The Department of Health (and Mental Hygiene) has finally released their new, improved Rat Portal (which sounds like something you wouldn’t want rats to have access to…).

https://a816-dohbesp.nyc.gov/IndicatorPublic/Rats/

You can go to the portal, select your community district, and look at your block to see where rat complaints, sightings, eradication, and inspections are going on:

The data, like all 311 data, is biased towards communities who report such things, but it does give you a sense of where rats may be lurking in your community. In the map below, pink buildings/locations are rat hot-spots:

Every complaint and inspection is digitally documented, and you can see that the building at the corner of 124/Madison Avenue (north-west corner), has had 20 rat inspections in the last 6 years, and is currently listed ‘pink’, and thus evidence of rats was found with DOHMH inspectors last went to the location.

https://a816-dohbesp.nyc.gov/IndicatorPublic/Rats/

Rapid Rehousing

The Rapid Re-Housing Program (RRH) at the Violence Intervention Program (VIP) is a housing
intervention method used to connect individuals and families, who are domestic and interpersonal
violence survivors, to permanent housing through tailored financial assistance and supportive services.

With an intended goal of reducing the amount of time, the individual or family is homeless.
Our Rapid Re-Housing Program will locate and recruit landlords within our communities willing to rent to individuals and families attempting to flee domestic and interpersonal violence and receiving assistance from the VIP Rapid Re-Housing Program. We will work together to match our program participants/ clients to appropriate housing. Program participants/ clients will be offered permanent housing that is decent, safe, and affordable even after our financial assistance ends.