For 15 years, New York’s low-income Housing Authority has owned a home in St. Albans, Queens. No one lives there. The windows are broken and the grass is overgrown.
The 120th Avenue house was so ignored that, in 2007, a dog-fighting ring moved into it right under the city’s nose. Neighbors are forced to shovel snow, clean up and nail doors shut.
“I’ve lived next door to this monstrosity … and pulled down all the weeds and done so much like it’s mine,” fumed Kathleen Gittens-Baptiste, who has desperately tried to buy the building.
But this isn’t the only home the New York City Housing Authority has left to rot.
In the midst of a housing crisis, NYCHA owns at least 80 homes that it has left to decay, in some cases for decades, The Post has learned
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The city obtained the homes in the late 1970s from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. After tenants moved or passed away, NYCHA kept the buildings empty.
The Housing Authority now says it plans to dispose of the houses — many of them in Jamaica — because they “represent an inefficient allocation of housing resources,” according to a draft 2015 fiscal year plan filed with HUD.
2 comments:
The government does this on purpose. They purposely hold over houses that way you only have so much inventory to choose from. Less inventory equals to higher prices. They know exactly what they are doing.
We brought in Habitat for Humanity... politicians have been able to facilitate transfer of these properties, Habitat rehabilitates them, and they go back to (qualified) members of the community who otherwise would not be able to afford a home purchase. Win-win.
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