Last month, beneath a grey and drizzly sky, seven Chinatown residents camped outside New York’s City Hall in a grueling three-day hunger strike. They vowed not to take a bite of food until Mayor Bill De Blasio conceded to their core demand: to be allowed to return to their homes at 85 Bowery, a dilapidated tenement in Chinatown.

The 100 tenants of 85 Bowery were abruptly evicted in January, after the FDNY and city officials deemed the building dangerously uninhabitable. Since then, the building has sat empty while the landlord, Joseph Betesh, makes the necessary repairs. In the meantime, most of the tenants have been living at the nearby Wyndham Garden hotel at the landlord’s expense. With neither Betesh nor the city having given a concrete date for when they’ll be able to return home, their stay at the hotel has come to feel indefinite.