Landlord slaughters tenants over unpaid rent since the pandemic started

 

 NY Daily News

A Queens landlord accused of stabbing his girlfriend and two tenants to death told cops he “just snapped” after his partner mocked him about back rent and refused to pay her share, prosecutors said Wednesday.

In a statement to cops shortly after turning himself in, David Daniel blamed “stress” for Tuesday morning’s deadly outburst, an excuse he backed up a day later when he told reporters outside a Queens precinct that he had been under “a lot of pressure.”

Daniel showed up Tuesday at the 113th Precinct stationhouse and confessed that he “did something bad” inside his Milburn St. home in St. Albans, cops said.

Officers rushed to his home to find Coleen Caesar Fields, 51, dead in an upstairs bedroom. Two other victims, a man and a woman, were found dead in a basement apartment.

Investigators believe Daniel killed all three as part of an ongoing landlord-tenant dispute. The couple downstairs had not paid their rent since the start of the COVID pandemic, a police source said.

“I’m having trouble with my tenants, they haven’t paid rent in a long time,” Daniel said in a statement to cops, according to prosecutors. “I did a horrible thing, real bad.”

Officers at the precinct asked him if he had killed someone. Daniel replied, “Yes.”

“I just need some time, I was trying to see if I can get the bodies out because they didn’t want to come out,” he told the officers on Tuesday. “This morning it happened, everyone is there now.

“Tenants and the person I live with — everyone is dead, honestly,” he said. “The tenants are downstairs in the basement, one male, one female The backdoor leads upstairs to the bedroom.”

Then Daniel described the confrontation that led to the carnage.

“My partner began to mock me because I wasn’t doing anything about the payment,” he said. “She locked me out of the room and I told her we don’t have to share a room, but she has to pay $1,500 in rent. She refused to do that and I just snapped. I was just so angry from all the stress.”

 

Zara Vile

 

 QNS

During one of the hottest days in New York City on Thursday, July 27, Imran Patel, a Flushing resident at 140-60 Beech Ave. claimed that he and his family are facing eviction by Jamaica-based real estate company Zara Realty for putting an air conditioner in their apartment. 

“We’re in the middle of a heatwave here in NYC and they’re threatening to kick us out of our home because we want to be able to live in this heat,” Patel said. “They claim that we’re violating the lease, but nothing in the lease says that we can’t have an AC in the window. They gave us no warning — the super had even told me two years ago that it was fine, but two weeks ago we were given a notice that Zara wanted to evict us.” 

A spokesman for Zara Realty said Patel’s claims for not being able to have air conditioning in his apartment is false and is a safety concern. According to the company, the building has air conditioner sleeves and the tenant refused to install the air conditioner where it is supposed to be.

“Putting the air conditioner in the window is a significant risk to health and human safety as it could fall out of the window onto someone below causing serious injury or death,” the spokesman said. “The air conditioner sleeve is the appropriate, safest, and approved place for the air conditioner unit, not the window.”

Patel, who has been living at the apartment for 20 years, was joined by rent-stabilized tenants from two other buildings owned by Zara Realty (140-30 Ash Ave. and 140-50 Ash Ave.) at the July 27 press conference in calling out the company for alleged harassment of immigrant tenants, including asking for birth and marriage certifies, excessive fees for keys, and increasing rents by nearly $300 per month. 

“Zara has been continuously harassing us since they bought the building in 2019—there is no peace,” Patel said. “When Zara changed the locks, they only gave us one key for our family of five. We still only have one key. We have leaks and mold in our bathroom; the electrical outlets are loose and often don’t work.” 

“And I’m not the only one,” Patel continued. “They’ve started eviction cases against a few other families in the building for the same reason. I’ll fight back and I know I will win, but I also know that for every tenant like me, there’s another who would move out of fear because an eviction record can destroy your chance at finding a home.”

After two years, Maria Jenny Lopez, a tenant of 140-30 Ash Ave., was able to get a key for her brother who lives with her. Lopez claims she suffered harassment, including Zara employees on the fire escape taking pictures through her window. 

“Other tenants are still waiting for a key and are forced to pay up to $100. It’s outrageous for such a simple yet important thing. They are also asking us for marriage or birth certificates. This isn’t right. That is abuse. That is harassment,” Lopez said. 

Doug Ostling, a tenant organizer and resident of 140-50 Ash Ave., said he’s “sick and tired of Zara’s harassment tactics and attempts” to raise their rents. 

“This is our home. This is our community. We pay our rent just like everyone else, but Zara continues to harass us and treat us like pawns in their money-making schemes,” Ostling said. “They don’t make basic repairs and then try to raise our rent? Enough is enough. We just want to live peacefully and in safe and livable homes!” 

