STRANDED: Alex Kudryavtsev uses a flashlight to get around his powerless apartment in a Sheepshead building that is still without heat and electricity almost a month after Hurricane Sandy. Its tenants have posted a plea for help outside, accusing their landlord of neglecting to do repairs. (Gabriella Bass)
The state is ready to put as many as 5,000 unemployed people to work assisting in Hurricane Sandy recovery and rebuilding.
There is plenty of work to be had, from cleaning debris to canvassing hard-hit neighborhoods to find out what residents need, state Labor Commissioner Peter Rivera said yesterday.
“The goal is to bring [people] into the program and find them full-time jobs at the end of the recovery effort,” Rivera said, announcing the plan in the flood-ravaged Brooklyn neighborhood of Red Hook.
The $27 million program, paid for by a federal grant, will be for jobs that last up to six months and pay about $15 an hour. Pay is capped at $12,000 per employee for the duration of the program.
All individuals must be unemployed to be eligible and can apply through the state Labor Department’s Web site.
The work crews may also help clean private homes and apartments as well as public buildings, officials said.
“I’ll take anything that’s offered to me!” said Carlos Perez, 42, of Park Slope, Brooklyn, an out-of-work truck driver who signed up immediately after the press conference.
“I hope to help fix some neighborhoods and hope I’ll be able to meet someone who will give me a permanent job.”
Another 700 FEMA jobs will also be gradually shifted from out-of-state workers flown in for the recovery efforts to local hires, officials said.
“I was laid off two months ago,” said Red Hook resident Shaon Bruce, 20, who worked as a furniture mover.
“I’ll do any kind of work. I just want to help.”
Meanwhile, residents throughout the city are still coping in the cold and dark almost a month since Sandy struck.
A five-unit apartment building at 2101 Ave. Z in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, is adorned with homemade signs exclaiming, “Help!” and “We have rights,” and “Forced out for profit Thanksgiving week.”
The building has been without heat or electricity since Sandy hit, then a first-floor storefront used as a cosmetics warehouse was destroyed by a fire on Nov. 11.
The residents include senior citizens and young families.
“Our landlord came the next day [after Sandy] to collect the rent. He said, ‘I need the money to do the repairs.’ Then three, four days went by, he doesn’t pick up the phone, he doesn’t do anything,” recalled Alex Kudryavtsev, 26, who lives in the building with his wife and 3-year-old daughter.
“We went over to his house in Manhattan Beach and the repairs on his house were already under way,” he said.
“Instead of putting the money toward our residence, he decided his house was more important.”
The landlord, Leonid Rubanov, declined to answer the door at his lavish home, adorned with wrought ironwork, silk drapes, columns and ornamental flourishes.
“If you’re from the newspaper, you have to call the Department of Buildings and HPD. It’s a bad idea to come to my home,” he told The Post, referring to the city’s Department of Housing Preservations and Development.
HPD has issued several violations to Rubanov, and sources said more inspections are expected today.
Separately, near-regular weekday train service will resume on all 11 branches of the Long Island Rail Road today, officials said.
It will be the first time the trains will run on a close-to-normal schedule since Sandy struck Oct. 29.
But four peak morning and evening trains will not run on the Long Beach branch because of repairs on the two East River tunnels that were flooded and had signal damage.