Hotel owners are profiting off of the homeless crisis

NY Daily News

Owners of dozens of recently-built homeless hotels are saving millions of dollars on city taxes through an obscure rebate program that allowed them to hold on to $12.5 million in the 2018-2019 tax cycle.

Of the owners benefiting from the tax break — known as the Industrial and Commercial Abatement Program — the biggest winners include Sam Chang, Harshad Patel and Riverbrook Equities, according to a New York Hotel Trades Council analysis obtained and vetted by the Daily News.

Chang, for example, has built 49 hotels since 2006.

Of those, 14 have housed the homeless. Five have received ICAP rebates and saved approximately $2.3 million on their 2018-2019 tax bills, city records show.

Chang, who still retains ownership in one of the hotels, the Holiday Inn JFK, saved $791,323 in taxes for that property during the last tax cycle.

In all, 44 homeless hotels appear to have received both the ICAP rebate and homeless subsidies within the past four years, city records show. There are a total of 151 hotels that get ICAP rebates. From 2015 to 2019, homeless hotels that got the rebates saved more than $30 million.

All the while, owners like Chang and other operators who get the tax rebates are getting paid by the city to house the homeless. That money is routed to the hotels through homeless service “management companies,” which get the money directly from the city.

A spokeswoman for Chang’s McSam Hotel Group said the company has done nothing wrong.

“McSam Hotel Group complies with New York City laws, rules and regulations in building hotels. We never build hotels with the intent of housing homeless persons," spokeswoman Lisa Linden said. 

"McSam Hotel Group makes no decisions regarding whether homeless persons are housed in hotels. The management companies make those decisions.”

Harshad Patel said the rebate fulfills its mission of creating jobs and that critics are ignoring the big picture.

“It’s the only reason we are building,” he said. "We have a lot of expenses.”

The city projects it will spend $2.1 billion overall on tackling the homelessness crisis in 2020. In 2018, $384 million went from city coffers to housing homeless people in hotels. Less clear is how much of the city’s homeless budget is going specifically to hotels that already receive the ICAP rebate.

Whatever the cost, affordable housing advocates believe it’s a waste of taxpayer money.

“What the city needs to do is build housing to house the homeless,” said Cea Weaver, Housing Justice for All’s campaign coordinator. “It’s a better use of our resources. It’s better than paying hotel owners twice.”

City ordered to turn over Maspeth shelter's RFP documents

From the Queens Chronicle:

The city is not planning to appeal a court ruling ordering it to turn over documents related to last year’s highly controversial planned conversion of the Maspeth Holiday Inn Express into a homeless shelter.

The Sept. 27 ruling, made by Justice Allan Weiss of Queens Supreme Court, stems from an Article 78 case brought against the city earlier this year by the civic Citizens for a Better Maspeth.

Under court order, the Department of Homeless Services must provide CBM with the city’s original request for proposals and the response documents from applying companies as it related to the proposed operation the 59-40 55 Road hotel as a shelter.

“It is ordered and adjudged that the petition is granted solely to the extent that respondents are directed to provide petitioner with copies of the Request For Proposals that were received in connection with the proposal to convert the subject Holiday Inn Express to a homeless shelter,” Weiss’ ruling reads, “and any and all plans submitted along with the RFPs which demonstrate that the space would be a conforming use under the zoning resolution.”

Zoning law only permits hotel stays of 30 days or less in manufacturing zones — the Holiday Inn Express is located in an M1-1 zone — and CBM alleges that homeless men have been staying at Patel’s building for months at a time.

City doesn't have permission to house homeless at Maspeth hotel

From Crains:

The owner of a controversial Queens hotel site that's being used as a homeless shelter is suing the hotel's operator, opening up a second legal battle that threatens to undermine Mayor Bill de Blasio's plans to house the city's homeless.

Harshad Patel runs the Holiday Inn Express at 59-40 55th Road in Maspeth. This summer, he announced plans to lease rooms to the city's Department of Homeless Services for use as temporary housing. The news prompted boisterous protests from local residents, which were strongly condemned by the de Blasio administration.

While Patel built and now runs the hotel, his firm, New Ram Realty, leases the land it sits on from Kimcomatt Realty Corp. That company, which is run by Barry Haskell, denied Patel's Aug. 25 request to rent the rooms in bulk to the administration, citing a clause in the ground lease that permits rooms to be rented only to hotel guests.

As the backlash over the shelter plans reached a crescendo in early September, Patel told media outlets that he was backing off the deal due to community opposition. But the new lawsuit alleges that shortly thereafter, New Ram Realty quietly worked out an agreement to rent the rooms to the city anyway, in a deal that was specifically structured to circumvent the use restrictions in the ground lease.

