Shortly after Katrina Gorham’s mother died in May 1988, the Gowanus Houses became home. As a child, Gorham moved from California to her grandmother’s apartment in the public housing complex, and her mothers ashes made the journey, too.
Now, 46-year-old Gorham says the remains are nowhere to be found — along with many of her and her three children’s belongings — lost in a reshuffling of tenants while a multimillion-dollar renovation was taking place this summer.
Gorham said she’s frustrated, heartbroken and dealing with insomnia because of the stress.
“I never asked these people for money. I just wanted my stuff. I wanted them to help me locate my stuff,” Gorham said through tears. “I feel so embarrassed and so hurt. My mom won’t let me sleep because she wants to be found.”
Her apartment was one of several that have been renovated this summer as part of a $200 million effort to modernize the complex and a neighboring one at Wyckoff Gardens, an overhaul made as part of promises tied to the larger Gowanus rezoning.
While crews renovated, Gorham like many tenants had to temporarily move to a different apartment. That’s when her belongings went missing, about 100 boxes in all, she said, including important documents, her kids’ winter clothes, sheets, handbags, sneakers and a photo of her deceased grandparents on their wedding day.
She’s filed a claim to NYCHA, which is investigating the matter, a spokesperson said without commenting further. A joint venture in charge of the renovations, Mega Technico Joint Venture, said through a spokesperson that it is also investigating.
The storage and moving company involved in the move, ZeroMax, declined to answer questions about Gorham’s claims.
Gorham isn’t the only resident to raise complaints about the renovation and relocation process. Some of her neighbors have reported leaks, dust and other issues, according to officials and locals. Some of those issues are likely on the agenda at a public meeting Wednesday with NYCHA, hosted by the Gowanus Oversight Task Force, a group convened to track the progress of promises the city made as part of the neighborhood rezoning.
“We all really need to see them [NYCHA] use Wednesday’s time to give stronger reassurance and commitment, and that the mistakes made during this first phase of construction are not going to be repeated as we land in the next wave of construction work,” said Councilmember Shahana Hanif, whose district encompasses Gowanus Houses.
Improvements Overshadowed
Gorham’s household and 75 others in Gowanus Houses so far have moved back into their revamped spaces now that the renovations have been completed.
Mega Technico Joint Venture, composed of the companies Mega Development and Technico Construction Services, is leading the effort, known as Comprehensive Modernization, or CompMod. During renovations, residents move into temporary housing, and afterwards, return to their apartments — with updated bathrooms and kitchens, among other upgrades. NYCHA agreed to pay for tenants’ moving costs, including storage.
Many tenants have welcomed the renovations.
“The consensus is people are looking forward to the change. It’s a vast improvement,” said William Reid, Gowanus Houses Tenant Association president. “Now, if you’re going to have construction snafus, that’s any construction, especially the scale that they’re doing now. You’re gonna have some hiccups.”
Gorham herself appreciated the upgrades, saying the team did a “wonderful job” on many aspects. Her kitchen has redone floors, a fresh backsplash and a new stove.
But the lost remains of her mother loom above, casting a shadow over her improved space.
“To have them for so long, and to just lose my stuff in two months, that’s just disgusting to me. That’s the hardest part,” she said. “This whole apartment could fall apart, and I probably would excuse it just to get my stuff back.”
In a statement, Tom Corsillo, a spokesperson for Mega Technico Joint Venture said an investigation is being conducted.
“The health, satisfaction, and well-being of the residents is our top priority,” he said.
Nilda Lino, a Gowanus Houses resident and member of the Gowanus Oversight Task Force, said she wants the process to get better as renovations continue.
“There might be some hiccups, but … how are we going to do things differently as we move forward?” she said.
Chaos on Moving Day
Gorham described a chaotic moving day as she prepared to leave her apartment on June 1. That’s because she thought she would only need to pack up her kitchen and bathroom for renovations, but on moving day, the CompMod team told her the whole apartment needed to be empty, she said.
That meant packing up the rest of the three-bedroom apartment in one day. Gorham enlisted some family members to come help her.
“The construction workers started coming in and setting up as we’re in there,” she said. “It’s just a lot going on.”
She was told to number and label the boxes to help the movers from ZeroMax distinguish what to take to the company’s storage facility in Red Hook or to the temporary apartment. She said the box with her mother’s ashes was labeled “fragile” and marked to go to the temporary apartment.
“If it was more organized and things weren’t all over the place, I would have been able to make sure that that went to the temporary apartment with me,” Gorham said.
NYCHA declined to comment on the specific allegations and details of Gorham’s account.
Guidance for moving into the temporary accommodations specified residents should pack up their belongings and label them themselves, and to hang on to high-value items, like jewelry and important documents.
The family worked throughout the day to box up Gorham’s things, and around 8 p.m., a construction worker said he’d have to lock up, she recalled, so they rushed to finish.
The next day, at the new apartment, she went through the boxes, and panicked when she realized her mother’s ashes were nowhere to be found. She contacted the CompMod team to ask if she could access the off-site storage to look for the missing box, but she said she wasn’t allowed because other people’s property was there, too.
But she said she figured the box would be more secure there than in the temporary apartment, and told herself it was just a few weeks until she’d be reunited with her things.
‘Anything of Value Is Gone’
Gorham said she was slated to move back into her original apartment on July 25, but that was delayed because the bedroom and closet doors were missing — a task for NYCHA, not the contracted entity, to address.
NYCHA agreed she didn’t have to move in that day due to the lack of doors. But movers from ZeroMax had already begun bringing in some belongings from storage, including more than two dozen boxes, mattresses and bedframes, she said, estimating it amounted to less than half of her stuff. She assumed the rest of her items remained in storage or at the temporary apartment.
By Aug. 3, Gorham fully moved back into her newly renovated apartment. That day, she said CompMod and ZeroMax workers informed her that she had no more items coming her way.
Gorham said she began to cry and told the employees she had “something very important in there and I need it back.” They instructed her to file a claim.
“How can I put in a claim? You lost over 100 boxes,” Gorham said. “All the important papers are gone and missing. Anything of value is gone. My ashes are gone. The necklace that she had on when she passed is gone. Everything’s gone.”
Still, she filed a claim to the CompMod team soon after.
Twice in August, she visited the ZeroMax location in Red Hook specified on her moving invoices to try to look around and talk to workers. But she didn’t find what she was searching for.
Ron Nizamiddinov, CEO of ZeroMax, declined to comment. He wrote in an email, “There are 2 sides to every story. That’s all I can tell.”
This month, Gorham met with NYCHA representatives to discuss her situation. A subsequent letter from the CompMod team, reviewed by The City Reporter, indicated a review was ongoing, but at the time they were “unable to independently verify that the specific claimed items were present in the apartment before the move,” and that they could not establish the items were in the moving company’s custody and lost there.
The letter also reiterated the moving guidance — that residents were to keep valuable and important items — and pointed out that on the June 1 moving day, an unnamed member of Gorham’s family redirected some boxes meant for storage to go to the temporary apartment instead.
“We recognize the seriousness and sensitivity of the reported missing belongings,” the letter stated, emphasizing the team would continue to work with her.
In the meantime, Gorham said she keeps going over the details of what happened and the notes she took documenting her experience. She said she’ll continue pushing to find her mother’s remains.
“As soon as they tell me the ashes are gone,” Gorham said, “I can begin to mourn, but I got to have a little hope.”
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The post Her Mom’s Ashes Went Missing During NYCHA Renovations. They’re Still MIA. appeared first on The City Reporter.
