When Mayor de Blasio next announces the count of “affordable housing” units he’s saved or preserved, will it include the ones he’s taken off the market to turn into homeless shelters?
The Department of Homeless Services is finalizing more than $98 million in contracts to convert five apartment buildings into family shelters, Gothamist reports.
Each had already hosted “cluster site” units for the homeless. But when the mayor vowed to end the “cluster” approach, no one expected him to make good by having the clusters eat whole buildings.
Tenant activists are furious, because the maneuver is taking rent-regulated units off the market. Permanently: When the shelter contracts expire, the law will let landlords charge market rates for these apartments.
Legal Aid Services lawyers are in Brooklyn Supreme Court alleging that landlords are leasing units to DHS for this purpose.
This follows on The Post’s exposés of the bait-and-switch shenanigans of Bronx developer Mark Stagg, who misled multiple communities into thinking he was building market-rate apartments, only to later lease them to homeless-services providers.
And now City Hall has made cannibalizing the private market into official policy.
Funny: As public advocate, de Blasio launched the annual Worst Landlord List. As mayor, he seems to be rewarding the same bunch — while ticking off New Yorkers in neighborhoods that are seeing affordable units turned into shelters.
Meanwhile, de Blasio’s plan to open 90 new homeless shelters citywide is under fire from borough leaders. On Thursday, Bronx Assemblyman and City Council candidate Mark Gjonaj joined East Bronx community leaders in a lawsuit against new Bronx shelters and other homeless facilities.
Lower Manhattan council candidate Carlina Rivera penned a Gotham Gazette op-ed attacking de Blasio’s “Fair Share” formula for siting shelters: It puts the homeless in the areas they used to live in — yielding lunacy like shelling out a fortune to house people in pricey Financial District hotels.
It’s as if the mayor’s trying to create “One New York” — united against his mad policies.