On Oct. 10, around 30 homeless adults were moved into the hotel. About two weeks later, Kimcomatt filed the lawsuit in Queens Supreme Court, asking a judge to block any more homeless individuals from moving into the building, and to rule that New Ram is in violation of its lease. "The potential profit to New Ram must have been too great to turn down," the suit said, "because in blatant disregard of the terms of its lease and in contradiction to its representations to the community, New Ram has begun the conversion of the hotel to a homeless shelter."

Complaint against New Ram Realty, owner of the Maspeth Holiday Inn by crainsnewyork on Scribd

Mayor's office can't keep its lies straight

.@rosannascotto Not exactly accurate, city never backed down. Provider pulled out of proposal. https://t.co/YoiWc7IVzz

— (((Aja))) (@AjaWorthyDavis) October 13, 2016

Now the provider pulled out of the proposal? And here we thought it was Harshad Patel, the hotel owner, who did. At least that's what Steven Banks said to the press a day after his spokesperson said the city backed out after local opposition.

Lies, lies
I can't believe a word you say
Lies, lies, are gonna make you sad someday

Banks stands by bait & switch and shitty service provider

From PIX11:

Less than 24 hours after Maspeth residents watched Department of Homeless Services officials covertly move homeless males into the Holiday Inn Express in Maspeth, Queens, the commissioner for the agency decided to hold a news conference.

"There are 6,000 New Yorkers currently in commercial hotel rooms that I have been rented on an individualized basis," said Steven Banks at City Hall.

Approximately 30 of those New Yorkers, all working males, are now being housed at the property with Banks admitting his agency did not notify the community until after the men were checked into the hotel --- besides regular paying guests, "We did provide notice yesterday as soon as we went into those rooms."

State senator Tony Avella, the chair of a task force in Albany that focuses on the homeless says Commissioner Banks is manipulating the system calling the move a "bait and switch" in an interview with PIX11 News.

When PIX11 asked Commissioner Banks on Tuesday if he had any concerns about the city doing business with Patel considering his past? Banks offered the following, "We work with Acacia which is a reputable non-for-profit. They identified this site as a site in which services could be provided."

When pushed about DHS providing the contract with Acasia? Banks said, "We are going to keep doing business with Acacia which is a very reputable non-for-profit."

City data we examined on the Mayor's Office of Operations site, showed that in the August shelter scorecard, Acacia had more than 3,700 open violations.

Closure of 2 shelters announced hours after 2nd propaganda video released

Released Thursday evening:

From the Times Ledger yesterday afternoon:

On Friday, several elected officials in Eastern Queens announced that DHS will comply with hotel owner Harshad Patel and no longer use the Bellerose Inn and Quality Inn as housing for homeless families within the next 60 days.

“Now that we have confirmed that the city will comply with his wishes, we have to work towards finding a more permanent solution to help these families,” state Sen. Tony Avella (D-Bayside) said.

DHS would not say how this would affect its proposed shelter at the Maspeth Holiday Inn Express, which Patel also owns.

Well it would seem that if DHS wanted to respect the wishes of the hotel owner, they would stop pressuring him to make a deal in Maspeth, since he said publicly multiple times that he wasn't interested in turning his Holiday Inn Express into a shelter. Also, if Avella, et al can accomplish this for 2 hotels, why can't Yab-Addabbo and company do it for just one?

Dutch Kills shelter responsible for hundreds of 911 calls

From Queens Gazette:

Civic and local leaders are trying to figure out how the city chooses clients for its homeless shelters, and why so many people with a history of mental or psychiatric conditions are dumped in the shelter system, rather than being placed in facilities where they can obtain proper care and supervision.

Case in point: a homeless shelter for 200 women located at the former Verve Hotel at 40-03 29th St. in the Dutch Kills section of Long Island City.

Just released statistics show that there are currently 180 women living in the shelter. Fifty of those women are employed and close to living on their own, while 110 to 120 women have a history of psychiatric problems.

At a meeting last week attended by representatives of shelter operator Acacia Network and community leaders, police officials reported that officers at the 114th Precinct had responded to another 291 emergency (911) calls between June 1 and September 18, each involving shelter clients. The calls ranged from felony counts and drug possession to lesser counts of harassment and resisting arrest.

“Do the math,” Dutch Kills Civic Association President George Stamatiades said. “Officers at the 114th Precinct have responded to the shelter 641 times since it opened in October 2015. Throw that number at people who complain that police response is slow.”

