Kushner’s just the tip of the iceberg
While many New Yorkers are focused on how President Trump is working against our most vulnerable citizens, it appears that his son-inlaw’s company has tried to physically destroy their homes here in New York as well. Records uncovered by the Housing Rights Initiative show that Kushner Cos., which is owned by Trump’s sonin-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, may have falsified more than 80 work permits with the city Buildings Department detailing the presence of rent-regulated apartments in his buildings.
These apparent falsifications would have made it easier for Kushner Cos. to avoid oversight, harass tenants and use construction to force seniors and working families out of their lifelong apartments. But this isn't anything new for Kushner and his business interests. Kushner Cos. has faced lawsuit after lawsuit, and investigation after investigation, for its clear pattern of harassment across the company’s more than 20,000-unit portfolio.
These alleged crimes may come from one of the biggest names in the city’s corrupt real estate industry, but Kushner is certainly not the first whose operation faces these allegations, and certainly won’t be the last to be associated with this kind of fraud.
What should alarm us is not the behavior of one landlord with questionable ethics, but a widespread practice on which we are finally beginning to focus.
Whether it’s in the East Village, which is home to the largest number of Kushner buildings where permits were allegedly falsely filed, or the Bronx, we have both seen and heard from countless constituents whose landlords use illegal tactics, specifically weaponized construction, to harass and displace tenants.
This disguised misconduct purposefully brings noise, damage and rodent infestations to apartments, and tragically they often lead to tenants being forced to leave their homes. Even with excellent tenant organizing and defenders in the City Council, the support these harassed tenants have seen from the city has been challenging and inconsistent.
You may be asking: Why isn’t our city doing something to stop this?
There are a number of things the city can do, including finally establishing the Council-mandated Office of the Tenant Advocate, which it was obligated to do months ago. With the city completing the rollout of 72 additional Council-mandated Buildings Department inspectors to pursue this kind of illegal construction, we could also consider increased fines.
But the root of the problem here, like many issues in city government, stems from communication and enforcement, or the lack thereof.
If the Buildings Department automatically coordinated with the Finance Department to confirm the records each agency had on buildings like these — the kind of basic coordination you’d expect in a well-functioning organization — it would have been able to easily receive property tax statements that include state reporting on the number of rent-stabilized units in each building. Unfortunately, it appears that the Buildings and Finance departments do not consult with each other, and there is no mechanism by which records are cross-referenced. The right hand is not talking to the left. Because of this lack of due diligence, corrupt landlords continue to exploit our permitting process to harass tenants and force them from their rent-stabilized units so that they can be converted to market-rate apartments.
We must close these gaps in oversight immediately if we wish to truly send a clear message and stop this reprehensible behavior from bad landlords.
As the Council begins its investigation into these disturbing allegations against Kushner Cos., we want to let landlords across this city know that this legislative body will not tolerate this kind of criminal behavior. Whether the landlord owns one building or works in the White House, we will join with tenant organizers to ensure that justice is reached for any New Yorker who loses what is becoming a more precious commodity every single day in this city — our homes. No one is above the law.