Mitchell-Lama housing<\/a> initiatives that provided stability and security for thousands of families at the time.<\/p>\nHowever, \u201c as the years wore on, the dream of luxury you can afford descended into a nightmare. The two buildings were sold to a series of speculators and soon fell into a pattern of disrepair and foreclosure. While irresponsible landlords lined their pockets, tenants in the buildings \u2014 nearly 500 units \u2014 paid the price,\u201d said Mamdani.<\/p>\n
Some tenant organizers and long-time residents were visibly crying with an outpouring of emotion at the press conference as they spoke about their experiences.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have lived through those violations and what they really meant, not as a list on a report but as an everyday challenge that affected my sense of safety, comfort, and dignity,\u201d said Ahshaki Long, president of the Fordham Towers Tenants Association, who lived at 480 East 188th Street for 25 years. \u201cWe are struggling with broken elevators that make it difficult just to get home; rats and roaches that turn living spaces into sources of stress; old and failing appliances that are never replaced; persistent leaks that damage our homes; and mold that threatens our health.\u201d<\/p>\n
Long added that \u201con top of that, many of us have endured constant manipulation, harassment, and intimidation from Karan Singh and his management team. These experiences have made an already difficult living situation even more overwhelming, and now, after years of fighting, the city is finally fighting to get more responsible owners. I have felt the frustration, the uncertainty, [and] the moments where it seemed like nothing would change, but I have also witnessed something powerful rise out of that hardship: friendship, unity, resilience, and courage.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other tenants were angry about their prolonged living conditions, demanding to know when repairs would be made from the lawsuit money. <\/p>\n
\u201cDuring the wintertime, we got sick because we had no hot water, no heat. The stove didn\u2019t work so we have to buy food out. That\u2019s why a lot of us get backed up in our rent. We have to survive, too,\u201d said one frustrated tenant to the mayor. \u201cWe are not animals. We\u2019re human beings. What is directly going into our pockets?\u201d<\/p>\n
Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson, who was the councilmember for District 16 a decade ago, witnessed the decline of the buildings firsthand. She remembered struggling alongside the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board (UHAB), Our Bronx, the Legal Aid Society, and the tenant associations to make changes to the residents\u2019 living conditions. She recalled years of responding to malfunctioning elevators, insufficient heat and hot water, vermin, mice and rats, multiple fires, and water damage and leaks for multi-generational Black and Brown families.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been years of neglect, folks,\u201d Gibson said. \u201cThis did not happen yesterday, but it is a horrible pattern by a negligent landlord that does not prioritize tenants \u2014 hardworking families that pay their rent every single month and deserve more.\u201d <\/p>\n
HPD Commissioner Dina Levy, formerly a UHAB tenant organizer who worked with Gibson, added, \u201cThis is a story I know well. I organized tenants here back in 2009, when they were first coming out of Mitchell-Lama. Since then, tenants have been subject to decades of mistreatment, but that comes to an end today. Thanks to aggressive litigation by HPD\u2019s Anti-Harassment Unit, we now have a record $31 million judgment against the owners. That gives us leverage in bankruptcy proceedings, which we\u2019ll use to deliver better outcomes for residents.\u201d<\/p>\n
Councilmember Althea Stevens, who currently represents District 16, said the lawsuit was really \u201cabout sending a clear message to our community that we are not disposable and that housing is a human right for every single person. Most importantly, [for] landlords who choose to profit over being held accountable, that stops today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fixing what was left broken<\/p>\n
To start making immediate repairs, the city has designated an Independent Chief Restructuring Officer who is tasked with managing more than $900,000 seized from the landlords\u2019 bank accounts toward fixes in nearly 500 apartments, according to the city. They have also hired a new property manager to ensure that repairs are actually made, said Mamdani. <\/p>\n
Mamdani is also calling on the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), which holds the mortgage on these buildings and has initiated foreclosure proceedings, to work with HPD and tenants to identify a preservation buyer. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been very clear about our belief that we have to build more affordable housing in the city, but we also have to preserve the affordable housing that we have. This is a clear example of housing that\u2019s been affordable enough for New Yorkers to be able to make a life in and the conditions have been uninhabitable,\u201d Mamdani told the Amsterdam News. <\/p>\n
\u201cFirst, we have insisted that they direct the receiver to immediately start making urgent repairs across the buildings,\u201d said Levy about the future of Robert Fulton Terrace. \u201cSecond, we have called on Fannie Mae to sell these buildings to a responsible preservation buyer with the endorsement of both the tenants and the city. Finally, we will expect Fannie Mae to recognize the cost to fully renovate Robert Fulton Terrace and Fordham Towers as part of any future sale.\u201d<\/p>\n
To go a step beyond that, State Senator Luis R. Sep\u00falveda is also advocating for passage of the Anti-Slumlord Act (S9332)<\/a>, which prohibits property owners with outstanding immediately hazardous housing violations from buying new properties. \u201cIt helps protect tenants and hold negligent landlords accountable,\u201d said Sep\u00falveda in a statement. \u201cNo landlord is above the law, and no tenant should have to endure living in deplorable housing conditions.\u202fHousing is a fundamental right, and I will continue to fight, along with my colleagues at all levels of government, to ensure every New Yorker has access to safe, stable, and dignified housing.\u201d<\/p>\nThe timeline for disbursement of the $31 million settlement as a whole was unclear.<\/p>\n
\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two Bronx landlords \u2014 Rajmattie Persaud, building owner of Robert Fulton Terrace and Fordham Towers in Morrisania in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":231036,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-231035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}