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Families Displaced By Superstorm Sandy Are Running Out Of Time


5-year-old-boy-Sandy-rally

NEW YORK — Since being displaced by Superstorm Sandy from their Far Rockaway apartment, Cherrell Manuel and her four children have lived in two different hotels.

At the Park Central Hotel near Times Square where the family is now, they are spread across three different rooms. Aware that the situation cannot last, Manuel says she gets up everyday at 6 a.m. to go apartment hunting. She doesn't get back until about 6:30 p.m.

“There's some apartments you go, the landlord say they’re ready. When we get there, the floors are all messed up, the ceiling is leaking, and they’re telling us, ‘Oh, sign the papers and I’ll fix it.’ Thats not fair to us," she said. "If we take an apartment like that and they don’t fix it then we’re stuck there for the year."

Six months after the storm, time is running out for Manuel and hundreds of other people displaced by the hurricane and living precariously in hotel rooms. The city-funded program that pays for the rooms is being terminated on Tuesday and with it will go the shred of stability that these families have come to rely upon.

Some elected officials and advocates are warning that many of the families could end up in the city's homeless shelter system unless a plan is put into place and are calling for a month-long extension to the city's program.

"While we agree that this program cannot continue indefinitely, we question whether the April 30 deadline is realistic for those remaining 196 households that do not qualify for the housing options currently available," wrote Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Councilwoman Annabel Palma in a letter sent to Department of Homeless Services Commissioner Seth Diamond on Friday following a hearing on the hotel program.

"It would be unfortunate for these households who have suffered such serious displacement as a result of Sandy to be left with the DHS shelter system as their only option," they continued.

They said the city’s decision does not make sense since other options are being discussed by policymakers, such as specialized housing vouchers.

Public Advocate Bill de Blasio sent a letter to Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Friday, calling the decision to end the program on April 30 without finding long-term housing solutions for the remaining households "a wrong-headed approach that lacks compassion and pragmatism."

"If it is going to set an arbitrary date for ending hotel stays, the city must better assess the individual needs of each household, and ensure that an accessible, long-term housing solution is reached for these impacted New York City families," he wrote in the letter.

Both Quinn and de Blasio are running for the Democratic nomination for mayor.

The impending termination of the hotel programs, and the fact that many families displaced by Sandy continue to be in limbo, is one of the legacies of the hurricane. Officials have said about 10,000 homes in the state were damaged or destroyed by the storm.

The federal government said on Friday that it had approved a $1.7 billion state plan for rebuilding. The city is receiving its own pool of funds, $1.8 billion, but its plan has not received approval. Both city and state officials have funds will be directed toward helping homeowners rebuild.

But the hotel program under the city may not be reimbursed by the federal government, and it’s unclear whether more money would be made available to house families in hotels.

DHS Commissioner Diamond testified for an hour Friday about the hotel program before the Council general welfare committee that Palma chairs. Council members questioned Diamond about a range of issues, including complaints about case managers and possible alternatives to the hotel program that may soon become an option. Dozens of people, including Sandy evacuees and housing advocates, crowded the hearing that was preceded by a rally on the City Hall steps.

As of Friday, Diamond said 488 households — about 1,000 people — were still in the hotel program, which has cost the city $40 million and involves some 50 hotels. Some 290 households will remain in hotels until the end of May because they have established clear transition plans, he said, with 43 households waiti ng for repairs to be completed and 249 going through the city's public housing application process or Section 8.

Of those households, however, he said 196 don't qualify for existing programs or rejected apartments that they were qualified to take.

Diamond said case managers continued to work with those remaining households to help identify more sustainable alternatives for them.

But during the hearing, Council members that represent some of the most storm-ravaged neighborhoods expressed skepticism that enough was being done to help those remaining families find more permanent housing solutions.

“I totally fail to believe that 71 individuals have rejected apartments from my district who have no place to go," Councilman Donovan Richards, of Queens, said to Diamond.

“I understand that you’re having difficulty with that and, as we said before, we continue to do what we can to work with those families," Diamond responded, but he later added: “We are disappointed too, as you are, that more of them didn’t take us up on the offers we’ve made.”

Richards also said that he had received complaints about how cases were being managed, and that Diamond was trying to make the process seem less challenging than the reality.

“I didn’t say there were no issues. I said I thought they’ve done an excellent job,” Diamond replied. “To the extent that there have had issues, we’ve addressed them.”

Councilwoman Gale Brewer, of Manhattan, asked Diamond during the hearing whether he thought 71 households who had been matched with apartments — but rejected them for whatever reason — might end up in the homeless shelter system, Diamond did not answer directly. "Nobody wants them in the shelter system," he said.

