By midsummer, all public housing tenants in America will find themselves living in officially designated smoke-free zones.
Fearing NYCHA’s 400,000 tenants have no clue what’s coming, two City Council members will propose legislation Wednesday to require the city to help tenants quit smoking.
Ritchie Torres (D-Bronx) and Donovan Richards (D-Queens) say housing officials have done little to inform tenants about the new rules, which ban smoking in all living units, indoor common areas and offices — and outdoors within 25 feet of all NYCHA buildings.
The rule was announced by the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department in December 2016, giving public housing authorities 18 months to come up with a plan to inform tenants and enforce the measure. The deadline is July 31.
“There’s no evidence that NYCHA has a plan of action,” Torres said, noting that a 2015 community health survey found 11.6% of public housing residents in New York City smoke. Torres also faulted HUD, noting the agency imposed the new rules but offered no funding to implement it.
“It’s essentially an unfunded mandate from an absentee landlord,” he said.
New York City Housing Authority officials said Tuesday they held nine community meetings last spring, but only 172 tenants showed up. They have sent information on the rules to tenant leaders citywide and last week began holding what will be 70 more tenant meetings.
An advisory board NYCHA and the Department of Health set up has met eight times and made multiple suggestions for increasing tenant involvement in this issue.
Torres and Richards’ bill would require Mayor de Blasio to appoint an agency by September to create an outreach and education program to encourage public housing tenants to stop smoking.
That would include materials “concerning the health effects of smoking and ceasing smoking” written in English and six other languages.
The material would be distributed throughout NYCHA’s 328 developments, and the city would be required to hold public forums on the issue in or near developments.
The agency would have to report back to the mayor and the Council speaker in a year about the efficacy of the anti-smoking program.