The tenants claim Zara is trying to unlawfully raise rents by filing Major Capital Improvement (MCI) applications with the NYS Department of Homes and Community Renewal (DHCR), the state agency that oversees rent-stabilized buildings in New York. 

They’re calling on DHCR to deny Zara’s applications due to building disrepairs and apply the letter of the law which prohibits MCIs while certain violations exist. 

The tenants allege that there is a lack of heat and hot water, roaches and mice infestation in the hallway and basement, leaking roofs, broken garage chutes, and security cameras they can’t access. According to the tenants, Zara’s repairs include “patchwork jobs” that quickly fall back into disrepair.

 

Jackson Heights residents still displaced by massive apartment building fire got disenfranchised of their personal belongings

 

THE CITY 

Dozens of tenants displaced by a massive fire in a Queens building nearly a year ago say their apartments were burglarized, but police refuse to allow them to report their belongings stolen, according to the building’s tenant association.

At least 50 apartments have been burglarized since an electrical fire erupted in the six-floor building on 34th Avenue and 89th Street in Jackson Heights last spring, according to Andrew Sokolof Diaz, the tenant association president.

“The police will not allow us to file stolen property reports,” Sokolof Diaz told THE CITY.

The April 6, 2021 fire torched upper-level apartments, injured 21 people and displaced more than 140 households — about 500 New Yorkers. While top floor apartments were destroyed by fire, others below were ruined by the water used to fight the blaze.

In September, THE CITY reported that dozens of tenants of the 133-unit building sued the owner and various agencies in Housing Court, demanding that repairs be done in a timely manner so that families could retrieve their belongings and return home.

A judge has since issued the owner, Kedex Properties LLC, a series of deadlines to finish repairs, ultimately ruling on Nov. 23: “All work must be completed and ready for occupancy” by January 2023.

By November, many tenants from one wing of the building had yet to gain access to their apartments and were only able to glimpse inside for the first time since the fire through photos that appeared in mold and damage reports in court records. Several dozen residents from the other wing had received permission to enter their units and retrieve personal items months earlier.

Since January, tenants from the still-restricted wing have been able to view their apartments via directed video calls with building contractors inside.

In those calls, tenants noticed certain valuables were not in their spots. That fueled fears of residents who said they had for months alerted police to suspicious behavior in and around the building — specifically by security guards and contractors with access.

“Things have clearly been rummaged and ransacked,” said Sokolof Diaz, noting photos and videos show their apartments left in disarray, with mattresses flipped, closets and drawers opened, momentos strewn about and safes forcibly broken into.

When asked why tenants were unable to file police reports, an NYPD spokesperson did not offer an explanation but noted “complaint reports are recorded based on a preliminary investigation and information provided by the complainant.”

“A complaint report can be made by calling 911, approaching an officer or requesting a police report at a police facility,” said the spokesperson, Lt. Jessica McRorie.

She also said police reports for crimes and incidents can be made online.

THE CITY spoke with 10 tenants who said they believed their belongings were stolen when they finally saw inside their apartments through photos and videos.

“What little we were supposed to recover is gone,” said Neyilia Rodríguez, 56, who lived in a second-floor unit with her husband, daughter, son-in-law and two grandchildren.

A photo in court records showed her son-in-law’s electric bike in their apartment. But when Rodríguez had a video call with a contractor, the bike was gone, she said, along with money, a phone, jewelry and her daughter’s permanent makeup equipment.

City doing the homeless hotel shuffle with tenants displaced by Hurricane Ida

 THE CITY

Families flooded out of Queens homes by the record-breaking Ida rainstorm may soon be forced by the city to relocate from a Radisson hotel near Kennedy Airport and move a borough away.

The looming trip to one of two hotels in downtown Brooklyn could take place before Thanksgiving, the Ida evacuees say they’ve been told by the city Department of Housing Preservation and Development.

“We just want more time,” Eileen Bendoyro, 52, said Tuesday after being informed she and her 13-year-old son Christopher would have to move to Brooklyn after staying at the South Jamaica Radisson since the epic Sept. 1 storm.

 Our activities are in Queens. We have small kids, babies, people who are disabled — to go to Brooklyn, it’s too far,” she said of the group still at the airport hotel.

Bendoyro’s basement apartment in East Elmhurst flooded, destroying nearly everything, she said. A week later, President Joe Biden and other elected officials visited the neighborhood, stopping at an alleyway around the corner from her apartment.

But the visit didn’t help her find a place to stay. She was among 20 families still at the hotel on Thursday when HPD told them they’d have to move by Monday, she said.