The existence of a separate hotel program run by the Federal Emergency Management Administration, has also caused some confusion, especially after it was extended for another month last week because the agency could not identify long-term housing solutions for them. Diamond said that, as of Friday, 114 evacuees were in the program. At its peak, Diamond said that the FEMA program was helping 1,070.

"We will have three times more people in our hotel system after the extension than FEMA has," Diamond said during the hearing. "While they’ve extended all along, they have reduced 90 percent of their population. We have been much fairer, much more compassionate, much more deliberate in the way we have handled the families."

After the hearing, Diamond emphasized to reporters that the "overwhelming number of people" who the city has helped have left the hotels without resources and not ended up in the homeless shelter system.

"We’ve worked for six month with these families. Very intensively," he told reporters after testifying. "We’ve had $15 million of case management resources invested in the program, and we've worked tirelessly with all the families in the program. Over 800 have been able to leave. I think that’s a tremendous success."

Manuel, 46, said facing eviction felt like the city was sending them a message that they had failed to meet their part of the bargain for accepting help.

“They’re acting like we’re not doing what we’re supposed to do," she said. "We’re up and about every day and there’s nothing more we can do. We can’t make landlords take us.”

She said she had scoured advertisements for rental apartments in newspapers, Craigslist and from Section 8, and has seen a little more than 40 apartments. But landlords will reject the family for a variety of reasons, including the ages of her children. She said they said the youngest is 7, the eldest 25.

“All we want is for the city to help us. We want them to stop feeling like we’re sitting in a hotel, relaxing like this is a vacation," Manuel said. “We need help. And we need people that are going to work with us. We don’t need people who don’t understand our situation.”

––––

Cristian Salazar contributed to this report. Image of children displaced by Sandy on the steps of City Hall during rally to call attention to the end of the hotel voucher program. Photo by William Alatriste, courtesy of the City Council. 

A Harlem Voice For Tenants In Albany?


Photo of Keith Wright, courtesy of the governor's office

ALBANY, N.Y. — Assemblyman Keith Wright has resided at the same apartment at the storied Riverton Houses in Harlem for all of his 58 years. “Not many people can say that,” says the father of two.

Wright has played many roles at the Riverton Houses on 135th and Fifth Avenue — child, son, student, father, elected official.

But when Wright was announced as the new head of his chamber's powerful housing committee, it was his other role — as tenant advocate — that was seen as a boon to the city's vocal housing activists. Here was someone, they figured, who was deeply familiar with their plight and powerful enough, connected enough and friendly enough with the one man who really matters in Albany — Gov. Andrew Cuomo — to get things done.

Only a few days after his appointment, though, Wright's committee helped push through and ultimately pass a rent law package that gave tax breaks, known as J-51, to condo owners, which tenant advocates say help landlord to improve luxury apartments.

“What he did was really disgraceful," said Michael McKee of Tenants Political Action Committee, a group that works to elect pro-tenant legislators. "But I suppose he was taking directions from leadership."

Just days before, McKee had hailed Wright's appointment, saying: "He will be excellent."

Jaron Benjamin, the executive director of Metropolitan Council on Housing and a member of the Real Rent Reform Campaign, also said he was disappointed by the J-51 program vote. But he said he was "taking a wait-and-see approach" to Wright's appointment.

Wright admitted that his office "got some blowback" on the J-51 bill, but that it had to be passed. “I was named housing chair on a Friday and we had a very large bill that was somewhat controversial that had to be done on Monday," he said, but then added, "I know folks in the tenant movement were upset, they wanted that bill to be used as leverage but it was a bill for coops, condos and lofts and those type of people do live in New York City. We had to do this bill.”

The highly influential Assembly housing committee was once used as a lever of power by Vito Lopez, the disgraced Brooklyn political boss, who was removed from the spot after a sexual harassment scandal blew up last year. Lopez notoriously used his position as the housing committee chair to get friends and political allies perks, jobs, and apartments.

Before Wright was named head of the committee on housing by Speaker Sheldon Silver, he had steadily grown in stature over his 21 years in Albany. He served as the chair of the powerful labor committee and social services, as well as the black and Puerto Rican caucus. Last year, Gov. Andrew Cuomo personally picked Wright to co-chair the state Democratic Party.

He is also well-liked by his colleagues. Wright strolled through the ornate but basically empty Assembly chamber on a recent Tuesday afternoon, binders of legislation sit neatly on desks with empty seats. Wright’s colleagues were mostly gathered in conference but a few linger outside the chamber speaking to visiting school children or chatting on their phones. But they all take the time to stop and greet Wright. Wright returned their greetings in a deep, echoing rumble — the kind that could announce movie trailers or be the voice of god.

