May 9, 2008
HOTEL HELL
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HASA client Abrams shares his housing nightmare at the Saturday rally |
A spirited rally last Saturday targeted landlord Hank Freid for illegally converting commercial single room occupancies (SROs) meant for low-income people, many with HIV, into hotels for tourists.
"It's a crime and a shame," said Eric Abrams, a HIV/AIDS Services Administration (HASA) client who is suing Freid to stay in his room at Freid's Broadway Hotel on Broadway & 101st Street. More than 50 people attended the rally, organized by the Goddard Riverside West Side SRO Law Project, New York City AIDS Housing Network (NYCAHN), City Councilmembers Melissa Mark Viverito and Gail Brewer, the Housing Conservation Coordinators and the West Side Neighborhood Alliance, and included a skit featuring a HASA representative throwing money at a scary, giant Freid.(see below).
.In 2005 and 2006, Freid illegally used the government's hefty investment—up to $2,400 a room for HASA clients—to turn three properties into cash-only tourist hotels where Abrams and other permanent residents aren't allowed to use amenities like a computer lounge. For pictures of the discrepancies in conditions, click here. HASA pays Freid $2,100 a month for Abrams' apartment. And while that's already pricey, Freid now gets $159 a night for a single room from unsuspecting tourists. (Incidentally, Freid doesn't get high marks from past guests).
Although there are many properties in New York being turned into hotels, Freid, ranked #5 on Housing Here and Now's "Worst NYC Landlords" list, has long been one of the most egregious violators of city policy, and advocates are trying to take him to task. "He took HASA money and didn't invest in this building," said Yarrow Willman-Cole, a tenant organizer at Goddard Riverside West Side SRO Law Project. "His buildings have long had all these drug problems and crimes. And now he's trying to improve his image? It's, like, 'Wait, back up!' It's illegal. He's still bending the laws and getting away with this."
Freid told the New York Observer, that he caught heat both when he housed people with AIDS and when he kicked them out. "I was only trying to help, and it backfired on me," he said. "So I went the other way."
Bullied out the door
When Abrams moved into the Broadway Hotel in July 2003, he was one of 80 people with HIV/AIDS living there as part of a "memorandum of understanding" (MOU)—essentially a gentleman's agreement that allows either HASA or the landlord to back out at any time. Abrams is now the only HASA client in the Broadway Hotel. His rent-stabilized neighbors have diminished to about a dozen, with many former tenants living on the streets because of the lack of affordable housing in the neighborhood.
Before being turned into a hotel, like many SROs in the city, the Broadway Hotel was a mecca for crime, and conditions were unsanitary. Abrams said he could "buy drugs and sell AIDS meds at the same time." Nonetheless, it was better than the permanent housing HASA offered him, where doors didn't lock in neighborhoods that felt unsafe. "At a certain point I had to start living my life right now," he said. Through a private lawyer, Abrams has been in housing court for more than a year in order to stay at the Broadway Hotel, despite threats to evict him. Tenants have been locked out of the building, offered repeated buy outs and otherwise bullied into leaving. Tenants at Freid's Malibu Hotel worked with Housing Works lawyers after they were given 30 days to leave. The case settled out of court.
Bloomberg and the City Council are making some attempts to stop the despicable practices of landlords like Freid. In October a judge ruled on a case, brought by the Mayor's Office of Special Enforcement that three converted SROs were illegally converted into hotels because of zoning violations. Councilmember Gail Brewer is also sponsoring a bill (Intro 534) that would substantially increase penalties for landlords that flout these rules from a one-time fee of $800 to $10,000 per converted unit.
Complications
New York City, and particularly HASA, has had a complicated relationship with SROs long before the issue of illegal hotels. In 1987 the city contracted with commercial landlords to provide homeless and low-income people with access to no-frills housing, with shared bathrooms and kitchens. The Comptroller issued a scathing audit way back in 1999,. Since then there has been some improvement in the SRO conditions."
"The central problem we used to have was substandard conditions in the building. Now the landlords are willing to put it more resources, but for newcomers or tourists, not for the residents," said John Raskin, at the Housing Conservation Coordinators.
Under a court mandate that all people with AIDS in the city be housed, HASA grabbed many of those rooms and entered into MOUs to pay per diem rates well-above market value. Currently the average monthly rate per room is $1,1650 a month, and can be as high as $2500 a month—compared to $400 to $500 for other low-income tenants. For this price, clients receive no support services, and even normal amenities are subpar.According to Barbara Brancaccio, HRA executive deputy commissioner, "These facilities offer several advantages at a reasonable cost to the City as it works collaboratively with clients to identify and secure the most appropriate, sustainable long-term housing option."
HASA has done a better job at placing people in long-term housing in recent years, reducing its dependence on SROs. HASA had 940 clients in SROs in April 2008, down from 1,1182 clients in SROs in 1998. In addition HASA has MOU agreements with 37 SRO facilities, down from 72 in 2004.
NYCAHN organizer Jeremy Saunders said, "SROs are notorious for not being well-maintained, for drug use, and other flaws. And landlords are making a lot of money off of SROs. But at the same time, we need them,"