DeB's threat to grab bldg. for homeless
The city plans to acquire up to 30 privately owned buildings that house homeless families in a dramatic move to reduce the rolls — even if it has to seize the properties through eminent domain.
Under the unprecedented initiative, not-for-profit developers would then convert these socalled “cluster site” buildings into affordable housing and offer rentstabilized units to both homeless and nonhomeless tenants.
Mayor de Blasio will buy the properties even if landlords don’t want to sell.
“If there is not good-faith negotiation, the city is prepared to use as a last resort eminent domain to take these buildings and convert them to permanent affordable housing,” de Blasio said at a South Bronx press conference Tuesday. “One way or another, we will achieve the goal.”
The plan is part of an effort to end the controversial cluster-site program, in which the city rents private apartments for homeless families — often paying landlords far above market rate for rundown units.
Only buildings where 50 percent or more of the units are currently housing the homeless will be acquired.
The city says it has already identified 25 to 30 buildings thatt qualify, mostly in The Bronx, which will create more than 1,100 rent-stabilized apartments, including 800 that now house homeless families.
Officials insisted they were on solid legal ground.
“The legal basis is the eminent-domain law allows you, for a public purpose, to make use of — to offer a fair price for someone’s property,” said Human Resources Administration Commissioner Steve Banks.
“We are doing that here, and our public purpose is addressing the homelessness, family homelessness, and ending the cluster program.”
The city has already begun negotiations with several landlords, and plans to have some conversions finalized by 2018.
“We literally are saying to these folks, this program is ending,” de Blasio said of the cluster apartments.
“Here’s a chance to get a fair price, resolve the situation once and for all because whatever you were receiving from rent from the city isn’t going to be there anymore.”
The mayor refused to reveal what the initiative will cost, say- ing negotiations are ongoing. But he insisted it would “be a net gain financially” for the city, which often pays double the market rate for homeless units.
Homeless families in buildings that are to be converted will have the option of signing a rent-stabilized lease — which they could pay for using various forms of public assistance.
Asked if there will be tenants who won’t pay rent, de Blasio said: “That’s literally a year-to-year thing. No one is static. It all depends on their situation.”
Homeless advocates applauded the initiative.
“Today’s announcement is a very positive step toward the laudable goal of eliminating the use of cluster sites and converting these apartments into permanent housing for homeless New Yorkers, as advocates and experts have long called for,” said Giselle Routhier, policy director at the Coalition for the Homeless.
But the Rent Stablization Asso- ciation, which represents 25,000 landlords, ripped the plan.
“Has the mayor considered the adverse economic impact, particularly on the city’s budget, that would result from taking real-estate-tax-paying properties from the tax rolls?” said RSA president Joseph Strasburg. “The city and nonprofits have demonstrated consistent failure and inability to operate housing — look at the squalid living conditions in the NYCHA public-housing system.”
Lawyer Jennifer Polovetsky, of Sanchez & Polovetsky, said New York has “one of the broadest eminent-domain authorities in the country” — and it would be difficult for landlords to challenge the city in court.
There were 60,508 homeless individuals in city shelters and apartments as of Monday.