As long as his history in Albany might be, Wright’s been deeply involved in housing issues for significantly longer.

He traces it all back to Riverton Houses, which had also been called home by former Mayor David Dinkins and jazz great Billy Taylor.

“It was the first so-called development that was built for the quote unquote black middle class,” Wright explained during an interview this week at the back of the Assembly chamber. “When my father was away in World War II in Europe, my mother was in charge of trying to find an apartment and she went down to Stuyvesant Town and she was told that no blacks were allowed in Stuyvesant and I guess by eminent domain and Robert Moses and those folks, much picketing and outcry Metropolitan Life built Riverton, which is supposed to be the uptown equivalent of Stuyvesant Town.”

Life was good in Riverton for the young Wright. He recalled it as a melting pot of families from all walks of life. “There were folks who had money, folks who were middle income: teachers, police officers and folks that were on public assistance as well and it made for a fantastic community," he said. "I really had one of the best childhoods anyone could ever imagine.”

In the 1980s, Wright found the condition of his apartment building lacking and decided to do something about it. He became head of the tenant’s association and quickly became the go-to for his neighbors who had similar concerns about the building. “People would knock on door day and night looking for some sort of relief. They might want to clean up the common areas, need a new refrigerator, a new stove or need help dealing with the rights of succession. Some of them were late on rent.”

Wright had success and failures. Common areas were cleaned up, 40-year-old elevators were replaced, they even got some rent reductions, but they were unable to stop a major capital improvement request by the landlord. “These are the type of experiences that go into my formative years before I became the chair of housing-it has molded and shaped me to a certain extent,” Wright said.

Wright may have had sensations of deja vu in the days following his appointment as chair of the housing committee — with everyone wanting to talk to him about housing and this time it isn’t just tenants.

“What I find is that everybody wants to talk to me now from the titans of industry to Mrs. Smith pushing the shopping cart about housing," he said. "What I find with the titans of industry is that they try to dazzle you with their knowledge --using a lot of acronyms expressions that are customary to the housing industry but I got to get caught up to speed. I’ve been playing off my naivety asking a lot of ‘what do you mean? What do you mean?”

Forgive landlords, though, if they eye Wright with some skepticism — though he has been known to be open to both sides on the issue of housing. But Wright is clear about where his bias lies.

“Landlords are slick, they are business folks. When we first did vacancy decontrol stuff in 1997, no one had any idea," Wright said. "If you made more than $175,000 a year and the rent for your apartment was over $2,100 you were not eligible for rent control. At that time the only one who fit that criteria in my neighborhood was a guy named Percy Sutton" — referring to the black businessman who had also been Malcolm X's attorney — "No one made that kind of money. Of course, landlords get in there now and they say they are fixing them up and suddenly the rent is $2,100 and it is off the ranks now.”

Wright said at one point his landlord offered him $10,000 to move out of his apartment. “It was a sucker’s bet,” he said. “Landlords now actually hire private investigators to see how many people are living in apartments, how many days people in an apartment. Some landlords just ain't good people,” says Wright. “I’m not saying tenants are always right.”

Wright said he thinks that the Cuomo administration will be addressing a lot of concerns through the tenant protection unit Cuomo created in 2011.

Tenant advocates might laugh at the idea in some ways, since the unit has been seen as an underfunded and understaffed nod to tenants' groups. But Wright noted that Cuomo has put $4.8 million in his budget this year for the unit that is designed to help tenants who are being harassed, whose apartments are being wrongfully taken off the affordable housing ranks and to generally enforce landlord/tenant regulations.

Wright clearly has great respect for Cuomo and his knowledge of housing issues. “He can talk housing ad nauseam,” Wright said. “He can roll!”

Affordable housing has already become a focus of the mayoral race. Council Speaker Christine Quinn used her state of the city address on Monday to tout a package of legislation called the Permanent Affordability Act, which she said would be sponsored by Wright in the Assembly and Martin Golden in the Senate. The three-pronged measure that calls for building 40,000 units of affordable housing for the middle class, capping building owner’s taxes at a certain percentage of their rental income as long as they keeping units affordable even after they age out of affordability protections and extending 421-a tax exemptions to developers.

Wright said he has yet to see the legislation but says he did talk to Quinn this past Sunday. “She called me and asked if I would look at a bill. When the speaker of the house calls you at least have to look.”

Housing groups tend to favor the first part of the measure but feel the rest of the proposals are giveaways to landlords.

“We applaud Speaker Quinn for focusing on the need for both middle-class and affordable housing and the tax policies impacting them, and we look forward to reviewing the details and the legislation involve,” said Real Estate Board of New York president Steven Spinola in a statement.