The fact that cops were called to the shelter 291 times in just over three months, is in itself, startling.

“But when you add to that the fact that the same officers responded to 350 similar 911 calls involving shelter residents between November 2015 and February 2016, you have to question what’s going on there,” Stamatiades said.

“Many of the calls were placed by people inside the shelter – counselors and security guards who had problems with women who became combative,” a law enforcement source said. “They called 911 when situations got out of control, or when they posed some kind of imminent danger to others.”

“A number of the calls from the shelter were ‘aided’ requests for an ambulance or medical assistance for residents,” the source said. “There were a number of calls involving disputes and other conditions that required police intervention.”

People living near the shelter made 911 calls when they spotted shelter clients exposing themselves for cash to motorists, and to remove clients who were using basement laundry rooms to have sex with “customers.”

The Patel family owns this hotel and Acacia Network runs the homeless program. Now I believe it is clear why Maspeth is fighting a shelter in their neighborhood so vehemently.

The day that Maspeth marched through Floral Park

Below are photo albums from the Bellerose/Floral Park march that happened this Saturday.



You will notice that the signs protest the de Blasio administration, local politicians, Steven Banks and the DHS. There are none protesting against homeless children.



Joseph Concannon spoke first. It's obvious from his criticism of de Blasio's homeless policies that he must hate homeless children. (end sarcasm)



Mayor de Blasio must also think that State Senators Martins and Addabbo are child haters since they both attended the rally.





Funny how the Queens Machine stays silent about the mayor not only dumping shelters all over the borough, but unfairly framing one of their members and their constituents as people who want to see kids sleeping on the streets.

The protesters, however, aren't silent:





It also sounds like this movement is growing:

Other neighborhoods are getting pissed off about this as well. Click the photo below to hear from Rosedale and Woodside.

Thank you to Juniper Civic and Queens by the Minute for the additional footage.

Patel's thinking twice about homeless hotels

From PIX11:

Avella, along with Grodenchik and Nassau County Assemblywoman Michaelle Solages, announced Friday that the owners of the controversial the Quality Inn in Bellerose, targeted for most of the summer to become a shelter, are looking to end their relationship with the homeless agency and scrap plans to house the homeless, effective Jan. 1. This is the second hotel owned by the Patel Group that has promised no longer to serve and house homeless people.

Coincidentally, this is the same hotel that PIX11 News exposed last December. Back then, homeless services was booking rooms for $175 a night — yet PIX11 was able to book them on their corporate site for significantly less.

Homeless services leadership has not responded to numerous requests for comment during the past month.

Patel has 2 hotels on Jericho Turnpike that he converted into shelters. A protest today will visit two of them.

DeBlasio's Evil Empire has its sights on Maspeth

From DHS (Current Requests for Proposals):

In order to meet its legal obligations DHS maintains an open-ended Request for Proposal process through which non-profit social service providers submit proposals to augment capacity. Although DHS does not target specific areas to open shelters, the agency strives to keep families near their communities as much as possible. This is an open-ended request for proposals, therefore, there is no prescribed due date for submissions. All suitable proposals will be reviewed by the agency on an ongoing basis as received. Non-profit social service providers may submit a proposal to develop and operate the following:

Stand-Alone Transitional Residences for Homeless Single Adults
Stand-Alone Transitional Residences for Homeless Families
Stand-Alone Drop-In Centers for Homeless Adults

Ok, so the social services provider makes a deal with a building owner and then applies to the DHS for a contract.

When the city was asked how it can go into business with Harshad S. Patel, who had bragged about bribing a state senator in the past, they told the following to channel 11:

This jibes with what it says on their website.

So then how can this be?

From NY1:

The Department of Homeless Services says negotiations to convert a Queens hotel into a homeless shelter are ongoing. This comes after the Holiday Inn Express in Maspeth tweeted last night saying it’s confirming “the hotel will not be converting to a shelter as suggested.”

From the Queens Chronicle:

A Department of Homeless Services spokesperson told the Chronicle in a brief phone call on Friday that "negotiations are ongoing" between the city, hotel owner Harshad Patel and service provider Acacia Network. Just one day earlier, Patel told the Chronicle in an interview that the proposal is 100 percent dead.

Why is the city pressuring the hotel owner into a contract with Acacia Network, when that's not how the process is supposed to work?

Bill de Blasio desperately wants a shelter in Maspeth and his Evil Empire will do whatever it takes to make sure that happens, even if it means breaking the rules and making sure the city contracts with a crook. The question is, which stable, working class neighborhood will be next? (Looks like it may be Corona.)

