New York City and State Officials Joining Forces to Combat Tenant Harassment

From the New York Times - NY City and State Officials are recognizing that many tenants are facing landlord harassment, and it needs to be stopped.

The Tenant Protection Ordinance introduced by Dan Kalb is only a baby step. City and State Officials need to step up and start protecting their residents.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/20/nyregion/new-york-city-and-state-officials-joining-forces-to-combat-tenant-harassment.html?_r=0


With tenant harassment complaints against landlords on the rise, New York City and state officials announced on Thursday the creation of a multiagency task force aimed at weeding out and punishing bad landlords.

Tenant harassment complaints in Housing Court nearly doubled to 813 in fiscal 2014, from 435 in fiscal 2011. Last year, the state attorney general’s office began 10 investigations into tenant harassment, up from three in the previous year. In the past 18 months, the office has fielded more than 200 harassment complaints.

Many of the complaints stem from a similar motivation: Landlords are accused of harassing tenants to push them out of affordable apartments and replace them with tenants paying higher rents.

Mayor Bill de Blasio and the attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, both Democrats, characterized the new Tenant Harassment Prevention Task Force as an unprecedented collaboration among city agencies that investigate building and housing code compliance, and state agencies that investigate and criminally charge harassment. Mr. Schneiderman vowed to use his authority more aggressively to bring criminal charges against landlords when warranted.

“This, this is a game-changer, to have the top law enforcement official in New York state weighing in on behalf of our tenants and fighting to protect affordable housing,” Mr. de Blasio said at a news conference at South Brooklyn Legal Services, a nonprofit organization that provides legal assistance to low-income people.

Mr. de Blasio, Mr. Schneiderman and other officials described a disconnect among regulatory authorities that had allowed troublesome landlords to deftly string out court cases and to negotiate reduced fines.

Weary tenants — subjected to unheated apartments, extreme disrepair or outright scare tactics — end up moving out well before landlords are punished.

Under the task force, complaints will be jointly investigated by all agencies involved — mainly the city’s Housing and Preservation Department and the Department of Buildings, and the state’s Tenant Protection Unit, which refers cases to the attorney general’s office.

Until now, the agencies worked together “on sort of an ad hoc and anecdotal basis,” Mr. Schneiderman said, likening the new strategy to an “all-levers approach to preventing predatory landlords from throwing people out of their homes."

He added that an escalating market that appeared to show no signs of subsiding prompted the city and state to act.

“The market is moving so fast that the unscrupulous cannot help but be tempted into things they might not even think of in a slower market,” he said. “When you have people hiring armed thugs to harass tenants, you know we’re in a pretty serious situation.”

Donna Mossman of the Crown Heights Tenant Union gave a list of landlord tactics to drive out tenants, such as mold and collapsed ceilings, blocked entrances and rodents.

The complaints from tenants have increased despite Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s creation in 2012 of the Tenant Protection Unit, which is under the State Division of Homes and Community Renewal.

A news release heralding the task force credited its formation to Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, Mr. Schneiderman and Mr. de Blasio, in that order. The news release also said the Tenant Protection Unit’s “successes led to the mobilization” of the task force.

There was some jockeying for the origin of the task force, which Mr. de Blasio and Mr. Schneiderman described as a new approach to enforcement.

Darryl C. Towns, commissioner of the Division of Homes and Community Renewal, praised the governor’s work on the issue. The Tenant Protection Unit was the “first of its kind” in the country when it was created, he said, adding that the investigative arm had returned 37,000 units of housing to affordable status and one-third of those were in Brooklyn.

“All of these agencies are going to work together; you will get caught,” Mr. de Blasio said of landlords. “There will be severe penalties. You’re going to wish you had not violated the law.”



http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/when-landlords-harass-tenants/Content?oid=4235905

East Bay Express

Subsequent tenant-landlord disputes at 374 41st Street and 1565 Madison Street have also raised questions about the intentions of these companies and the city's process for protecting rent control tenants when their buildings are purchased.

I visited Hennings' building last week, and it was a mess. Most of the two-story structure is covered in scaffolding and plastic sheeting and it's difficult to get in and out. The backside of the building, which Hennings previously used as a primary entrance, now has a wobbly staircase that she said her landlord has failed to secure. According to Hennings, she suffered a bad fall there last year after construction workers hired by the new owner did an unsafe job renovating the stairs. Hennings has documented her complaints with detailed photos and posts at OTenant.blogspot.com and on Twitter at @OTenant.