Golden however said the 421a extension and the tax break proposal are in the works and won’t likely get a vote until the end of session.

Wright says he has a good relationship with Sen. Kathy Young who chairs the Senate housing committee and expects to have pleasant dealings with the other chamber.

Above all the things Wright’s colleagues say of him it is that he weighs issues, and takes the time to listen. “He listens and he is extremely thoughtful,” said Sen. John Sampson of Wright.

“I’m assuming the Assembly’s agenda isn’t going to change much. He hasn’t even had his first committee meeting and we haven’t talked to him yet,” says Frank Ricci of the Rent Stabilization Association of New York. “But he has always been willing to listen to both sides on the issues and you can’t ask for more than that from an elected official.

And Golden has similar praise. “I’ve worked well with him. We know each other well. I’ve found him to be a responsible individual, soft spoken but nobody should be fooled he is a very intelligent and articulate man who knows what has to get done. He is a very formidable man and I look forward to working with him.”

“I have a lot to learn,” says Wright, “but I am excited for this position.”

 

Who Will Live In Bloomberg's Micro-Apartments?


 

bloomberg-micro-units

NEW YORK — Nicole Guzzardi's first experience living in Manhattan was, to say the least, cramped.

She had gotten herself a sub-300-square-foot studio in the Lower East Side, but space was so tight when her cousin came to spend the night he ended up relegated to bunking in the bathroom — with half of his body on the tile floor and half in the flat-bottomed shower.

“I had no room for anything. I obviously had no kitchen table. I had a desk but I barely ever sat in it because it was kitty-cornered and very uncomfortable,” said Guzzardi, who had just gotten into graduate school and needed a place where she could commute easily to New York University. “So I ate on my bed, I did my homework on my bed, I slept on my bed. … I had my small dog, and she just sat around all day in this little box. It was not fair to her.”

Claustraphobic living experiences like Guzzardi's are not unusual in one of the world's tightest, priciest residential real estate markets. And it's an experience that could become even more common after Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s “micro-unit” apartments start filling vacancies.  

Last July, Bloomberg and other city officials announced adAPT NYC, the pilot program seeking new and affordable housing models for a growing number of one- or two-person households.  

Thirty-three developers submitted proposals for the units, which are expected to be between 275 and 300 square feet — about 100 square feet smaller than what is currently permitted under city zoning regulations. (Guzzardi's Lower East Side apartment building was constructed before a 1901 law regulating the minimum square footage.)

The winning proposal for the adApt NYC program could be announced as early as today.

The Bloomberg administration wants the developer to build as many as 80 micro-units at 335 E. 27 St., in Manhattan. The units are intended to be affordable housing for one- or two-person households, which the latest census data found to be a rising demographic in the city. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, there are 1.8 million one- and two-person households, but only one million studios and one-bedroom apartments.  

But some have called the micro-units tenements for the 21st century, though at an expected $2,000 a month and a 10-by-30-foot layout, they would certainly not be housing large, low-income families. They also would likely be out of the price range of most people within the target demographic — single New Yorkers. According to the city comptroller's office, 81.2 percent of single tax filers in the city made under $75,000 in 2009, with the largest group — 36.6 percent – earning under $20,000.

“It doesn’t really fit the need for families and for growing a family or staying long term in the city,” said Matthew Dunbar, the advocacy and community relations manager for HabitatNYC, the local branch of Habitat for Humanity. “Anybody who wants to expand their families would not be able to use a micro unit to be able to do that.”

City officials said the micro-units will help to meet the changing needs of New Yorkers and are “critical to the city’s future economic success.”

“We hope that this pilot will turn out really well,” said Catie Marshall, a spokeswoman for the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development. She added that the city hopes and expects to develop micro-units across the city.

Policymakers in other U.S. cities are also considering tiny apartments to deal with the scarcity of affordable housing.

In San Francisco, lawmakers have approved that city’s smallest apartments, allowing the construction of 220-square-foot units, expected to range in rent from $1,200 to $1,500, according to the Los Angeles Times. In Boston, one firm displayed a 300 square-foot apartment in the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, as a housing option submission to a research program launched by Mayor Thomas M. Menino in 2004 aimed at finding a way to better serve the one-in-three Bostonians between the ages of 20 and 34. They are expected to cost about $1,500 a month.

In China, Japan and Paris, micro-units, sometimes no larger than a compact car parking spot, have also become increasingly popular.

