In dilapidated housing complex, tenants await construction on new building

Garbage, graffiti, and expired building permits are only the beginning of a long list of hazards bothering neighbors of the Ennis Francis II building on 123rd Street and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard.

The 15-story building was intended to provide new homes for residents of the dilapidated Ennis Francis low-rise apartment complex. But Ennis Francis II is sitting unfinished, with no indication as to when construction will resume.

Both buildings are funded by the Abyssinian Development Corporation, a nonprofit real estate development branch of the historic Abyssinian Baptist Church. The corporations financial problems, detailed in a Village Voice article from April 2013, stopped construction of Ennis Francis II in April, but an ADC spokesperson reaffirmed as recently as November that construction on the building would resume and finish on schedule.

Although the sign on the scaffolding advertises a January 2014 completion date, the site remains boarded up.

The tenants of the Ennis Francis housing were promised homes in the new building, but with construction halted, they remain situated in what they describe as nearly unlivable conditions.

Ennis Francis tenants Brenda Brown and Jessica Hughes said they have to boil water and keep their ovens on since heaters in the building are ineffective.

Sometimes we cant even open the windows because its a brick of ice, Brown said.

Brown added that she has to cover her belongings with plastic bags or pile them in the corners of the room to protect them from the rainwater that leaks into her closets. Her closet doors are broken, her apartment has mold, and shes seen cockroaches and dry rot in the bathroom.

The toilets, bath, and shower from Browns unit leak into Hughes apartment downstairs, where the mold is so bad that Hughes must keep the windows open in all temperatures because her daughter has asthma.

Hughes said that nonresidents also hang out in the building at all hours of the day and night.

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In dilapidated housing complex, tenants await construction on new building