The Binghamton Tenants Union created a petition demanding that the city’s housing authority be held accountable for alleged substandard living conditions and failed maintenance repairs.
On Monday, the union held a press conference outside the Binghamton Housing Authority’s Canal Plaza office to demand improvements for tenants’ living conditions. Jesula Saintus, a community activist and union spokesperson, said the union planned to present its petition at a housing authority board meeting that same day. The meeting was cancelled due to alleged threats of violence.
“We are not violent,” Saintus said during the press conference. “We want promises made to our community to be kept, finally. Canceling today’s meeting was nothing more than an attempt to silence tenants, take away our right to speak truth to power and keep us invisible.”
The union threatened to organize a citywide rent strike if the city does not address tenants’ concerns promptly.
Saintus read the petition aloud, which claimed that tenants struggle to live under housing rules and conditions “that increase our financial burden, reduce community resources and diminish our quality of life,” including unsafe living conditions, lack of proper bathroom ventilation, broken locks and large rent increases.
The petition also alleged that tenants repeatedly reported issues like mold growth, insect infestations, plumbing issues and unresolved asbestos removal in units. Elderly and disabled tenants are also affected by inadequate garbage pickup and snow removal, the petition claimed, while rents set to increase by increase next year will disproportionally impact vulnerable, low-income, disabled and elderly populations.
“Our homes are supposed to be comfortable,” Saintus said in an interview with Pipe Dream. “And you’re sitting here, you’re tripling the rent, and it’s like, ‘Why am I paying you so much money and we have so many issues and you’re not doing anything about it?’” Saintus told Pipe Dream in an interview.
“Between the mold and the asbestos, you’re literally killing us off,” she continued.
The union also claimed tenants face a “lack of adequate notice and transparency” for rent increases and utility payments. Residents also have their maintenance requests delayed or even ignored, according to the petition.
“When you make a maintenance request, you call it in or you go physically talk to the people, but there’s no documentation of these requests, at least from our end, that it’s being done,” Saintus said in the interview. “When they do come, they partially fix the issue or they make the issue worse than what it was in the first place.”
The Binghamton Housing Authority did not return Pipe Dream’s request for comment.
The petition called on the board to freeze planned rent increases until federal housing standards are met, create a tenant advisory council to review proposed policy changes and require “clear written communication for all changes in rent, lease terms, utilities or community safety measures.”
“This petition is not just words on a paper,” Saintus said. “It is a collective voice of our community, the truth of our lived experiences and the demands we will not back down from until justice is served.”