Brothers get rich sheltering homeless

housing or face being uprooted to a new shelter.

“LCG is the epitome of a bad actor and they have no place in New York City providing social services to vulnerable New York families,” the lawyer, Lucy Newman, said.

The city’s Department of Homeless Services said the complaints from LCG clients and the evictions contributed to its recent decision to close all of the nonprofit’s cluster housing sites by June 30.

The agency informed LCG of its decision in February and wrote a formal letter to the nonprofit on April 2. LCG currently has 171 families in cluster units in 55 locations.

“Evictions by landlords of DHS families in LCG cluster units over the course of this year has continued to take families, DHS and even LCG by surprise,” Homeless Services said in its letter. “This ongoing pattern remains troubling and highly concerning.”

The city plans to end its entire cluster site program by 2021.

The program has been heavily criticized as ineffective and costly. A 2015 report by the city Department of Investigation showed that most cluster sites were riddled with serious health and safety violations.

At its height in 2016, the cluster housing program had 3,600 units citywide.

Homeless Services said it has closed more than 1,500 units since that time. It also plans to convert another 800 units into permanent affordable housing.

The agency said it is working with LCG’s cluster apartment clients to find permanent housing and to transfer them to other shelters.

But some LCG clients who have gotten eviction notices said they don’t want to move because they’ve established roots in the neighborhood.

Diandra Oquendo and Josephine Ravenales filed a lawsuit in Bronx Supreme Court in January saying that the units they occupy are rent-regulated and they are entitled to the tenant protections that come with the status.

The cluster units are leased in a complicated arrangement. The landlord, Sobro Sharp LLC, and its affiliates lease rent-regulated apartments to property management company Apex Asset Management, which in turn sublets them to LCG.

LCG pays Apex more than the rent-regulated amount to lease the homes — or about $50 per day per unit.

The eviction proceedings in the past eight months were filed by the landlord, Sobro Sharp, against Apex. Many were filed because of rent arrears. However, LCG said it paid all of the rent on time — and in some instances overpaid.

Apex did not respond to a request for comment.