Maspeth appears to defeat shelter plan without electeds' help

From the Daily News:

The co-owner of a Queens Holiday Inn that had been slated to become a homeless shelter said he wants out of the deal because the community opposition is too much.

Harshad Patel told neighborhood groups opposed to the Maspeth shelter that he wouldn’t go forward with the plans after they organized a protest in front of his home.

The protest was later nixed.

He confirmed he no longer supported the shelter to the Daily News on Thursday — and said he already told Acacia Network, the non-profit that had contracted with the city to run the shelter, he was done with the plan.

“The community doesn’t like it, so we decided not to move forward,” he said.

Calls to Acacia were not returned.

Robert Holden, president of the Juniper Park Civic Association, said, “We’re going to celebrate, but cautiously.”

“We’ve seen things happen where someone tells us something is going to happen and it doesn’t,” he added.

A Twitter account linked to the Holiday Inn franchise posted Thursday that the deal was off.

“We would like to confirm that the Hotel will not be converting to a shelter as suggested. It will continue to operate as a Hotel,” the tweet said.
__________________________________

This is interesting, considering that yesterday the electeds met with the DHS Commissioner and were told that the plan was moving forward. Also, Queens Community Board 5 received an official "notice" letter from Acacia notifying them of their intentions.

Naturally, Liz Crowley, totally caught off guard, is trying to inject herself into the victory at the last second:

This would just be sort of a par for the course type of thing if it wasn't for the fact that Crowley stated that protesting in front of the hotel was a waste of time and that action should be taken in an official capacity. Thankfully, Maspeth residents were smart enough to realize that you can NEVER count on elected officials to do anything, and protesting is actually what brought this development about, along with Tony Avella's letter to the US Attorney.

For added fun, Curtis Sliwa is showing up tonight at the hotel.

Maspeth shelter owner has admitted history of bribery

From the Daily News:

The way developer Harshad Patel recalls it, Brooklyn Sen. Carl Kruger offered to help him get a zoning change to turn his Sheepshead Bay hot-sheet hotel into apartments.

But it would cost him.

Patel, 58, told the Daily News that Kruger instructed him to write checks to Olympian Strategic Development, a company controlled by Kruger's "intimate associate," Michael Turano.

Each month for nine months in 2007, Patel said, he paid Olympian $3,000, hoping Kruger could win approval to transform his Golden Gate Motor Inn into four apartment buildings.

In the end, he said, nothing came of the zoning change, despite Kruger's involvement, and he sold the hotel.

"I wasted a lot of time and money on that," he said.

Patel is part of a growing parade of locals the FBI believes bribed Kruger to win his political largesse, newly released court papers show.

And the city is doing business with this individual because?

Maspeth hotel owner has really bad history as shelter landlord

Ángel Franco/The New York Times

So we did some research over the weekend. The owner of the Holiday Inn Express site on paper is "New Ram Realty, LLC". A name attached to that corporation is Harshad S. Patel. Patel is president of Gujarati Samaj. But his claim to fame is hotel-to-homeless shelter developer.

Patel is owner of the former Quality Inn in Jamaica, which closed last year and became Retreat Inn. This hotel was noted for having been turned into a shelter without warning.

Patel was also behind the hotel controversy at the former Frozen Cup in Bellerose. Here's a gem: "On Dec. 15, one of the hotel developers, Mitesh Patel, told several dozen residents at a community board meeting at the Bellerose Assembly of God Church that he and his partners aimed to create a reputable hotel, not a “hot sheets” establishment." Perhaps not, but the Patels would be perfectly willing to turn it into a homeless shelter.

Just like they did with the Verve Hotel, which has had a litany of documented problems - so many, in fact, that the local police captain publicly complained about them.

And the Verve Hotel is run by Acacia Network, just as the one at Maspeth will be.

So there is an existing relationship between this owner, the service provider and the City. What happened at Verve should be reason enough to not enter into another contract with those two.

Interestingly, the above news report stated that last year, there were close to 59,000 people in shelters, and the most recent census on DHS' website says 58,665, so if the numbers are stable then why the city needs to open more shelters anywhere is a good question.

This is simply the old game of real estate owners pocketing government cash and corrupt pols helping them do it. The electeds who foist these disgusting situations upon decent working class neighborhoods should be ashamed. But they never are because they never get sent packing on Election Day.

Isn't it great that the City has a bailout system in place for millionaire hotel developers paid for with our tax dollars? This is classic neoliberalism.

I wrote, "just because it's as-of-right don't make it right" on Curbed way back in 2007 when this shit was being built because we all kind of knew what was coming down the pike.