By Tuesday, just nine families remained, and they were then told by city officials they could get an extra five days at the Radisson. 

 An HPD spokesman said the city has provided emergency quarters to more than 380 families since the remnants of Hurricane Ida hit and is working to get people into permanent housing.

“We’ve secured extended stays in hotels in downtown Brooklyn for many of those who remain in our care, and will continue to work with the families staying at hotels in Queens to get them back on their feet,” the spokesman, Anthony Proia, said in a statement.

Dirty cop ripping off tenants and charging above market rate for basement apartment

 

 

NY Daily News

A duplicitous NYPD veteran is accused of scamming eight apartment hunters by posing as the owner of his rented Queens home, collecting a security deposit and first month’s rent from his victims before disappearing, the Daily News has learned.

Officer Burban Pierre advertised his rented basement apartment in Ozone Park via Craigslist over a four-month stretch in which prospective tenants paid up to $2,800 in move-in costs for the leased space that he called home, according to a victim and one of his neighbors.

Vivian Griffith answered the officer’s ad in April, recalling how she texted Pierre, signed a lease and paid $2,200 upfront for security and rent. But the frustrated woman was never able to move inside, and neighbors eventually alerted her to the officer’s ongoing swindle.

“I knocked on the people’s door upstairs,” she recalled. “They answered and said, ‘Pierre is the tenant living downstairs.’ I showed them the lease. They said, ‘Oh, he’s good. You’re the eighth one. We’ve had eight people come here on this.’ He never told me he was a cop.”

But Pierre, who earned nearly $130,000 on the job last year, definitely told her the building belonged to him, Griffith added.

“I feel very upset with the fact that this comes from an officer who is supposed to protect and serve,” added the mother of two daughters. “It’s shocking that a police officer would go to such lengths to take from people who don’t have. It’s disheartening and upsetting.”

The NYPD confirmed an investigation targeting Pierre, who joined the department in 2010 and was recently moved to the Bronx Court section after working in a pair of Manhattan precincts.

Tenants displaced by Jackson Heights apartment building fire sues LLC and the city

 

THE CITY 

More than 60 of the hundreds of tenants displaced after a massive fire at a Jackson Heights apartment building in April are now suing the property’s owners and management, as well as city agencies.

They’re demanding that the building’s owners repair their homes so they may return — and let them back in soon to retrieve possessions from the still heavily damaged and inaccessible block-long complex.

The building remains surrounded by scaffolding and caution tape, with many windows boarded up. The eight-alarm blaze crumbled ceilings and destroyed interior walls, exposing wooden beams in their place.

Tenants allege that in the five months since the fire, Kedex Properties and city officials have provided little sense of when repairs will be completed, if any belongings can be salvaged and when residents might be able to return to their apartments.

Access to the building has been “unreasonable and severely limited,” according to the complaint filed Sept. 10 in Queens Housing Court targeting the owner, along with the city Department of Buildings and Department of Housing Preservation and Development.

Several dozen tenants in one wing of the two-address, 133-unit building have been allowed scheduled visits to retrieve personal items. but former residents of more than 60 apartments in the other wing have not been granted that same privilege, said Andrew Sokolof-Diaz, the building’s tenant association president and a plaintiff in the suit.

“We have exercised our rights as displaced rent stabilized tenants to bring this lawsuit forth after so many delays and denial of access to our own belongings,” he added. “Our goals remain the same: to mitigate our displacement from home in Jackson Heights and to protect what salvageable belongings we have left inside while ensuring we have a dignified and sensible timeline for repairs until we are able to return.”

Legal Aid attorney Amee Master, who is representing the tenants, said the landlord is required under state law to repair the building promptly.

“Kedex Properties can no longer ignore its obligation to undergo the necessary work to ensure the building is safe, habitable, and up to code for the residents to return,” Master said.

Kedex Properties declined to comment.

Baited, switched, fisted

 

Bloomberg

 The pandemic-era rental market in Manhattan gave people the chance of a lifetime to move into the apartment of their dreams. Ten months is all they got.

Landlords are jacking up rents — often by 50, 60 or 70% — on tenants who locked in deals last year when prices were in freefall. Some renters are being forced to move at a time when the market is roaring back to nearly pre-pandemic levels. And concessions are slipping away.

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Andy Kalmowitz didn’t think twice in November before signing a 10-month lease on a two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment in the desirable East Village neighborhood for $2,100 a month. When it was time to renew, his landlord asked for $3,500, a 67% increase.

“When I asked why, they said, ‘It’s a different world,’” said Kalmowitz, 24, who works in TV and had moved from New Jersey.

