IT’S ‘INHUMANE’
Housing activists demand landlords end ‘warehousing’ of empty apartments
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
Demonstrators at a recent
Williamsburg rally called
on landlords to stop keeping
apartments vacant for years
in order to bypass rent regulations.
One advocate decried the
practice — known as “warehousing”
— as especially cruel
at a time of record vacancy
rates during which more and
more New Yorkers are becoming
homeless.
“I fi nd it inhumane that we
are denying housing to these
people,” said Yadira Dúmet,
an organizer with the local
community development nonprofi
t St. Nicks Alliance, at a
protest on Hooper Street on
Nov. 18.
The End Warehousing Coalition,
which includes St. Nicks
Alliance and several other advocacy
organizations, hung
banners and demonstrated outside
of two apartment blocks
at 293 and 301 Hooper St., near
Broadway, where residents say
the landlord has kept 11 units
vacant for years.
“The landlord really just refuses
to rent them,” said longtime
293 Hooper St. resident
Francisca Serrano in Spanish
through a translator. “We have
family who need apartments,
we have friends who need
apartments — many of us in
this building know people who
need apartments and there are
many, many people in this city
who need a home.”
Public records list the
owner of the two buildings as
the NYC Housing Partnership,
a Manhattan-based non-profi t
that acts as an intermediary
between city and state agencies
and private developers to build
affordable housing, according
to its website.
A spokesman for the company
said they were only “nominally”
the owners on behalf of
a landlord, but he couldn’t immediately
say who the owners
were. The rep did not return
multiple follow-up requests to
clarify who is responsible for
keeping units empty.
Vacancy rates in Manhattan
have been record-breaking for
six consecutive months, with
more than 6 percent of housing
lying empty on the distant
isle, according to an October
report by real estate fi rm Douglas
Elliman. The report did not
provide vacancy numbers for
Brooklyn.
Meanwhile, 53,925 New
Yorkers were sleeping in shelters
on Nov. 23, according to the
Department of Homeless Services.
Ever since the state legislature
passed a package of tenant
friendly bills in Albany last
year, real estate bigwigs have
been keeping more units empty
in the hopes that politicians
will undo some of those laws,
and the consequences could
be lethal for the unhoused facing
down the pandemic without
shelter, according to Manhattan
COURIER L 6 IFE, DECEMBER 4-10, 2020
Assemblywoman Linda
Rosenthal.
“People who are homeless
will get sick and they have nowhere
to go, this spells death for
them and their families,” the
Big Apple lawmaker said at the
protest last week. “What landlords
hope — although this
won’t happen — is that we will
roll back some of these tenant
protections and they will once
again be able to increase the
rent and be able to take apartments
out of rent regulation.”
Another method of landlords
is to keep apartments
empty until tenants next-door
leave, enabling them to combine
both units into a larger
dwelling which they can then
let at a higher price.
Vacant units can become
a hazard for neighboring tenants
because the deserted digs
can be an unsecured entryway
for burglars, and a breeding
ground for vermin or other deteriorating
conditions, which
the city fails to check on, according
to a housing lawyer.
“If these units go vacant
for a longer and longer period
of time and make everybody’s
life more miserable, make the
building less inhabitable, and
terrify the tenants,” said Samuel
Chiera, an attorney with
Communities Resist, which
provides legal services for lowincome
tenants. “Frankly you
don’t know what’s going on inside
empty apartments.”
Assemblywoman Rosenthal
introduced legislation in March
that would make landlords pay
fees for keeping units empty for
three months or more, with the
revenue from the fi nes going toward
housing vouchers for the
homeless, and the lawmaker
said she will pick the bill back
up during the coming session
in Albany.
On the city level, Democratic
Councilwoman Deborah Rose
introduced a bill back in 2018
requiring landlords to register
vacant units, but the legislation
hasn’t progressed beyond committee
stage.
Chiera said that pols should
push for those kinds of laws
along with regular inspections
of vacant units by the city’s Department
of Housing and Preservation
to ensure they don’t
become dangerously deteriorated
for other residents.
“Let’s make sure that these
buildings, if they have to be
partially vacant, are safe for the
people who remain,” he said.
“This is something that everyone
in New York should want,
it’s very common sense.”
Activists rallied against the warehousing of vacant apartments, donning
Spanish-language signs with message like “Housing for those who need it.”
Photos by Kevin Duggan