Timothy Low, inspections manager with Oakland's building services division, told me last week that the owners of Hennings' building have repeatedly failed to acquire the proper permits, including for the balcony demolition. He said he wasn't able to confirm the total number of fines and stop-work orders issued at 374 41st St., but said, "the owner is making one mistake after another."

In one case, Hennings said, the company did major demolition work throughout an entire vacant first-floor unit when it only had a permit for a "minor" bathroom renovation. "It feels like they are trying to push us out," she said. Hennings hired her own inspector who determined that the rear stairs are unsafe, that there are potential lead and asbestos hazards related to ongoing construction, and that there are "a number of serious habitability and life safety issues affecting this property," she said.

Hennings' neighbor in the same building — who requested anonymity because she said she feared retaliation — told me she has had a persistent cold from all of the construction dust and said that it seemed obvious that the renovations were not targeted toward improving her and her neighbors' living conditions. For example, the property owners are doing extensive work on the outside of the building, but she currently has no running water in her bathroom sink.

Though city inspectors have visited the building on numerous occasions in response to Hennings' requests, she said they have not done enough to remedy the problems and have failed to acknowledge certain hazards and code violations.

But Low, the city inspections manager, told me that his department has diligently followed up on every complaint made by Hennings. He noted, however, that his division is limited in its ability to address certain maintenance issues. And the agency is dramatically understaffed. Building services receives roughly 6,000 complaints a year, but currently has only ten code compliance inspectors, he said. Before April 2014, there were only six.

Housing advocates say that when property owners repeatedly violate city codes, there should be stiffer penalties — which could also help generate much-needed revenues for building services. City Councilmember Dan Kalb, who represents North Oakland, said the city needs more code enforcement officers to adequately respond to complaints and hold property owners accountable. "The only way you can stop this from happening is to show examples of strict enforcement — of people getting fined."

At 1565 Madison Street, tenants have had similar complaints about disruptive construction and poor communication by The Apartment Group. But in that building, which is also protected by rent control, tenants are further dealing with large rent increases that The Apartment Group imposed on them last year for "capital improvements." According to records tenants provided to me, the landlord on July 31, 2014 gave notice that rents were increasing by $106.97 a month, and that the hike would remain in place for five years to fund a range of upgrades, including projects that don't benefit tenants (like renovations to a leasing office and lobby bathroom).

"The owners want to maximize profits at the cost of people currently living there being priced out," said resident Joel Aguiar, who is also executive director of Street Level Health Project, an Oakland nonprofit. "Year after year, they are going to try to do as many renovations as they can and pass the costs onto tenants. There are a lot of immigrants, families, elderly people, young professionals — and they are not going to be able to live there anymore."

The tenants at 1565 Madison have formally contested the increases at Oakland's Rent Adjustment Board, which is responsible for enforcing the city's rent control law. James Vann, who is co-founder of the Oakland Tenants Union and has assisted these tenants in the dispute, said the increases should be voided because they violate a clause in the city's rent-control ordinance that states that capital improvements "must primarily benefit the tenant rather than the owner."

Vann also argued that the landlord's documentation of expenses was inadequate and that the owners passed costs onto tenants for work they hadn't finished, which is illegal. Further troubling, The Apartment Group gave notice of the increases exactly one day before a new city law went into effect on August 1, 2014 that prohibited landlords from requiring tenants to pay for more than 70 percent of capital improvement costs. The Madison Street tenants are paying for 100 percent of the costs, records show. A decision at the rent board in this case is still pending.

"They are ruining people's lives," said Rachel Robinson, a Madison Street tenant, noting that, for some longtime residents with fixed incomes and low rents, the $107 rent increase has been a big burden.

In an email, Higgins, owner of The Apartment Group and partial owner of TP Properties and First Class Lodi, defended the managers' actions at 374 41st Street and at 1565 Madison Street. "TP Partners and First Class Lodi have purchased properties with the intent to improve the properties, where needed, to provide a better living environment for the residents." He said that 374 41st Street needed significant repairs after years of deferred maintenance. Regarding stop-work orders, he wrote: "We have obtained permits for the work being done."

Higgins also criticized the tenants there, saying that renovations have been "stalled due to the actions of the residents, adding costs and unnecessarily delaying work." He further defended the 1565 Madison Street rent increases as legal. The Apartment Group, he added, is no longer managing the properties, and an entity called Bay Apartment Advisors (for which he is a real estate agent and independent contractor) has taken over.


NYC has a Tenant Protection Unit - Where is the protections for SF Bay Area tenants?
http://www.nyshcr.org/Rent/TenantProtectionUnit/