THE SIZE OF A MICRO-UNIT

To understand the size of a micro-unit, try picturing half of a No. 6 train car, furnished. Imagine your bed — likely a sofa bed because of spatial constraints — in the middle.  That’s the living room. Replace the poles and seats with a kitchen sink and a bathroom, complete with a tub. Now add in clothes, books, a computer, maybe a dresser  —  feeling crowded?

But what people might not get in terms of space they get in location.

“If they want to live in Manhattan, they have to forego a lot of things, and space is one of them,” said Zaida Farnham, an agent with Prudential Douglas Elliman.

Another real estate expert, Jeff Rothstein, vice president in charge of rentals and sales at Prudential Douglas Elliman, said that, for most young people, an apartment is “just a bed.”

“Most young professionals are never in their apartment anyway,” he added.

The New York micro-unit’s expected rent is 40 percent higher than the median New York City household can sustain without infringing on basic necessities. The Census found that city residents’ per capita income is $30,398, and that the median household has an income of $50,285 and is made up of two to three people. That means, for an average household making $50,000 per year, affordable rent should not exceed $1,250 per month.

Although the developer will have the final say on the cost of rent, the $2,000 per month cost undercuts the average market price of a downtown Manhattan studio, which has grown to $2,669, according to September’s market report from Prudential Douglas Elliman. One bedrooms go for $3,528.

Rothstein said he expects the micro-units to be filled by young professionals and graduating college students, like Guzzardi, looking to stay in the city.  But, according to a salary survey published by the National Association of College and Employers, the average starting salary for college graduates is $44,259. Affordable rent for that income is about $1,100 a month.

That salary looks about average when compared to a report issued by the  city Comptroller in May that showed 68.3 percent of New York City tax filers earned less than $50,000 in 2009.

A different report issued by the Comptroller in September found that half the households in New York City couldn’t afford their rent.  Forty-nine percent of New York City households pay more than 30 percent of their income on rent, and of that, 30 percent are paying more than half of their income on rent.  

Rothstein said the micro-unit project might be part of the solution to the affordability problem.

“I think that it’s something proactive; that the mayor is taking responsibility to keep young professionals in Manhattan,” he said. “The average one-bedroom is, what, $3,500?  So, how can a young professional just starting a career in Manhattan afford that? Unless they get subsidized by a parent or they work another job.”

Joseph Gabriel, project manager for Blesso Properties — which submitted a micro-unit plan to adAPT NYC — said he expects micro-units to be a success, and cited the response of a recently opened apartment building in Chelsea as evidence. He said eight of the nine units were 450 square-foot studios, costing as much as $3,200 a month at the higher end. Gabriel said his firm received favorable responses after renting most, if not all, the building’s units shortly after putting them on the market.

Gabriel said he hopes to win Bloomberg’s competition, but added that he expects to implement the housing model around the city regardless of whether the Blesso Properties’ proposal is chosen.

"We’re hopeful that any zone changes or code changes do allow for a more flexible and more progressive type of development than has historically been possible in New York," he said.  

BIG CITY LIVING IN TINY SPACES

Despite the growing cost of rent, shrinking salaries and lack of job opportunities, people continue to move to Manhattan and other expensive neighborhoods in the outer boroughs. Renters are willing to cut back spending elsewhere to call a piece of the city their own.

“Even though it’s the size of a shoe box, it’s their own apartment,” Rothstein said. “They don’t have a roommate situation where somebody ate their yogurt.”

Guzzardi moved to Manhattan in 2011 to pursue a graduate degree in journalism at New York University.  Like many young adults, she wanted to live on her own.

As a full-time student balancing school, social life and work as a blogger for the Huffington Post, it was unlikely she could spend a considerable amount of time at her East 11th Street apartment.  

Guzzardi originally set a $1,500 budget for rent, with the money coming from financial aid for school and money from her father, but upped it to $1,600 after initial apartment hunts came up dry.  When she found the studio, perched atop Tu-Lu’s Bakery on 11th Street in the Lower East Side, she settled for $1,750.    

“It was wicked nice, though,” she recounted.  “Everything was redone.  It had marble countertops and a pretty nice shower and a little balcony. I was like, whatever, I can deal with living in this amount of space. It’ll be fine.”

That optimism proved to be short-lived as the days wore on and the lack of space became more of an issue; she left after her lease was up. She now lives with a roommate in Gramercy.

Guzzardi said she wouldn’t choose to live in the same cramped apartment outside of her budget again, but she doesn’t regret her choice either.  “If this is going to be my only [New York City] experience, I’m glad it was in Manhattan.”

___

Image courtesy of the mayor's office. Mayor Michael Bloomberg and HPD Commissioner Mathew M. Wambua at launch of adAPT NYC (July 2012).



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