#Some NYCHA residents in NYC have been without gas for 3 months

For Mark Thomas, Christmas really is toast this year. No turkey. No mashed potatoes and gravy. No sweet potato pie, his favorite.

His cooking gas is off — and has been for almost three months. All he has is a hot plate and a slow cooker.

Thomas and about 100 of his neighbors in the Housing Authority’s Brownstones have been without their stoves for nearly three months, getting by on takeout, sandwiches, and anything that can be nuked or toasted.

“It’s not going to be much of a Christmas,” Thomas, 62, told The Post. “I guess I’ll find something in the freezer. I think I have a Cornish hen that I can fry.”

The Brownstones, 36 buildings on the Upper West Side, has a history of gas leaks.  One leak in 2018 hobbled two of the walk-ups for much of the year. This time, ConEd had to shut off the gas trunkline to 11 buildings, lined up on West 91^st Street between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue.

Built in the late 1800s, the buildings are chockfull of curved pipes wrapped in asbestos.

“The difficulty lies in the configurations of the buildings,” NYCHA spokeswoman Rochel Leah Goldblatt told The Post.

Housing officials called five repair companies: One didn’t respond and the other four either refused to bid or wouldn’t submit a bid or blueprints.

Now, after 10 weeks, NYCHA finally has found an asbestos contractor willing to bid. Next, comes the plumbing. Until both proposals come in, the housing authority doesn’t know what the price tag will be or when the work might be done.

NYCHA handed out single-burner hot plates to the 100 Brownstones residents, Goldblatt said, and will deliver hot meals for the next few months, including on Christmas Day. The head of the tenant association, Cynthia Tibbs, came to the rescue with 80 slow cookers.

Taihisha Joyner is using her hot plate to fix lunch for the eight little ones who come to her licensed day-care center. The youngest is 6 months, the oldest 2 years.

“It’s horrible,” Joyner, 47, told The Post. “I’m literally making one thing at a time for the little babies.”

NYCHA resident Taihisha Joyner in her home, which she also uses as a day care.

J.C.Rice

Taihisha Joyner in her home-day care.

J.C.Rice

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Before the outage, Joyner cooked at home. Now, she and her son order takeout a lot — several times a week at $35 a pop. And not only does spending so much money bug Joyner but so does eating all that fat and sodium.

“We used to eat healthy stuff — baked salmon is my thing, but no more,” Joyner told The Post.

Solmaria Santiago figures she has racked up a couple of thousand dollars on her credit card by ordering in.

She does make breakfast — scrambles eggs on the hot plate and Eggos in the toaster — and whips up a grilled cheese for lunch, but she surrenders at dinnertime.

“Oh, it’s not cheap to getting takeout, but I can’t make a real meal with no oven and only one burner,” Santiago, 64, told The Post. “Nobody can.”

Joyner plans to spend the holiday house-hopping. One stop is her dad’s in New Jersey. Santiago isn’t sure where she’ll be — maybe at home, maybe with her son and his family in Harlem.

If she stays put, she’s sure Christmas won’t bring much joy.

“This is crazy with this gas,” Santiago said. “I can’t make no turkey, no ham, so why should I stay here?”