VTMBH Article: Body
Faced with a growing homelessness crisis, New York City is paying Park Avenue prices to some of the worst landlords to house people it cannot fit into its exploding shelter system. The result, tenant activists and housing advocates say, is a topsy-turvy system that encourages landlords to flout housing codes and drive long time tenants out.
The case of one tenant illustrates the pitfalls of a program intended to merely house the homeless. Rosaura Robles was placed in an apartment at 2234 Davidson Ave. with her five children through the scatter-site program. It exists as a temporary fix for a shelter system bursting at the seams.
When she first moved into the cramped one-bedroom, which only had bunk beds, Robles slept on the floor. She was eight months pregnant at the time. While her social worker helped Robles get a couch (landlords are supposed to provide basic furniture in the program), her unit remains decrepit. The walls are covered with an overpoweringly foul-smelling mildew from perpetually leaking pipes.
Yet this substandard shelter didnt come cheap. In the six months of putting up Robles and her familyincluding one son who is autistic and another whose leg was amputatedthe Department of Homeless Services (DHS) shelled out more than $18,000 to Buchanan Realty, despite the fact that the building has racked up over 300 housing code violations.
Before placing homeless families in an apartment, DHS is required to make sure the unit is cleared of housing code violations. The Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), another city agency, has a website that lists housing code violations for every building in the city and is accessible to anyone with a computer. DHS also claims to conduct periodic visits to ensure standards. But tenants say this doesnt happen and that there is little if any communication between the two agencies. The Homeless Services Department and HPD dont talk to each other, said Yvette Smith, who was placed in the building through the scatter-site program.
According to Barbara Flynn, chief-of-staff for HPD, 2234 Davidson Ave. is currently under review by her agencys anti-abandonment unitthe last stage for a problem building with an uncooperative landlord before HPD brings legal action. [DHS] doesnt tell us what buildings they are going into beforehand, Flynn said. If they were to say, What do you think of this building? we would tell them.
Working with the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition, tenant activists are beginning to organize to draw attention to the scatter-site programs failures.
If [the landlords] are getting money from the city for us, we should be getting something for the building, said Marta Cruz, a long time tenant who is working on a multi-building organizing campaign with the Coalition.
<i>Program started in 1983</i>
The citys scatter-site programofficially known as the Emergency Assistance Rehousing Program (EARP)began in 1983. EARP paid stipends and bonuses to private and non-profit landlords to house homeless families in hotels and apartment buildings. Ineffective for its first 10 years, EARP only grew when landlords received, in addition to the bonuses, federal Section 8 subsidies for low-income housing. In 1994, a peak of 3,072 homeless families were placed in private housing according to a report issued by the Citizens Housing and Planning Council, a city public interest organization.
Scatter-site has become the principal method of housing the homeless outside the citys overflowing shelter system. Homeless people placed in private housing jumped from less than 5 to over 40 percent between 1989 and 1997. As of February, DHS paid about 60 private entities to house the homeless. Scatter-site management companies account for 16.
There are 14 scatter-site properties in the northwest Bronx, in Fordham, Kingsbridge Heights and Norwood, along with University Heights and Mount Hope. According to residents, the proportion of scatter-site tenants in these buildings has been increasing rapidly. Willia McKeiver, a resident of 1920 Walton Ave. for 24 years, remembers there were 12 scatter-site tenants in her building last year. Now, over a quarter of the 80-unit building is devoted to EARP.
Doing the math explains why. A one-time bonus received by landlords to house a family starts at $2,000 and caps-off at $10,000 (for eight). Landlords also receive roughly $95 a day per family. To date, Buchanan Realty, management company for 2234 Davidson, has made an estimated $25,000 from the Robles family.
Though a weathered apartments available sign is still tacked to 2234 Davidson Ave., permanent residents are far less profitable than the 10 EARP tenants there. For instance, Buchanan Realty has received only half as much from permanent resident Anthony Holmes and his wife in their two years of occupying their apartment than it has from Robles in only six months.
<i>A cash cow</i>
The landlords have found a cash cow, McKeiver said. Most [landlords] in the area have found it . . . and its too hard for them to look away. Other area landlords who participate in EARP include Nick Haros, Barry Singer and Frank Palazollo, landlord of 3569 DeKalb Ave. in Norwood, another violation-plagued building where a fire resulted in the death of a boy last August.
With EARP placement paying way above market rates, permanent residents worry that landlords are being rewarded for allowing poor conditions to fester, thereby encouraging those who can leave to do so in order to make room for the lucrative scatter-site placements.