Across New York, landlords last year were forced to cut rents and offer freebies when the Covid-19 pandemic all but shut down the city, scattering residents who were looking for additional space or more-affordable housing.

Now the market has rebounded, and people appear to be flooding back: Large employers are demanding people return to the office, universities are ramping up in-person teaching and New York City’s public-school system — the largest in the country — has reopened without a remote-learning option.

“More are moving back from out of town, after being away quarantining for the past 18 months,” said Bill Kowalczuk, a broker at Warburg Realty. “There are more inquiries, more apartments renting within a week or less of the list date, and more prices going over the asking price than I have ever seen.”

The median asking rent in Manhattan rose to $3,000 in July, the highest it’s been since July 2020 and up from the pandemic low of $2,750 in January 2021, according to StreetEasy.

Fauxgressive council cronies writes bill to cancel criminal background checks for renters

 

Queens Chronicle

A bill pending before the City Council woud ban landlords from conducting criminal background checks on prospective tenants.

Councilman Steve Levin (D-Brooklyn) and supporters say it is necessary and bans discrimination against ex-convicts who have turned their lives around. Many have trouble getting leases once their backgrounds are known. Advocates told the Daily News on Monday that the bill would ease homelessness and shelter overcrowding.

The bill reportedly has 27 co-sponsors — and the backing of Mayor de Blasio.

Joseph Strasburg, president of the Rent Stabilization Association, represents thousands of landlords. He told the News on Monday the bill is problematic, and should be rewritten to allow exemptions.

He said landlords should have control over their properties, and have a right to prevent drug dealers, gun dealers and gang members from operating in their buildings. He also said the bill would expose landlords to unacceptable levels of potential liability. The measure is expected to come up for a vote in the next few weeks.

Homeless Cuomo leaves tenants and landlords hanging for rent aid.

 

NY Post

 Gov. Andrew Cuomo has been missing in action as the state failed to release the vast majority of $2.6 billion in federal funds for tenants on the brink of eviction, the head of the emergency rental relief program testified Tuesday, just before the accused sexual harasser announced his resignation.

“I have not had conversations with the governor about this,” Michael Hein, commissioner of the New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, admitted to lawmakers at an Assembly hearing in Lower Manhattan.

Assemblyman Mike Lawler (R-Rockland County) had asked Hein when was the last time he’d spoken with Cuomo about the Emergency Rental Assistance Program passed by Congress in January.

That’s when Hein answered that he’d never spoken to the governor about the program. Instead he communicates with Cuomo’s deputies, Hein testified.

While Hein’s office has paid out $140 million to contractors to administer the program that’s beset with tech problems and only recently added a “save and resume” button to the lengthy online application, only $100 million has been distributed to tenants and landlords since June 1.

That’s just 3.7 percent of the $2.6 billion pot. The state risks forfeiting the federal funds if 65% of the money isn’t paid out by Sept. 30.

“I think what this shows is that the administration is incapable of administering this program,” Lawler fumed.

Tenants and landlords left wanting for rent relief

NY Daily News

Getting injured during the height of the COVID-19 crisis was just one of many hardships Fernando Livingston faced when he found himself out of work last year and, even worse, falling behind on rent.

The 68-year-old former security guard has been living on food stamps and workers’ compensation since he got pinned under a gate for nearly an hour while on the job. The resulting spinal injury makes it hard for him to walk.

 The 68-year-old former security guard has been living on food stamps and workers’ compensation since he got pinned under a gate for nearly an hour while on the job. The resulting spinal injury makes it hard for him to walk.

The prospect of a fund that could cover months of back rent buoyed the Brooklyn man’s hopes and initially assuaged his fears of becoming homeless as he applied for the state-run Emergency Rental Assistance Program in early June.

Nearly seven weeks later, and now behind another month’s rent, Livingston and thousands of others have received no response from the state despite promises that $2.3 billion set aside for rental assistance would soon begin flowing.

“I’ve never been homeless before. I’ve never really had problems with rent before,” he told the Daily News. “I’m scared. I’m not going to tell you no lie. I can’t sleep at night thinking of what’s next, what’s going to happen.”

Livingston, who emigrated to the U.S. from Panama and served in the military for six years, owes his Flatbush landlord more than $10,000.

“If this thing doesn’t work out, I don’t know what’s going to happen,” he said. “I’m just hoping and praying this works out.”

Coreena Popowitch is in a similar situation.

The 45-year-old has been unemployed since the start of the pandemic. She also applied for rental assistance through the state.

“I don’t know what’s going on. I really wish that they let us know,” she said. “It’s frustrating. It’s been pretty much just silence.”

