Turns out living in the projects ain’t so bad — when the mayor’s got your back.
While public-housing residents across the city contend with lead-paint exposure, and no heat or hot water, one East Harlem family says life has gotten significantly easier since they hosted Bill de Blasio during a 2013 campaign stunt.
Reggie Wilson, 43, said the kitchen in the Lincoln Houses apartment he shares with his mom was quickly renovated after de Blasio, then public advocate, saw a leaking hole in the ceiling and moldy cabinets sitting on the floor during his highly publicized sleep-over.
And the VIP treatment didn’t stop when de Blasio took office a year later. Even now, the New York City Housing Authority responds promptly whenever Reggie or his mother, Katherine Wilson, 62, calls with a complaint, they told The Post.
When the Wilsons’ stove broke about a year ago, a replacement was installed within days, and an exterminator showed up the same week that mice invaded their apartment over the summer.
“I feel that a lot of times, because Bill de Blasio stayed here and he knows us, NYCHA cares more,” Reggie said.
“Otherwise, we’d fall through the cracks as well.”
And it’s not just home repairs that get expedited. Reggie said he personally emailed de Blasio when his mother had problems receiving her disability payments in 2015.
An official with the Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities contacted Katherine almost immediately, and the problem was quickly resolved.
Katherine said de Blasio even attended the 2015 funeral of her daughter, Lisa, who died of breast cancer.
Reggie admitted feeling a pang of guilt at the good fortune the mayor’s visit has brought him and his mom.
“Things have improved for us. But my concern is for my neighbors. I’ve heard a lot of terrible complaints,” he said.
Indeed, one neighbor down the hall said she was forced to cover up a hole in an apartment wall with a piece of paper because NYCHA has failed to fix it since a “big flood” in the upstairs apartment — a decade ago.
“It’s been there more than 10 years,” lamented the tenant, who gave her name only as Gladys.
When she calls to complain, Gladys said, “They say the ticket number, they do the referral, and then they don’t come….I call again and they say ‘It’s in contract.’”
“It got to the point that I asked one of the ladies, ‘Could I pay my rent by contract, too? Every five years?’” she fumed.
Another neighbor on the Wilsons’ floor, who gave her name as Barbara, said she recently had to use “my hands and a screwdriver” to fix a leaking pipe under her kitchen sink.
“I called Housing and they said somebody would be here next week, Tuesday,” she said.
“I said, ‘What in the hell am I supposed to do from now until Tuesday?’”
Barbara also said there’s mold growing in her bathroom that forced her grandchildren to stop visiting because “one of them suffers with asthma, real bad,” and no heat in the two rear bedrooms of her three-bedroom apartment.
“You can count the number of times I have heat. In the winter time, I’m loaded down with covers,” she said.
Longtime Lincoln Houses resident Mary Jones, 63, said “it’s not fair” that the Wilsons were getting preferential treatment from NYCHA, and said the family “just opened up a Pandora’s box” by revealing it.
“You gotta wait your turn,” she insisted. “This is going to enrage other tenants.”
A resident of the complex, who gave her name as Crystal and said she moved in about a year and a half ago, was furious when she heard about the Wilsons’ special relationship with de Blasio.
“So can I get the mayor’s number, too? I came here from a shelter and there was no gas for about five or six months,” she sputtered.
“I need the number, too. What makes them so special?”
Katherine Wilson said she actually lost the mayor’s number recently.
But she’s hoping to get in touch again so she can move out of the Lincoln Houses, where college student Olivia Brown was fatally shot three days after de Blasio’s sleep-over, and where the feds busted a 32-member drug ring in 2016.
“Half the time, the elevator’s broken….If you look around the building you can see rat holes for days. I can’t run from no rat!” she said.
“If anything, he can help me get out of here.”
Additional reporting by Georgett Roberts