It\u2019s been nearly three years since Roberto Marcelin has lived in the apartment he raised his daughter.<\/p>\n
A fire destroyed his apartment along with the five other units at 1423 Bushwick Ave. in February 2023.<\/p>\n
He told NY1 he\u2019d like to return to his home. However, it\u2019s simply not ready.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
Tenants of fire-damaged apartments can wait years to go back home
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The court system created for tenants to bring cases against their landlords does not always serve them, according to tenant lawyers and even city leaders
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Potential fines against landlords, as outlined by city code, can be levied pennies on the dollar by judges \u2014 if they choose to at all<\/p>\n
\u201cNo home. No hope. Nothing,\u201d he said, staring at the apartment building in the spring.<\/p>\n
This fall, the building still has boarded-up windows and a sign on the front door that there is a city-issued vacate order.<\/p>\n
Marcelin said he couldn\u2019t make ends meet after renting a separate apartment for more than double his rent-stabilized unit in Bushwick.<\/p>\n
So for more than a year and a half, Marcelin and his teenage daughter have had to live in the New York City shelter system.<\/p>\n
While he has been waiting, lawyers from the nonprofit Mobilization for Justice have taken his case, along with the other tenants, to the city\u2019s housing court.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the only place where tenants can try to compel their landlords to make repairs faster.<\/p>\n
The case is still pending, and the landlord \u2014 despite missing the court-stamped date to repair the building by more than two years \u2014 has only been asked to pay $15,000 in fines.<\/p>\n
NY1\u2019s analysis of city fine recommendations indicates that the fine amount could be north of $2 million. There are other pending cases where there haven\u2019t been any fines levied against landlords, despite deadlines for repairs being missed by more than a year, when the fines could be more than $5 million combined.<\/p>\n
Weeks after sharing Marcelin\u2019s story, multiple members of the New York City Council have told NY1 they are weighing legislation because of what they said is a system that isn\u2019t working.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe really can\u2019t afford to just kind of let these units that experience a fire just kind of fade into history,\u201d Councilmember Jennifer Gutierrez said.<\/p>\n
She was one of the lead sponsors on a series of bills that became law this summer called the Back Home Act, which aimed to help tenants displaced due to fires navigate getting back home.<\/p>\n
There is now a dedicated city unit to communicate with tenants and landlords to track progress after a fire. There are also parameters for the Department of Building to follow on whether a landlord attempted repairs before giving the green light to the owner to demolish a fire-damaged building.<\/p>\n
Gutierrez said she pursued this legislation because of watching tenants, including a former staffer of hers, struggle after a fire.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was no support system,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
However, Gutierrez said more work, after watching NY1\u2019s report, is needed.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s infuriating,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Councilmember Shekar Krishnan said he\u2019s familiar with the problems tenants can face, because before becoming a politician, he was a lawyer for people like Roberto Marcelin. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen tenants are forced out of their homes, it is a moment when all of city government and our legal systems fail us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Krishnan said the blame is not only with the judges at housing court. He also faults the city\u2019s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, which is responsible for issuing violations.<\/p>\n
\u201cHPD doesn\u2019t collect on the fines. Housing court doesn\u2019t collect on the fines or require landlords to pay them,\u201d said Krishnan. \u201cSo what is the point of these violations hazardous?\u201d<\/p>\n
HPD is responsible only for submitting the violations. Enforcement, the agency notes on its website, is up to the housing court.<\/p>\n
Krishnan said changes to housing court, which he thinks needs to be on the table, would need some state action as well. That\u2019s why he said he\u2019s focused on HPD on some future legislation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am looking at legislation to require HPD to use every legal tool at its disposal to get tenants back home,\u201d he said. We have to change the whole nature of the system and the conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n
There are about 300 vacate orders issued a year due to fires, according to HPD.<\/p>\n
And HPD does bring cases to housing court against landlords when repairs are not done in a timely manner.<\/p>\n
However, when asked by the agency how many \u2014 and whether they could conceivably bring more \u2014 NY1 did not get a response.<\/p>\n
\u201cHPD remains committed to working with the City Council, other elected officials, tenants, and property owners to improve the ability of tenants to return to buildings damaged by fire, including by strengthening our tools to hold property owners accountable,\u201d said spokesman Matt Rauschenbach, HPD\u2019s press secretary, in a part of a statement to NY1.<\/p>\n
Any potential changes could mean HPD needing more funding, something Krishnan said he would potentially advocate for.<\/p>\n
Taking landlords to court is not the only option in trying to get apartments fixed after fires, according to HPD.<\/p>\n
The agency said its inspectors were closely monitoring work after a Bronx fire in February that led to a full vacate order at 2002-2004 Ellis along with 2006 Cross Bronx Expressway. Dozens of tenants are already back in their apartments after HPD partially lifted the vacate order, as repair work continues elsewhere in the building.<\/p>\n
However, housing experts have told NY1 that when landlords do not follow deadlines, the enforcement does not always appear to be in place.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the city\u2019s housing court did not respond to a request for comment for this story nor NY1\u2019s report from last month.<\/p>\n
NY1 specifically asked why fines issued by judges can be so low compared to the city code recommendations.<\/p>\n
Even in cases initiated by the HPD, NY1 found multiple instances where landlords missed repair deadlines by more than a year, and the agency settled fines with the building owners for pennies on the dollar.<\/p>\n
Back in the spring as Marcelin stood outside his fire-damaged apartment building, more than two years after the blaze, NY1 asked a simple question: does he believe anyone from the city is fighting to help him get back home?<\/p>\n
\u201cNot at all,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s been nearly three years since Roberto Marcelin has lived in the apartment he raised his daughter. A…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35678,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[2908,25,98,100,99,3801,2907,9,24,12,63,27],"class_list":{"0":"post-35677","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brooklyn","8":"tag-app-housing","9":"tag-app-top-stories","10":"tag-brooklyn","11":"tag-brooklyn-headlines","12":"tag-brooklyn-news","13":"tag-eric-feldman","14":"tag-housing","15":"tag-new-york","16":"tag-new-york-city","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-nyc","19":"tag-top-stories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35677","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=35677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35677\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}