How racism in urban planning fuels the high rate at which black people die in fires

By Char

Leaders try to blame electric heaters and overcrowded housing for deadly fires in the Bronx, New York and Philadelphia, but experts also say

Within days of each other, a fire in a Bronx building killed at least 17 people, including several Gambian immigrants, and a dozen residents died in a separate incident at a Philadelphia home.

But, according to various investigations, the fatal nature of these fires follows a historical pattern marked by negligent policy making and infrastructure decisions that can result in the deaths of black people at a disproportionate rate.

News Telemundo Noon, January 12, 2022

Jan. 12, 202215:18

"We're looking at how land use and zoning policies are used. Because of housing segregation, those policies have been used against communities of color," said Juanita Lewis, an organizer with Community Voices Heard, a social justice group in New York.

"It is still operating in the context of housing segregation and we have to show who deserves to be protected and live in decent housing. The fire was started by a heater because there was no adequate heating. The situation in the Bronx is extremely sad, unfortunate and discouraging, but it's not uncommon," Lewis added.

"Racism plays a role in nearly every accident death in America, and that's been going on for a long, long time."

Jessie Singer, journalist

The legacy of the early zoning laws that promoted segregation continues today and is expressed in the instability of housing plans that force black people to rent sites plagued by maintenance problems that put them at risk of everything. types of hazards: from fire deaths to lead poisoning.

Black people are more likely to die in accidents, such as fires, than residents of other races.

Although

home fires across the country, according to the New York State Department of Health.

"Racism plays a role in nearly every accident death in America, and that's been going on for a long, long time," said Jessie Singer, a journalist and author of the book

.

They identify a part of the fatalities in the fire of a building in the Bronx

Jan. 12, 202201:17

"I've been researching since the early 1900s, and black people die from accidents at higher rates than white people, in the total of all incidents. Accidents are supposed to be unpredictable and unavoidable events. If that were true, accidental deaths would be randomly distributed in the United States but that's not what happens."

Nine adults and eight children died in the fire that broke out in the Bronx on Sunday morning at a 19-story building on East 181 Street.

Authorities arrived at the building around 11 am, according to NBC New York.

Mayor Eric Adams and New York City Fire Department Commissioner Dan Nigro confirmed that a heater started the fire and smoke could have spread rapidly through the building as security doors failed.

The building, built in 1972, did not have fire escapes or sprinkler systems because regulations requiring such measures do not apply to older buildings in the city.

Online records from the Department of Housing Preservation and Development show several complaints from residents, including lack of heat in some apartments.

Hundreds of people in the Bronx remember the victims of the deadly fire in a building

Jan. 12, 202201:56

The residential building is owned by Bronx Park Phase III Preservation LLC, and records show the building manager is Rick Gropper, who was appointed to work on Adams' transition team before he took office, the newspaper reported. The New York Times.

The building's owner has not responded to a request for comment from NBC News, sister network of Noticias Telemundo.

For black immigrants, especially those with low incomes and little formal education, it can be difficult to advocate for safe residential conditions, said Theodore Hamm, an urban planning scholar at St. Joseph's College in Brooklyn, New York.

"There are a lot of structural impediments to solving the problems," Hamm said.

“If you are a tenant in one of these buildings and you see maintenance needs, what do you do? You can call the management company and complain, but if they don't do anything, what is the next step? the city, but will that improve conditions? In that position, you don't have much power."

A woman looks out the window during a news conference at a building that burned down in the Bronx, New York, on January 10, 2022.Carlo Allegri/Reuters

Twelve people, including eight children, died in the Philadelphia fire on January 5.

Authorities said there were at least four smoke detectors installed in the home, but

when the fire broke out at the three-story home in the Fairmount neighborhood.

At 6:40 am, Philadelphia Fire Commissioner Adam K. Thiel said a Christmas tree had burned down.

Although 26 people lived in the building's two apartments, the lease was for 20 residents, according to NBC Philadelphia.

Eight people lived in one unit that occupied the first and second floors, while 18 resided in another space that occupied the second and third floors.

State Senator Sharif Street, who represents the area where the fire occurred, said "if they had better options, they would have made better decisions." The Philadelphia Housing Authority, which owns and operates the home, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from NBC News.

If this affected middle and upper class whites, we would have solved it a long time ago."

Rebecca Garrard activist

Singer noted that accidental fires are another way that Black people are vulnerable to infrastructure failures imposed by systemic racism.

In addition, blacks are more likely than whites to die in traffic accidents because, among other causes,

Black neighborhoods experience more extreme surface heat from climate change than white neighborhoods.

Black people have also been found to face high risks from pollution from power plants, are more likely to live near hazardous waste sites and suffer higher rates of lead poisoning and water pollution, according to the Center for American Progress. .

The fire did not spread much in the Bronx fire, but the smoke did and that killed 17 people

Jan. 12, 202201:51

President Joe Biden announced over the summer his "bipartisan infrastructure plan" to address the fallout from "decades of disinvestment in America's infrastructure that has fallen on communities of color" and allocate billions of dollars to help cities improve critical infrastructure such as roads, bridges and power grids.

"Blacks and Native Americans lead in deaths from unintentional natural and environmental causes, which is a broad category that includes everything from rat bites to starvation," Singer said. "The kinds of accidents that kill people at especially uneven rates are the kind [of incidents] that could be prevented with policies and infrastructure."

Rebecca Garrard, legislative director of Citizen Action of New York, a social justice-focused organization, said

in which they have to deal with your own exposure to hazards like fire, flood, mold, lead poisoning, and more dangerous situations.

Garrard said millions of New York renters

living conditions because they may be affected by rent increases or unfair evictions.

Citizen Action is one of many advocacy groups pushing for "good cause eviction" legislation that helps tenants fight arbitrary evictions and unfair rent increases.

Housing advocates are pressing Gov. Kathy Hochul and the state legislature to sign the bill into law.

Black and Latino renters in New York face the most maintenance issues.

According to the city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development, 25% of black renters experience three or more maintenance deficiencies, compared to 18% of the general city population.

Investigation progresses into Bronx building fire that killed 17

Jan. 11, 202202:18

A black household in New York City would need more than double their income to pay the median price of an apartment in the city, reported StreetEasy, a page dedicated to monitoring rents.

Even before the pandemic began, black and Latino renters were more likely to be threatened with eviction, at 14% and 19% respectively, compared to whites at 8%, according to the Community Service Society.

Garrard said the living conditions he has seen in his work with Citizen Action "are beyond what people could even imagine."

"There is lack of heat; lack of hot water and water in general; structural deficiencies in terms of roofs or parts of the roof that are collapsing or almost collapsing, parts of the floor or walls that are missing," Garrard said.

"There are tenants who live in apartments where there is lead contamination, and

I've visited houses with tenants where I'm walking and I'm not sure if the floor does not collapse. But the tenants have no choice", explains the activist.

"There's no question that if this affected middle-class and upper-class whites, we would have figured it out a long time ago," Garrard says.