Atlantic City ordering inspections at Stanley Holmes Village
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (CBS) -- The mayor of Atlantic City on Tuesday announced aggressive steps to address heating and hot water problems at the city's largest public housing complex.
Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small says this is the first time the city has ever done anything like this. It is ordering inspectors to put all other tasks on hold to inspect the living conditions at Stanley Holmes Village.
"We've been on this from day one," Mayor Marty Small said.
The mayor is responding to mounting complaints about unreliable heat and hot water at the city's largest public housing complex, forcing tenants to use space heaters and heat water to bathe.
"At this current moment, some of us actually do have heat and hot water, but the situation is as I said last week, but for how long?" tenant Unique Johnson said.
Between Wednesday and Friday, the city will be sending inspectors to all 420 units at Stanley Holmes Village to see exactly how many units lack heat and hot water or have mold, bedbugs and roaches.
The city will then send the results to the Atlantic City Housing Authority.
"We're going to give the housing authority that sheet and we're going to hold them accountable to the fullest extent to make the necessary repairs," Small said.
The mayor says the housing authority will face fines if they don't fix the problems.
"I'm going to give him a chance because he's trying," tenant Luana Molley said.
John Clarke, the interim executive director of the Atlantic City Housing Authority, says he supports the city's plan.
"We're part of the solution here," Clarke said. "We're trying to make things and improvements to their lives now going forward."
Clarke says there are three boilers that service Stanley Holmes but only two of them are working. He says the housing authority spent between $100,000 and $200,000 this fall on repairs.
"A lot of the actual annual repairs that could have been done or should have been done were not done in the past, so now we're dealing with that," Clarke said.
The mayor says he hopes to have a report with the results of his inspections on his desk by Monday.
