NYCHA guards didn't show up, falsified time sheets: report | 7 On Your Side Investigates

NEW YORK CITY (WABC) -- They're hired with your tax dollars to keep the city's' most vulnerable safe - security guards for senior citizens who live in dozens of public housing buildings throughout New York City.

Turns out, many of those security guards never showed up for work. And when they did, some of them were caught sleeping and drinking on the job.

The city's Department of Investigation released an alarming report. It shows it wasn't just security guards who were not reporting for duty but also fire guards who are responsible for protecting seniors in case of a fire.

Back in February of 2023, when an e-battery sparked a fire at a NYCHA senior complex in Brooklyn that sent two people to the hospital, the hired fire guard was nowhere to be found. They were missing for at least two hours of their shift when flames tore through the building and seniors were evacuated.

When old buildings don't have working fire prevention systems, a fire guard is hired as part of NYC fire code and that person is responsible for patrolling the building and preventing the fire from spreading.

It didn't just happen once. Fire guards were missing at three separate senior building fires over a three month period.

"It's very dangerous," said Manuel Martinez of the South Jamaica Houses Resident Association.

"People actually got hurt, to see that there were three fires that impacted communities shows there's a need for that," said Martinez.

The findings are part of a city wide report. After inspecting dozens of senior buildings in 2023 with the New York City Housing Authority or NYCHA, they found:

- Fire guards were only present at their assigned posts 38% of the time

- 68% of Security guards were only absent for all or part of their shift

- Some guards falsified handwritten timesheets

- 32% of front doors weren't secure

- Majority of surveillance cameras didn't work or unable to be viewed remotely

"This is unacceptable NYCHA," said Public Housing Chair Chris Banks during a hearing the city council recently held about the report.

The city council's calling on NYCHA to make a dozen changes moving forward, including electronically tracking workers and their time sheets.

"The first thing we did was implemented better oversight, hire additional staff and changing the culture of how we manage the contract," Lauren Gray of NYCHA told the council in response to the report.

Eyewitness News reached out to the company who the city contracted with to provide the security. They sent us this statement:

"Any suggestion that Allied Universal falsely billed NYCHA is not true. The DOI did not inform us of their investigation or afford us an opportunity to respond to the concerns they identified prior to issuing their report. Allied Universal is committed to business integrity and does not tolerate false billing."

During the April hearing on the report NYCHA told city council members they went after the security company "very aggressively" to get damages and a corrective action plan in place.

NYCHA told Eyewitness News in a statement they've started implementing the city's recommendations:

"In 2022, NYCHA began phasing out and ultimately ended fire guard and security services with Allied Universal. NYCHA has already made significant progress on several of DOI's recommendations and is accepting substantially all of the recommendations, in support of our mission to provide safe housing for residents. In recent years, NYCHA has focused on compliance with the requirements set forth by the 2019 HUD Agreement and has made transformative progress in the areas of accountability, governance, and compliance, as well as tangible improvements inside the homes and buildings of NYCHA residents."