Sylvia Rodriguez said that she and her multi-generational familyfrom Rodriguez grandmother to her own daughterwere evicted after complaining about her apartments conditions. After seeking help from housing officials, they returned to the building. But the problems in her apartment are still legion. Tubs, cabinets and walls leak, and hot water is a rarity. The kitchen has one electrical outlet, so the stove must be plugged in with three extension cords running past the sink. Rodriguez, who shies from bathing her two-year-old in the leaking tub, fears she will be electrocuted in the kitchen sink. I could try to fix up the apartment for Christmas, said Rodriguez, who mops up excess water some 10 times a day, but whats the point?
Buchanan Realty did not return a call seeking comment.
Tenants, organizers, and housing experts say the way scatter-site has been implemented is a recipe for destabilizing buildings and neighborhoods. One main concern is that landlords have been filling vacant apartments exclusively with EARP placements. Increasing the density of homeless families to unsupportive levels becomes a dangerous environment to those living there before, according to Frank Barconi of the Citizens Housing and Planning Council.
This is especially true if temporary residents are not getting the services they need from the program. Landlords are contractually obligated to provide support services like help with finding permanent housing. Too often that support is poor or non-existent, organizers say. The quality of support services [the homeless] are getting has always been an issue, Barconi said.
Tenants say all this makes for strained relationships within already difficult buildings. The pushing of [scatter-site tenants] into buildings is making residents angry with each other, McKeiver said. Its not good for the community.
While DHS officials did not respond to calls from the Norwood News, organizers who recently met with Mary Hall, director of EARP, were unsatisfied with the agencys regulations. Theres no contract with the landlords per se, said McKeiver after the meeting. Its just a handshake.
Tenants are working to hold DHS more accountable. Organizers are drafting letters to officials detailing the buildings violations. And, as the Norwood News went to press on Tuesday night, tenants were scheduled to have a meeting with senior HPD and DHS officials at the parish hall of Our Lady of Refuge Church in North Fordham.
<i>Lead paint and rats</i>
Yvette Smith will tell you theres a lot at stake. Down the rickety stairs at 2234 Davidson Ave. and past the mailboxes, which no longer lock or receive mail, Yvette Smith lives with her four children. About a year ago, she accepted the EARP placement when her daughter got asthma after a three-week stint at the Emergency Assistance Unit. While an improvement, she remains unsatisfied. When Smith moved into her first EARP placement in the building, she discovered that the apartment had dangerous levels of lead paint.
Now in a second apartment, there are still problems. My cats are scared of the rats, said Smith. She is even more fearful of the buildings environment where, according to many tenants, drugs and burglary are on the rise. Smith has her brother stay there during the day and as she said, I keep the phone near the bed.
The case of one tenant illustrates the pitfalls of a program intended to merely house the homeless. Rosaura Robles was placed in an apartment at 2234 Davidson Ave. with her five children through the scatter-site program. It exists as a temporary fix for a shelter system bursting at the seams.
When she first moved into the cramped one-bedroom, which only had bunk beds, Robles slept on the floor. She was eight months pregnant at the time. While her social worker helped Robles get a couch (landlords are supposed to provide basic furniture in the program), her unit remains decrepit. The walls are covered with an overpoweringly foul-smelling mildew from perpetually leaking pipes.
Yet this substandard shelter didnt come cheap. In the six months of putting up Robles and her familyincluding one son who is autistic and another whose leg was amputatedthe Department of Homeless Services (DHS) shelled out more than $18,000 to Buchanan Realty, despite the fact that the building has racked up over 300 housing code violations.
Before placing homeless families in an apartment, DHS is required to make sure the unit is cleared of housing code violations. The Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), another city agency, has a website that lists housing code violations for every building in the city and is accessible to anyone with a computer. DHS also claims to conduct periodic visits to ensure standards. But tenants say this doesnt happen and that there is little if any communication between the two agencies. The Homeless Services Department and HPD dont talk to each other, said Yvette Smith, who was placed in the building through the scatter-site program.
According to Barbara Flynn, chief-of-staff for HPD, 2234 Davidson Ave. is currently under review by her agencys anti-abandonment unitthe last stage for a problem building with an uncooperative landlord before HPD brings legal action. [DHS] doesnt tell us what buildings they are going into beforehand, Flynn said. If they were to say, What do you think of this building? we would tell them.
Working with the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition, tenant activists are beginning to organize to draw attention to the scatter-site programs failures.
If [the landlords] are getting money from the city for us, we should be getting something for the building, said Marta Cruz, a long time tenant who is working on a multi-building organizing campaign with the Coalition.
<i>Program started in 1983</i>
The citys scatter-site programofficially known as the Emergency Assistance Rehousing Program (EARP)began in 1983. EARP paid stipends and bonuses to private and non-profit landlords to house homeless families in hotels and apartment buildings. Ineffective for its first 10 years, EARP only grew when landlords received, in addition to the bonuses, federal Section 8 subsidies for low-income housing. In 1994, a peak of 3,072 homeless families were placed in private housing according to a report issued by the Citizens Housing and Planning Council, a city public interest organization.