Popowitch says she has paid off some of her Bronx rent but still owes her landlord more than $8,000.

The pair are examples of the more than 160,000 New Yorkers who face a frustrating and byzantine application process with the Emergency Rental Assistance Program that has left them with little patience.

The $2.3 billion program was made possible by federal cash set aside in the state budget with the understanding that it would be up and running in time to help struggling New Yorkers before the state’s eviction moratorium expires at the end of August.

The application process didn’t launch until the first week of June, despite promises from Gov. Cuomo and administration officials to get it online earlier.

Making matters worse, the web application portal has been riddled with technical glitches.

Applicants have complained that submissions must be completed in one sitting and can’t be saved and have reported problems uploading documents and other issues.

Landlords are also anxious about the slow relief rollout.

Anthony Sarro, a small-scale residential and commercial landlord who owns one building in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and another in Forest Hills, Queens, said the eviction ban has caused major headaches after one of his tenants refused to pay rent for almost a year and then vanished.

“He stayed on for 11 months and told me, ‘You can’t evict me,’” Sarro said. “Now he has disappeared and left the apartment completely destroyed. There were cocaine bags all over. I think he lost his job, and now he has disappeared.”

Sarro says he’s out more than $100,000 and had to let some employees go because of the financial stress caused by the deserter and giving a few tenants breaks on rent during the worst of the pandemic.

He was initially hopeful that the rental assistance program could help both him and at least two of his tenants who he knows have applied. But the slow process is just making matters worse in the short term, he said.

“It sort of inspires people not to pay rent,” he said. “What the tenants are doing is that they’re putting themselves in arrears, even though they may be able to pay at least some of their rent because why wouldn’t they? If they can get the city to cover their arrears, why would they try to pay them? It’s hurting me rather than helping me at this point. It’s a little bit egregious.”

 

Still no place to call home

 

Queens Post 

 On a sunny day in early April, minutes before flames ignited across a 133-unit apartment building on 89th street in Jackson Heights, Andrew Sokolof Diaz returned home from a doctor’s appointment for his two-month-old son.

He opened the windows to get some fresh air, before leaving to take their dog out for a family stroll.

“So I remember opening the windows and feeling a little nostalgic, like aw, this is our little home. I actually remember that feeling,” said Sokolof Diaz, 33, a leader of the building’s tenant association. “And that’s it. The worst possible thing that could have happened, happened.”

Around 1 p.m., the electrical fire, which fire marshals said was sparked by an overloaded power strip, began burning on the top floor of one wing of the six-story, two-address building and spread rapidly, fanned by an apartment door left ajar.

Tenants scrambled outside, some exiting through the main entrance and others climbing down fire escapes, and watched the destruction from the sidewalk. Billowing plumes of smoke clouded the sky for blocks.

It took 12 hours for hundreds of firefighters to quell the eight-alarm blaze, which injured 21 people. Ultimately, the sprawling building’s more than 140 households — about 500 New Yorkers — were displaced from their homes.

 A season later, more than 100 residents of the rent-stabilized, block-long apartment building are without a permanent home. By the tenant association’s count, some 60 families remain in city-sponsored hotel rooms across Queens and Brooklyn, following Red Cross emergency relocation.

They were told they could stay for a month — two months ago.

After losing their homes and in many cases all their possessions, those former tenants are now confronting difficult choices on offer via the city’s affordable housing program. Some are being offered pricey new rentals in the neighborhood and others, apartments on the far side of the borough.

Meantime, displaced families told THE CITY, the Department of Housing Preservation and Development has attempted to relocate them from the hotel rooms to homeless shelters — first on Father’s Day and then again this month.

For families, that would mean leaving Queens entirely, since HPD doesn’t operate any emergency shelters for displaced people in the borough.

“We are just waiting to see what HPD and other organizations are going to do. I really do not want to go to a shelter,” said 16-year-old Kimberly Sinchi, who’s living in a hotel room in Downtown Brooklyn with her parents and her dog.

 

Tenants struggling to pay rent are struggling with application online platform

Gothamist

Tenant advocates say the $2.7 billion federally-funded emergency rental assistance program aimed at helping struggling New Yorkers behind on their rent due to the pandemic might not be reaching the residents who need it the most.

New Yorkers started applying for the program on June 1st. The agency in charge of the Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP), the Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance (OTDA), received 119,209 applications by the end of June, with the 91,457 coming from New York City (the agency says some applications might be duplicates).

But advocates say problems with the online application portal could be preventing the lowest-income, immigrants and senior New Yorkers from successfully submitting applications, adding further stress in paying their back rent.

