the means to clean their own spaces and the leverage to get building owners to clean the common areas). Small conunercial tenants were given the same, inadequate cleaning protocols, have lacked sufficient funds (most have received only loans, not direct grant assistance), and have had insurance claims denied due to Ms. Whitman's safety assurances. They also had the same trouble getting their building owners and managers to clean common spaces. But moreover, inaction on the part of less scrupulous employers or business owners have left individual employees at these firms with nowhere to turn if their employer chose not to test and remediate properly or at all. Congressman Nadler's office has received numerous calls from employees of both private and public entities who are concerned about the indoor air in their workplace, but fear job loss if they "make too many waves."’’

Each of the problems noted above (and there are undoubtedly plenty of others) has contributed to the fact that there has been utterly uneven, if not totally inadequate, testing and remediation of hazardous materials in buildings in Lower Manhattan. This fact, in and of itself, presents the most troubling issue: even when public spaces or single apartments or offices are remediated appropriately, ventilation systems can move hazardous materials fi-om unremediated spaces to those already remediated.’'* As one downtown resident put it, “Indoor air quality is a touchy issue in our building. Converted in the late 197O’s, we have a primitive central air system that circulates air fi-om apartment to apartment. Some people in our building hired professional cleaners. Others

FEMA, “Disaster Assistance Guide: United We Stand,” New York, November 2,2001, FEMA Issue 2. Statement taken from Constituent Services Staff Members, Office of Congressman Jerrold Nadler (NY- 08). Letter from R. Radhakrishman (P.E., Director of NYC DEP’s Asbestos Control Program) to Building Owners, February 12, 2002.

16

CITY_21MC100_003076434

NYC-WTC_000195756