Scatter-site has become the principal method of housing the homeless outside the citys overflowing shelter system. Homeless people placed in private housing jumped from less than 5 to over 40 percent between 1989 and 1997. As of February, DHS paid about 60 private entities to house the homeless. Scatter-site management companies account for 16.
There are 14 scatter-site properties in the northwest Bronx, in Fordham, Kingsbridge Heights and Norwood, along with University Heights and Mount Hope. According to residents, the proportion of scatter-site tenants in these buildings has been increasing rapidly. Willia McKeiver, a resident of 1920 Walton Ave. for 24 years, remembers there were 12 scatter-site tenants in her building last year. Now, over a quarter of the 80-unit building is devoted to EARP.
Doing the math explains why. A one-time bonus received by landlords to house a family starts at $2,000 and caps-off at $10,000 (for eight). Landlords also receive roughly $95 a day per family. To date, Buchanan Realty, management company for 2234 Davidson, has made an estimated $25,000 from the Robles family.
Though a weathered apartments available sign is still tacked to 2234 Davidson Ave., permanent residents are far less profitable than the 10 EARP tenants there. For instance, Buchanan Realty has received only half as much from permanent resident Anthony Holmes and his wife in their two years of occupying their apartment than it has from Robles in only six months.
<i>A cash cow</i>
The landlords have found a cash cow, McKeiver said. Most [landlords] in the area have found it . . . and its too hard for them to look away. Other area landlords who participate in EARP include Nick Haros, Barry Singer and Frank Palazollo, landlord of 3569 DeKalb Ave. in Norwood, another violation-plagued building where a fire resulted in the death of a boy last August.
With EARP placement paying way above market rates, permanent residents worry that landlords are being rewarded for allowing poor conditions to fester, thereby encouraging those who can leave to do so in order to make room for the lucrative scatter-site placements.
Sylvia Rodriguez said that she and her multi-generational familyfrom Rodriguez grandmother to her own daughterwere evicted after complaining about her apartments conditions. After seeking help from housing officials, they returned to the building. But the problems in her apartment are still legion. Tubs, cabinets and walls leak, and hot water is a rarity. The kitchen has one electrical outlet, so the stove must be plugged in with three extension cords running past the sink. Rodriguez, who shies from bathing her two-year-old in the leaking tub, fears she will be electrocuted in the kitchen sink. I could try to fix up the apartment for Christmas, said Rodriguez, who mops up excess water some 10 times a day, but whats the point?
Buchanan Realty did not return a call seeking comment.
Tenants, organizers, and housing experts say the way scatter-site has been implemented is a recipe for destabilizing buildings and neighborhoods. One main concern is that landlords have been filling vacant apartments exclusively with EARP placements. Increasing the density of homeless families to unsupportive levels becomes a dangerous environment to those living there before, according to Frank Barconi of the Citizens Housing and Planning Council.
This is especially true if temporary residents are not getting the services they need from the program. Landlords are contractually obligated to provide support services like help with finding permanent housing. Too often that support is poor or non-existent, organizers say. The quality of support services [the homeless] are getting has always been an issue, Barconi said.
Tenants say all this makes for strained relationships within already difficult buildings. The pushing of [scatter-site tenants] into buildings is making residents angry with each other, McKeiver said. Its not good for the community.
While DHS officials did not respond to calls from the Norwood News, organizers who recently met with Mary Hall, director of EARP, were unsatisfied with the agencys regulations. Theres no contract with the landlords per se, said McKeiver after the meeting. Its just a handshake.
Tenants are working to hold DHS more accountable. Organizers are drafting letters to officials detailing the buildings violations. And, as the Norwood News went to press on Tuesday night, tenants were scheduled to have a meeting with senior HPD and DHS officials at the parish hall of Our Lady of Refuge Church in North Fordham.
<i>Lead paint and rats</i>
Yvette Smith will tell you theres a lot at stake. Down the rickety stairs at 2234 Davidson Ave. and past the mailboxes, which no longer lock or receive mail, Yvette Smith lives with her four children. About a year ago, she accepted the EARP placement when her daughter got asthma after a three-week stint at the Emergency Assistance Unit. While an improvement, she remains unsatisfied. When Smith moved into her first EARP placement in the building, she discovered that the apartment had dangerous levels of lead paint.
Now in a second apartment, there are still problems. My cats are scared of the rats, said Smith. She is even more fearful of the buildings environment where, according to many tenants, drugs and burglary are on the rise. Smith has her brother stay there during the day and as she said, I keep the phone near the bed.