In 2013, New York City Housing Authority tenant Susan Bourne had a stroke that completely paralyzed the right side of her body.
The former clerical associate for the Administration for Children’s Services had moved to her Staten Island apartment 30 years earlier with her young son. But she hasn’t been back since the incident. For more than a decade, she’s lived at the Sea View Rehabilitation Center on Staten Island.
With the facility’s help, her condition improved: She is now able to speak, feed herself and breathe on her own. And in 2018, she was ready to return to her apartment.
But since her stroke, Susan uses a wheelchair, and her apartment is not accessible. She can’t get into her shower without assistance, can’t reach her kitchen cabinets and can’t make it through narrow doorways and turns.
The now 71-year-old Bourne, her family and her legal counsel have repeatedly asked NYCHA to either update her apartment to make it usable to her or transfer her to an accessible unit. But starting in 2014, NYCHA attempted eviction proceedings against her and her adult son, who also lives in the apartment, first for rent nonpayment and then failure to occupy the apartment — even though it can’t fit the wheelchair she needs.
Now, Bourne and her counsel are suing NYCHA under the Americans with Disabilities Act for not providing her with the reasonable accommodation her counsel argues she is entitled to.
“It’s discrimination against her for having a disability,” Bourne’s lawyer, Samantha Sobers, said. “We’re suing because they’re violating federal law.”
A representative from NYCHA said they did not comment on pending litigation.
‘I Miss It’
For years, Bourne has been ready and eager to return to her home, and has instead been confined to a rehab facility that makes it harder for her to see her family, and where she has less control over her surroundings.
When THE CITY spoke with Susan and her sister Mary Bourne over the phone, the two struggled to find a private place to have the call because workers needed to access cables in Susan’s unit.
“They just kicked us out of Susan’s room,” explained her sister over sounds of loud drilling. They eventually settled for the public dining room, where other residents could hear their conversation.
Susan has recovered significantly from her 2013 stroke, but still suffers from a traumatic brain injury that hinders her ability to communicate. But she still expresses hope that she can move back home.
“I want to,” she told THE CITY. “I miss it.”
One of the things she misses most is cooking.
“Susan was a famous cook in our neighborhood,” her sister said. “Oh my goodness, people would come from buildings away to get her fried chicken and potato salad.”
Susan said her favorite thing to cook was red velvet cake.
“I used to get the takeout trays when Susan started cooking and go to the apartment,” her sister reminisced. Mary lives less than five minutes away from Susan’s NYCHA apartment — but instead, has to drive across Staten Island to the rehab facility, where there’s a long process to check in and lots of security.
Mary hopes that Susan will be able to have more freedom at home and will be able to get better care that she can at the rehab center.
Through Medicaid, “She was already approved for a one-on-one [caregiver],” Mary said. “Instead of sitting in a wheelchair, she can use a Hoyer,” a lifting machine that helps people move in and out of wheelchairs. “She can use it to go and sit on the couch.”
A Very Frustrating System
Susan and her family have been dealing with eviction cases from NYCHA since 2014 when the housing authority first tried to evict her for rent nonpayment. The case was pending for years while her family attempted to inform NYCHA of Bourne’s stroke and necessary rehabilitation, but the proceedings continued, according to Bourne’s lawyer and her lawsuit filed on April 4.
In 2017, the eviction case was discontinued because Susan, through a court-appointed representative, surrendered her rights to the apartment. But two years later, in 2019, Susan got her rights to the apartment back; a judge found that her representative had surrendered her rights improperly.
In the intervening years, NYCHA attempted to evict her son, who had been living in the apartment and still does today.
“They sued Ms. Bourne’s son in this case, saying the person who is on the lease, who was the tenant of record, no longer has rights to the premises,” Sobers said. “She was the one giving you a right to stay here and thus we’re going to evict you because she’s no longer here.”
NYCHA resident Susan Bourne is pictured with her sons Raymond, left, and Calvin. Credit: Courtesy of Bourne Family
Mary was frustrated by the focus on her nephew in the proceedings, rather than what needed to happen to get Susan back into her home.
“It’s not about him, it’s not about that. It’s about Susan and her comfort and her happiness,” she told THE CITY.
The attempted eviction of Susan’s son came nearly a year after Mary and the rehab center, in early 2018, told NYCHA that Susan was ready to be discharged, and would need modifications to her apartment like a roll-in shower. But according to the complaint, NYCHA did not respond.
In 2019, the eviction case against Susan’s son was discontinued: Once a judge ruled that Susan’s tenancy rights should never have been surrendered in the first place, the second case was dropped. The family continued to inform NYCHA about Susan’s desire to return home, but in 2021, NYCHA again tried to evict Susan for, among other things, “failing to occupy her apartment,” according to the lawsuit.
This eventually caused Susan and her family to reach out to Staten Island Legal Services, who submitted multiple requests to NYCHA demanding Susan’s apartment should be modified or that she be transferred to an accessible unit.
In 2023, NYCHA finally agreed — and they even brought in a contractor to verify the work order, according to the lawsuit.
But to this day, NYCHA has not made a single one of the requested accessibility modifications — which include widened doorways, lowered kitchen cabinets and a roll-in shower— according to the claim filed by the attorney Sobers.
“It felt so wrong what they were doing, suing someone, trying to evict someone if they didn’t reside in the apartment,” said Sobers, adding that that might make sense if a tenant had moved out and didn’t tell NYCHA.
“But she was sick and was trying to get back in, and just couldn’t because her wheelchair basically couldn’t fit in the apartment,” she said. “I was like, there has to be a way around this, we have to be able to do more than just defend her in this case.”
Susan is hardly alone among public housing residents seeking accommodations from NYCHA. Residents who have asthma have been fighting to get the housing authority to clear mold from their apartments for years, even after a landmark case in 2014 that ruled the mold was a violation of tenants’ rights under the ADA.
Once Sobers began to assess the case and speak to her colleagues, she discovered that there was a way to sue NYCHA for violating that same federal law.
“The other option would have been to file a grievance with NYCHA, which is similarly on that lower level where termination is,” said Sobers about the different ways she could respond to the eviction case.
“But we just felt that that was too small, and that the violations against Ms. Bourne were so drastic.”
Susan’s sister is cautiously hopeful. Until working with Legal Services, Mary hadn’t considered taking legal action.
“I didn’t even think that was a possibility, because NYCHA is so untouchable,” she said. “It’s a very frustrating system, you know. That ‘You can’t fight City Hall’-type feeling.”
Mary wants more for her sister: for her to be able to do small things like get a snack from the fridge if she’s hungry, or bake red velvet cake for her sons.
“I don’t want her to die here,” Mary said. “I’m sorry I say that. It’s just hard.”
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