This city program is making
Brooklyn’s foreclosure crisis worse
BY ERIC ADAMS
When I bought my fi rst house,
where I still reside today, I felt
a mix of pride and fear. Homeownership
is a tremendous privilege
and responsibility — I had scrimped
and saved to get to this point, but I
knew that many challenges, fi nancial
and otherwise, still lay ahead.
Making a house into a home is
a process that often takes several
years. Some people undertake ambitious
fl oor-to-ceiling renovations,
while others are comfortable with
adding a few personal touches but
leaving everything else intact. But it
is a labor of love — we make a home
because we are investing in our future.
We envision settling down,
raising a family, and growing old in
a place we call home.
Even with the effort we put into
building a home, homeowners — particularly
in Brooklyn — are under
increasing stress today. Some have
fallen behind on their mortgage payments,
others have lost their homes
altogether. Foreclosures in Kings
County last year reached their highest
level since the housing bubble
burst. And on top of that, a new epidemic
of deed fraud has hit vulnerable
homeowners in gentrifying neighborhoods,
accelerating displacement
and leaving many homeless.
The kicker? The City may unintentionally
be playing a role.
The Third Party Transfer program
(TPT) allows the city to foreclose
on “distressed” properties and
hand them over to developers to fi x
up and rent out at affordable prices.
The program began in 1996, and is
administered through the Department
of Housing Preservation and
Development.
In theory, it sounds like a good
idea. Using all the tools at our disposal
to restore properties that have
fallen into disrepair and increase
affordable housing stock are noble
goals. But the reality is much more
complicated. Despite the city’s best
intentions, TPT seems to be doing
more harm than good. Often, the city
deems properties “distressed” over
something as trivial as an unpaid
water bill.
In November of 2018, after hearing
from multiple people and sitting
down with stakeholders throughout
the borough that had fi rsthand experience
with the program, I wrote
a letter with Council Member Robert
Cornegy to the Mayor outlining our
concerns. We communicated our belief
that TPT had unfortunately become
tainted by fraud, and that homeowners
were being stripped of
their equity without the proper recourse.
We also demanded that the
City, State, and Federal government
conduct a “full-scale, forensic audit”
into the program.
Our concerns turned out to be justifi
ed. In March of this year, Brooklyn
Supreme Court Justice Mark
Partnow ruled against the City and
restored properties to six homeowners
who had their properties seized
through the TPT program. In his
decision, Justice Partnow wrote,
“While the Third Party Transfer
Program was intended to be a benefi
cial program, an overly broad and
improper application of it that results
in the unfair divestiture of equity
in one’s property cannot be permitted.”
There is still a lot of work to be
done. In July, the City Council will
hold a hearing on the TPT program,
and our offi ce plans to submit testimony.
In the testimony, we reiterate
our call for a full-scale investigation,
EDITORIAL
COURIER L 40 IFE, JULY 19–25, 2019 M BR B G
Borough President Eric Adams
Borough President’s Offi ce
and urge the Council to pass Public
Advocate Jumaane Williams’ bill
imposing a two-year moratorium on
the program until we are able to implement
the necessary reforms and
strengthen oversight.
In the coming weeks and months,
we plan to roll out an ambitious, comprehensive
agenda formulated with
the input of experts and advocates
that combats housing theft and rein
in the excesses of TPT. I am also
encouraging the Governor to sign
S1688, a bill the legislature passed in
the most recent session that would
return stolen properties to their
original owners.
After all the time spent making a
house a home, it is almost unimaginable
that it could be taken away
from you over arrears or a bureaucratic
error. Unfortunately, that is
how TPT is currently structured. We
have an obligation to homeowners
throughout Brooklyn and the City to
ensure the homes they spend years
cultivating remain in their hands.
Eric L. Adams is borough president
of Brooklyn. He served 22 years in
the New York City Police Department
(NYPD), retiring at the rank of captain,
as well as represented District
20 in the New York State Senate from
2006 until his election as borough president
in 2013.
OPINION
NYPD data revealed that shootings
are up in northern Brooklyn,
and rather than collaborating on
a way to buck the alarming trend,
Kings County law enforcement honchos
are pointing fi ngers and playing
the blame game.
Chief of Department Terence Monahan,
while applauding the NYPD’s
effort in getting guns off the street
during a July 8 press conference,
blamed Brooklyn District Attorney
Eric Gonzalez’s offi ce for failing to
keep gunmen locked up.
According to Monahan, shootings
in Brooklyn North — which spans
Crown Heights, Bedford-Stuyvesant,
and East New York, among other
neighborhoods — have increased
from 79 to 101 year-to-date. Monahan
aimed his criticism specifi cally at
Gonzalez’s youth diversion program,
where offenders between the ages of
14 to 22 who plead guilty to weaponspossession
charges can partake in a
18- to 24-month educational program
as an alternative to incarceration.
The program has been linked to
an improvement in public safety,
according to a spokesman from the
DA’s offi ce, who noted a direct correlation
between enrollment in the
DA’s diversion course and the borough’s
safest year on record. The
spokesman argued that the program
— which applies only to those
guilty of possessing, but not using, a
fi rearm — allowed Brooklyn youth
to avoid a future life-of-crime that
awaits many ex-inmates.
In fact, the spokesman said the
Police Department should focus on
closing open cases rather than assigning
blame.
Having both sides point fi ngers at
each other is counter-productive.
One doesn’t have to look far to understand
why the DA believes in his
offi ce’s youth diversion program; it
provides non-violent offenders a second
chance to get their lives back on
track.
But sometimes, there are offenders
who do not take advantage of
their second chances and wind up
returning to a life of a crime. And
therein lies the controversy.
It’s impossible to predict the future.
No one can defi nitively say that
those who complete the educational
program will stay out of trouble.
But it’s worth giving them their
second chance.
The NYPD should be working
with the DA’s offi ce to educate the
young offenders and help steer them
away from a crime-fi lled future. Instead,
both sides are playing the
blame game, choosing to point fi ngers
rather than reach their common
goal of keeping Kings County
streets safe.
Law enforcement needs to stand
together and show a united front
against crime. Once that happens,
it becomes easier to envision a safer
future for Brooklyn.
The blame game
NYPD, DA’s offi ce must stand together