“I fear we will not reach the very communities that the legislation specifically wanted to reach, mainly people under 50% of the area median income, survivors of domestic violence, survivors of sex trafficking and people living with disabilities,” said Jack Newton, director of the public benefits unit at Bronx Legal Services. “I think that will continue to be a problem in the weeks to come.”

Bronx Legal Services is one of 29 non-profits that sent a letter to OTDA earlier this month asking the agency to address the problems people are experiencing: the difficulty of collecting all the necessary documents and uploading them, an issue that has frequently tripped up tenants because applications can’t be saved and resumed; “error” messages that force tenants to exit and restart an application; inadequate translations of the information about the program into other languages; and needing to have an email address to submit an application.

Justin Mason, a spokesperson for OTDA, said they “are addressing any technical issues promptly and as they are encountered,” and are reviewing the letter.

“The agency has undertaken an unprecedented effort to establish partnerships with local governments across the state and welcomes any input we receive from community-based organizations—especially those groups actively involved in helping New Yorkers apply for this critical assistance,” he said.

Timothy Johnson, 59, said he and his partner, who live in a two-bedroom apartment in the Morrisania section of the Bronx with their two daughters, made five unsuccessful attempts in applying for the program. Johnson said their landlord told them they owe $11,000 in back rent (an amount they dispute) from during the pandemic. He has tried to apply on his phone because he doesn’t have access to a computer, but said he ran into issues uploading documents.

“It's confusing,” Johnson said. “It tells you to upload documents and it doesn't tell you which documents to upload. You really have to be computer-savvy to know how to fill this out.”

Landlord groups have also expressed dissatisfaction with the rollout of the program. Jay Martin, the executive director at the Community Housing Improvement Program, which represents 4,000 property owners in the city, said the most successful landlords are the ones who’ve been scheduling 30-minute appointments with tenants in their offices and assigning their staff to assist with applications, which he sees as the state’s failure to establish a user-friendly application process.

“You can go on Amazon, you can order toilet paper and have it at your house in 24 hours,” he said. “But when we're talking about a multi-billion dollar program from the government to help keep people in their homes and to keep the housing market from collapsing, we can't even figure out a way to keep the website from not crashing.”

Mayor de Blasio does a humane thing for once and extends hotel stays for tenants displaced by apartment building fire

 

 Queens Post

Families who have been provided with temporary hotel accommodation since a fire tore through their Jackson Heights apartment building in April are being given extra time to stay.

The hotel stays were set to expire by June 20, but families are now eligible to stay longer if they submit an application with the New York City Housing Preservation and Development, Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a tweet on June 17.

“The families displaced by April’s fire in Jackson Heights are our neighbors,” de Blasio said. He added that the temporary housing will continue to be provided no matter a person’s immigration status.

It is unclear how long the extension will last.

The families were left without accommodation after an eight-alarm blaze damaged two buildings, located at 89-07 and 89-11 34th Ave., on April 6. There were no casualties but 21 people – 16 of whom were firefighters – were injured.

Temporary hotel stays were initially provided by the Red Cross before the city stepped in to offer hotel accommodation.

The extension comes after members of 89th Street Tenants Unidos Association, a tenant association representing those affected by the fire, accompanied by elected officials held a rally on June 10 to demand that their emergency hotel stays be extended.

This sure is quite a turnaround by the Blaz after what he said a week ago. Apparently, the state's input wasn't necessary and he didn't need that worm Brian Lehrer to protect him from the tenant organizer's leader after all.

 

A tale of two Heights@WNYC @BrianLehrer purposely hung up on a caller speaking for 500 residents made homeless from a massive fire in their apt building in Jackson Heights when he pleaded @NYCMayor to extend their stay at hotel shelters for time to move back to their town pic.twitter.com/NPZltSaldU

— This machine kills fauxgressives (@ImpunityCity) June 12, 2021

Debts pile up for the rent burdened

The Real Deal 

It’s clear that the pandemic has impacted New Yorkers’ ability to pay rent. What’s less clear is exactly how much rent debt has been amassed since the beginning of last year — a crucial piece of the puzzle for policymakers in determining how much relief to extend to tenants and landlords.

A report released Wednesday by New York University’s Furman Center aims to inform the efforts of lawmakers in apportioning those funds.

The findings offer a snapshot of citywide rent debt by analyzing rent owed by tenants in 13,163 affordable housing units concentrated in the South Bronx and North Brooklyn. (Some data was included for units in Manhattan and Queens.)

The analysis focuses on buildings with over nine units with apartments financed by Low-Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC). Some units are also home to recipients of Section 8 vouchers. The buildings used in the sample were able to provide granular rent ledger data, enabling the Furman Center to take a detailed look at the distribution of arrears.

