New Task Force Aims To Protect Residents From Landlord Harassment – Local Leaders Back It But Say More Needs To Be Done

Aiming to protect individuals from being forced from rent stabilized apartments, Governor Andrew Cuomo, state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and Mayor Bill de Blasio announced yesterday the creation of the Tenant Harassment Prevention Task Force, which is tasked with investigating and bringing actions — including criminal charges — against predatory landlords who try to push people, including many of our neighbors who have lived in the area for decades, from their longtime homes.

Tenant harassment complaints in the city’s problem-plagued Housing Court have nearly doubled since 2011, according to Cuomo’s office, with the governor noting that landlords use a variety of tactics, including “disruptive and dangerous renovation and construction project,” to “force tenants into vacating rent-regulated apartments.”

These unlawful actions by landlords come in response to a booming city real estate market, in which landlords illegally push people from rent regulated apartments to fetch higher rents. Under rent regulation, when a tenant vacates a rent-regulated apartment, the owner can automatically increase rents by 20 percent, and further increase rents by making apartment improvements. If the rent gets higher than $2,500 per month, the apartment automatically exits the rent regulation system and rent can be raised dramatically.

Numerous neighbors in our area have detailed harassment by landlords, and Aga Trojniak, of the Flatbush Tenant Coalition, recently noted at a fundraiser for her organization at Bar Chord that this push by landlords to force rent stabilized tenants from buildings has resulted in the loss of thousands of rent regulated apartments in Flatbush – where about 70 percent of residents live in rent stabilized units.

Among tactics our neighbors have described include withholding repairs to taking individuals to Housing Court over being one month late in paying rent.

Rosa Martinez, for example, who lives in an apartment building at 125 E. 18th Street, near Church Avenue, said during an affordable housing rally in December that her landlord, the notorious Moshe Piller, has withheld repairs to such an extend that tenants’ ceilings have collapsed.

According to the governor, attorney general, and mayor, the new task force will help to address these issues by better coordinating efforts between city agencies involved in investigating landlord issues.

Previously, when owners have neglected their buildings and allowed them to fall into extreme disrepair, the city Department of Buildings and Department of Housing Preservation and Development are supposed to use their enforcement powers to ensure compliance with housing and building codes, while cases involving harassment and rent regulation have been handled by the state’s Division of Homes & Community Renewal Tenant Protection Unit, which was created by Cuomo in 2012 to investigate landlord patterns and practices of harassment and illegal profiteering. The new task force will conduct joint cellar-to-roof inspections, coordinate enforcement actions, and, when necessary, speed the prosecution of predatory landlords.

“We won’t sit idly by while bad actors push out the families that have built our neighborhoods,” de Blasio said in a press release issued by the governor’s office. “With the state and city combining efforts, we can prevent displacement and help tenants stay in their homes. Combined with the free legal representation we’re providing to thousands of tenants, this new task force will add muscle to our fight against tenant harassment and our efforts to protect rent-stabilized apartments.”

Schneiderman agreed, saying that “as the real-estate market in New York City heats up we have seen an influx of bad actors looking to turn a fast buck.”

“A thriving real estate market is no excuse for tenant harassment,” Schneiderman said in the same press release. “Make no mistake about this: My office will pursue landlords who knowingly or intentionally threaten the health and safety of their tenants to the full extent of the law, including bringing criminal charges against them. If you treat your law-abiding tenants like criminals, we will not hesitate to make you one.”

The news of this task force was welcomed by our local elected officials, including Assemblywoman Rodneyse Bichotte and Councilman Jumaane Williams.

“The joint effort between the Governor and Attorney General Schneiderman is exactly what tenants need,” Bichotte said. “All too often, cases go uninvestigated for years, complaints fall on deaf ears, and the system we have in place to protect law-abiding tenants simply fails to produce meaningful action. I fully support this effort to enforce our landlord-tenant laws and protect each person who is simply looking for the terms of their lease to be upheld.”

Williams echoed this sentiment, while also stressing that additional measures should be taken to protect affordable housing in our area.

“In addition to this anti-harassment goal, it is my hope that the task force will work to provide solutions that address our affordable housing crisis,” Williams said. “It is imperative that our city and state elected officials meet this crisis with absolute urgency before our rent regulations expire this spring, otherwise initiatives like this task force will not have the desired impact. Albany must not only renew our rent regulations, but must strengthen them to ensure thousands of New Yorkers do not see their rent go up or their protection against arbitrary evictions lost. We must also address the current 421-a tax exemption, which is a complete debacle and must be overhauled immediately.”

Critics of the 421-a tax exemption program, which state and city legislators are currently reviewing before it it is set to sunset in June, have said it has helped to line the pockets of large developers and paved the way for rapid gentrification across the city. You can read more of our coverage on the 421-a issue here.

Aga Trojniak, of the Flatbush Tenant Coalition, too said this, saying that while her organization is pleased to see elected officials paying attention to landlord harassment, more needs to be done.

“The Flatbush Tenant Coalition is pleased to see that the attorney General, the governor, and the mayor have joined forces to combat tenant harassment, and we urge them to cut off this harassment at the root by strengthening rent laws and ending the 421a tax abatement,” Trojniak wrote to us. “In our neighborhood, harassment is how landlords force out long-term residents and raise rents, draining affordable housing out of Flatbush. Every day, long-term residents have to fight for basic repairs and heat and hot water, and fight against frivolous housing court cases. Many families are forced out of their homes through dangerous and unlivable conditions. Others are evicted in Brooklyn Housing Court, where justice comes second to money, regardless of whether it’s actually owed.

“We are looking forward to working with this Task Force … to address specific cases,” she continued. “However, we repeat yet again that if the (attorney general), governor, and mayor want to stop the wide-scale harassment and displacement that is ravaging our neighborhoods, they need to enact stronger rent laws and stop the $1.1 Billion giveaway to ultra-rich developers and condo-owners. They need to repeal deregulation and end the 421a tax abatement. Anything short of that is a band aid on a giant, open wound.”

If you are a tenant who has been having problems with landlord harassment, you can lodge complaints through 311 or report them online here. You can also get in touch with the Flatbush Tenant Coalition by emailing ftcoalition@gmail.com