Public housing residents in DC worry about enough heat during upcoming cold snap
WASHINGTON (DC News Now) — With temperatures expected to dip into the teens at night, Annette of the Potomac Gardens public housing complex in Southeast D.C. is worried.
The heat in her unit has been low, she said, and other people in the development have had problems with consistent heat.
“I have a multiple of boys and we have to double up on blanket,” said Annette, who refused to give her full name because she feared retaliation by management at the complex.
The fear of freezing without adequate heat is real for people who live there. Tenants have complained since Friday about heat going out – and that compounds the other poor living conditions that people said they already have to contend with.
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“We haven’t gotten low temperatures like this in a long time,” Annette said, who also uses a space heater. “We are all concerned about maintenance coming at a timely fashion and believing that we need urgency.”
D.C. Housing Authority officials said that some residents did call last Friday complaining about heat issues but that “all of those calls were addressed” and have not received any concerns since then.
“Our heating system continues to be monitored and we continue to conduct outreach to those residents who have previously reported outages to ensure that their heat is continuing to run and run properly,” a D.C. Housing Authority official said in a statement.
Kourtney, who also lives in Potomac Gardens but declined to give her full name, said she’s “definitely concerned” about intermittent heat and that it works on an “inconsistent basis.”
She said constantly uses an additional heater to help keep her place warm.
“I have four small kids in the house,” she said. “And so it’s just inconsistent where I’ve had to purchase my own space heaters.”
And if the heat goes out fully when temperatures dip into lower digits, Kourtney said that’s her worst fear.
“We’re just going to be cold and just hope and pray the space heaters that we have work,” she said.
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