According to the report, rent owed by tenants in the sample more than doubled during the first year of the pandemic, while the portion of families that have incurred severe rent debt has jumped even higher.

Queens tenants living in hell sue landlord

Have a tenant horror story for you. Tenants at 84-53 Dana Court in Queens have been living in disgusting squalor for months thanks to their negligent landlord who has let garbage pile up inside and outside the building and refuses to address the rats, cockroaches, mice infestations as well as water damage and mold. Mgmt company has also been harassing tenants, sending them fake bills for rent. One tenant’s daughter is actually afraid to go in the hallway because a rat once bit her. Tenants believe landlord just wants them out.

 

 

The landlord, Highpoint Associates run by Donald Ammons, who has been on the Worst Landlord List multiple times, fired the super back in September 2020 and now garbage continues to pile up inside and outside the apartment, causing a rat infestation among other issues. The landlord has racked up more than $800,000 in fines and fees, according to our calculations, and over 400 building violations. The tenants have sued the landlord for repairs and have a court date on Friday, May 20. 6sqft covered this landlord before here. Tenants are willing to talk to you and show you the building this week ahead of the court date. Thanks.

Best,
Seth Hoy, Director of Communications
Legal Services NYC
40 Worth Street, Suite 606
New York, NY 10013

The broker fees remain

 

 

Queens Chronicle

 So, you didn’t hire a real estate broker, but you’re paying fees for one anyway? It may feel like robbery, but the longstanding practice is completely legal.

A state Supreme Court judge in Albany Court ruled April 9 that the Housing Security and Tenant Protection Act of 2019 did not prevent landlords who hire the middlemen from passing off the financial burden to their tenants.

The argument was raised after real estate representatives challenged a February 2020 New York Department of State guidance memo that stated, “A landlord’s agent that collects a fee for bringing about a meeting of the minds between the landlord and tenant (i.e., the broker fee) from the tenant can be subject to discipline.”

The Real Estate Board of New York and the New York State Association of Realtors filed an Article 78 petition to overturn the guidance, claiming that the 2019 legislation did not clearly restrict broker’s fees from being placed on tenants.

After a year, the court sided with the landlords.

“The guidance was issued in error of law and represents an unlawful intrusion upon the power of the Legislature and constitutes an abuse of discretion,” acting Supreme Court Justice Susan Kushner wrote in her decision.

The bill, sponsored by state Sen. Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-Yonkers) and Assemblymember Carl Heastie (D-Bronx), prohibits landlords from charging application fees, except for the cost of background checks, credit checks and monthly late fees. Furthermore, the legislation defines rent to exclude extraneous fees and charges to protect tenants from eviction due to failure to pay fees. There is no specific mention of “brokers” or “agents.”

Even renters who find apartments on their own may still be subject to broker’s fees, which can sometimes be as high as 15 percent of the annual lease, often paid in one lump sum by tenants before they’re handed the keys over.

REBNY President James Whelan celebrated the win over the DOS’s “erroneous interpretation,” stating that the decision ensures commission for thousands of real estate agents across New York who no longer have to fear being disciplined at the hands of the DOS.

Michael Johnson, the communications director at the Community Housing Improvement Program, said that even if the ruling hadn’t gone in the landlords’ favor, the prices for brokers could have been reflected in rent instead.

“What the ruling really does more than anything is help boutique, smaller brokers and small property owners to keep rent lower,” Johnson explained. CHIP members are mostly small- to medium-sized multifamily landlords, while REBNY represents some of the city’s biggest developers.

Brokers fill a need for both tenants and property owners, Johnson said, especially prepandemic when the housing market was tight. With limited options, prospective renters may have had a difficult time finding dwellings that fit their needs at an appropriate price, he said.

If Kushner ruled against fees for broker services, Johnson said, it could influence a change in the market force — rent would jump for new tenants because agents would still be used.

Renters’ advocates differ.

Including brokers’ cost in rent rather than as their own fees would not affect rent-stabilized dwellings, which Tenants Political Action Committee Treasurer Michael McKee pointed to as an example that jacking up the rent would not be the viable alternative Johnson says it is. Landlords would welcome any chance to raise rent, he added.

“This has been a giant scam. It’s been going on for years. It’s basically extortion. It basically means if you want to rent an apartment you have to pay a bribe,” said McKee.

