Written Work

Forgotten in Rockaway: Post-Sandy Aid Yet to Materialize

Arverne, Queens residents are frustrated by the pace and cost of the recovery—and say that their community has been overlooked by the de Blasio administration.

ARVERNE, NY, OCTOBER 25 2016—When Marcia Bennett handed the keys to her Rockaway craftsman bungalow to a construction crew, Build It Back, the city agency in charge of post-Hurricane Sandy restoration, told her she could return in four to six months. Instead, two years later, pools of water collect around her house’s hundred-year-old, unrestored foundation. Funding for Build It Back and other recovery efforts are set to expire in December of this year, leaving residents like Bennett in the lurch with no contingency plan after the presidential election.

“I’ve been trying to hold it together, my family, my marriage, my patience,” Bennett said. “It takes lots of prayer.”

In an October 2015 press conference marking the third anniversary of Hurricane Sandy, Mayor Bill de Blasio said he was committed to completing recovery construction by the end of 2016. “We won’t stop pushing forward until every applicant sees relief,” he said.

Over 20,00 households applied for help with the Build It Back program after Sandy. As of October 2015, over 2,000 construction projects had been started, and 1,000 completed, according to the mayor’s office. The remaining 17,000 flooded homes will have to be completed before the end of 2016, or they will be inactive construction sites until more funding can be allocated.

New York’s post-Sandy recovery has cost $20 billion in emergency funding, which was supplied by the Mayor’s Office of Housing Recovery, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and FEMA. More than $500 million is needed to complete all recovery construction, said city council district manager Mitch Noel, raising the question of where the money will come from.

Build It Back and other recovery programs are set to expire shortly after the November election. To fill the gap, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has proposed a comprehensive Public Health Rapid Response Fund, which would support FEMA as well as post-disaster public health initiatives. Her opponent, Republican Donald Trump, has suggested cuts in non-defense discretionary funding, which includes disaster relief and housing assistance. New York homeowners still affected by Sandy say comparing these political futures feels destabilizing.

Arverne, a low-income neighborhood on the Rockaway Peninsula in Queens, was particularly hard hit by the storm, because the low-lying coastal area was the first to be hit by Sandy’s high winds and floodwaters. The neighborhood’s rate of home repair lags behind other severely damaged but more affluent Rockaway communities such as Breezy Point, which has managed to rebuild thanks to FEMA and private funds.

At a community meeting held in Battalion Pentecostal Church in late September, Rockaway residents spoke their minds to Build It Back team members and city officials. Many members of the predominately African-American community alleged racial bias in the city’s allocation of funding and repair crews. Tensions ran high, and local residents said they were troubled by the December funding halt.

Some community members highlighted what they saw as discrepancies within the construction approval process.

“I don’t see why it takes so long for our inspections,” said Rosemary Shepherd, a resident of Far Rockaway. “Why are new houses being approved overnight and we’re still waiting?”

“I’m frustrated as well,” responded Mitch Noel, manager for the 31st district in the city council. “I understand the pain you’re going through.”

Noel described the construction lag as a bureaucratic issue, not a socio-economic one. “When you have city agencies that don’t talk to each other, then we have to wait,” he said, describing the interaction between the Department of Buildings and the Office of Recovery, among others. “The people who pay the price are the homeowners.”

Similarly, Taofeek Banire, a borough field coordinator for Build It Back, characterized the rebuilding process as a “tug of war” between agencies. But he conceded that residents’ frustrations were warranted in the face of institutional inaction. “If it were my house, I’d make a ruckus too,” he said.

Herbert Binger, another resident of Arverne, said he was tired of endless talk from politicians and community members. “Is the program closing in December or not?” he asked. “If we can’t finish our homes, what will happen then? We have to petition the feds for an extension.”

Pastor David T. Cockfield, who hosted the meeting, lamented Sandy’s impact, present and future, on the tight-knit neighborhood. He painted a portrait of a community eroding as rapidly as the sand dunes a few blocks away.

“Every property here is considered a flood property now,” said Cockfield. “The have-nots are finding it difficult to stay.”

Cockfield estimated that only 30 percent of the people who left his neighborhood after the storm have returned. Many moved in with family, or went to other boroughs or hotels. But the cost and uncertain timeline for repairs were too high for many to wait indefinitely. “By the time the house was taken care of, they’d have to find other places,” he said.

Cockfield said he knows of 20 people in the neighborhood who have been allowed back in their homes. “The process takes a while. Sometime Build It Back has to lift [the house] from the foundation. Sometimes they have to raze it and rebuild from scratch.”

Arverne residents are suffering another financial loss, too, because many of the furnished basements they had previously rented out were eliminated by rebuilding. “I think around 80 percent of the homes in the area had legal or illegal sublets,” Cockfield said. Rents in the Rockaways had been the cheapest in the city, he explained, attracting tenants from all five boroughs. But now, strict building codes prohibit subletting.

“We’ve had lots of people come to us and say, ‘I need a place,’” Cockfield said. “People are piling up with their families wherever they can, but it’s like a housing desert here.”

The pastor’s church lies a few blocks from the elevated subway at Beach 67th Street. Between those landmarks are numerous boarded up houses. Several empty lots sport Build It Back placards but no sign of construction.

At the conclusion of the meeting, Marcia Bennett remained hopeful that she would be able to return home soon. “They told me it would be next week,” she said.

Her friend Rosemary Shepherd was more skeptical. As the two left the meeting, Shepherd looked toward the Atlantic.

“The ocean gives, and the ocean takes away,” she said. “Why should the feds be the ones taking our houses away from us instead?”