The city’s program to help homeowners with property damaged from Hurricane Sandy is coming under fire yet again—this time from the people who worked on the front-lines of the recovery effort. Three Build it Back employees spoke exclusively to NY1, detailing problems plaguing the program. Then, just days later, all three were fired. NY1′s Grace Rauh filed the following report.
Thousands of frustrated homeowners are still waiting for help from the city’s Build it Back program, and growing increasingly angry as the wait drags on.
That anger is what worries some now-former Build it Back employees assigned to help homeowners with their applications for assistance. They say some Sandy victims are lashing out and threatening Build it Back workers.
“One of my clients came in—he had a gun, a little 22 in his fanny pack, and he jokingly made a comment like, ‘This is just insurance, so I can make sure this meeting goes how I want it to go,’” says former Build it Back employee Nicole Buchanan.
Nicole Buchanan says she told her supervisor about the gun incident.
“It was very much, ‘Oh, you are being dramatic. Oh, go back to work,’” Buchanan says.
A Build it Back source says the gun in question was brought by an applicant who is a police officer. Buchanan insists the client was not a police officer.
Two other now-former employees also spoke exclusively to NY1 about security concerns at the Fort Tilden Build it Back center where they worked in the Rockaways.
“I feel unsafe when I come to work,” says former employee Tia Dixon.
All three were fired after speaking to NY1. They were not city employees, but worked for a temp agency that staffed the center.
A Build it Back source says that before the employees spoke to NY1 they had been told they were going to be fired from the project. The women deny this.
“My main concern is safety. I have a family,” says former employee Miriam Villanueva.
A spokeswoman for City Hall said in a statement: “As part of the City’s Build it Back overhaul, contracted employees who did not meet our standards were given warnings and ultimately let go—because it’s clear applicants were not getting the service they deserved. Since the overhaul—which includes City staff taking over direct management of the Centers—there has been dramatic progress, with over 650 homeowners now in construction and over 700 homeowners reimbursed, compared to none earlier this year. Build it Back takes security very seriously, and our security staff follow strict protocol, even if there’s just a potential concern. While we are barred from discussing the details of these employees’ terminations, suffice it to say that the claims made here are false.”
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