Queens is still burning and more housing insecure

 

Impunity City 

 When Mayor de Blasio gets done trying to produce the recovery of all of us by emceeing performance arts venues in Brooklyn and Lincoln Center, maybe some time can be dedicated for his Housing Preservation and Development and Human Resources Administration to make sure these 400 residents who have had their lives upended from getting disenfranchised from their homes and belongings and make sure the owners of this complex, KEDEX PROPERTIES LLC, renovates and restores these apartments as quickly as possible.

And since there is still not much known about how this inferno started, right at the start of the afternoon no less, let’s be positively certain that when this LLC decides to demolish these actual affordable housing buildings and build some garishly designed tower they better let these residents that got displaced be allowed to return without any conditions. Instead of letting more low income people become gentrification collateral damage.

 

Tenant gets his property thrown out of his apartment in a tenement building owned by Barabara Corcoran and Alex Rodriguez while he was hospitalized with COVID

NBC New York 

 

The absurd thing about this savagery is that the piano and turtle remained because the people they hired surely thought they were to heavy to move and a bunch of goons moving a turtle on the street would have easily got filmed and lots of play on social media. Of course Corcoran and ARod won't be charged for illegally evicting a tentant from his apartment during a pandemic. And looting his belongings.

The forgotten rent-stabilized residents of the sleazy Kew Gardens Hotel

 

Queens Ledger

 Tenants that live in the same building that housed the Umbrella Hotel just off Queens Boulevard in Kew Gardens have lived with a constant barrage of criminal activity, culminating in a fatal shooting on New Year’s Day that eventually led to the hotel’s closure.

However, the seven remaining tenants say they are now living in their rent-stabilized apartments without heat or hot water.

Rohini Singh, a mother who has lived there since 2017, said the owners and management company have abandoned the building, leaving tenants to fend for themselves.

“We are on our own,” Singh said. “The temperature in my apartment was at 47 degrees this week. I’ve put in two tickets at 311 for heat and hot water. No one has showed up at my apartment to check anything.”

She added that the front doors are locked, which means that mail cannot be delivered, while basic maintenance like trash removal have completely vanished.

Jonathan Kastin, another resident in the building, has heat, but no hot water. He has taken it upon himself to serve as a make-shift tenants’ association leader.

“People are worried, scared and they’re suffering,” Kastin said. “They’re sitting there, living in their winter coats. I don’t know how they manage it.”

He said a worker came to the building on Friday to fix his hot water, but refused to hear any other tenant complaints.

“I said, ‘There are other tenants here and they are having heat and hot water problems,’” Kastin said. “She’s like ‘I’m just responding to my own ticket. Let them put in their own ticket.’ It was crazy. She just didn’t want to know about anything.”

He also worried about the elevators in the building. Two out of the three do not work, with the third being unreliable.

“The next time the elevator breaks, those of us on the top floor will be stranded,” Kastin said.

A notice posted in the building the day after the hotel closed advised residents to begin looking for another apartment immediately.

“It’s a hilarious notice, if it weren’t so awful” Kastin said. “They never communicated about conditions in the building. They would never send us emails, they would never talk to us.

Slumlord NYCHA deprives tenants of gas. Again.

 

 

Queens Chronicle

Annie CottonMorris, who heads the tenants association at the 71-year-old Woodside Houses, lives just a block from the nearest deli but it takes her two hours to buy a newspaper these days.

“That’s how many people stop me now to talk about what’s wrong with their apartments,” she told an outdoor rally of angry Woodside Houses residents Tuesday.

The latest complaint sweeping the city-owned housing complex is a utility outage that has left 12 apartments without gas.

Some tenants have been cooking on hot plates since last November, CottonMorris said.

Six units were fixed last week, said the New York City Housing Authority, which manages the 1,350-unit complex.

Six other apartments are due for repairs starting this weekend, a NYCHA spokesman said.

“While we understand gas service interruptions are inconvenient, we also want to ensure our residents’ safety as we work to restore service as quickly as possible,” the agency said in an emailed statement.

The complex of 20 six-story buildings straddles Broadway between 49th and 51st streets and has had its fair share of problems.

At the height of last month’s snowstorm, the heat and hot water failed throughout the 22-acre complex for several hours.

Some 40 tenants — joined by an equal number of residents of other NYCHA projects, many with similar breakdowns — called the rally to dramatize what they said were other, more longstanding deficiencies.

“I’ve lived here for 30 years,” said Marie Richardson. “When I moved here, it was a paradise. Now, I pay $2,000 a month rent and I have no gas.”

Other tenants complained of water being turned off late at night, mold, broken doors and bathroom fixtures, mounting trash and vermin.

“You can see the mice play tag on the scaffolding,” said one angry tenant.

“This is an ongoing situation,” Tomasina Reyes, another resident, told the rally. “It just doesn’t stop.”