A coalition of housing advocates, tenants and elected officials rallied March 9 in support of the Safer Homes Act, which would allow the city to take control of the most distressed privately-owned properties and, in some cases, transfer ownership to the tenants themselves.
The bill is sponsored by Bronx Council Member Pierina Sanchez and overhauls the city’s Third Party Transfer Act, creating new guardrails to ensure a fair process for both owners and residents.
The morning rally outside City Hall occurred just before the bill was heard by the Housing and Buildings Committee, which Sanchez chairs.
“We can take a broken program, overhaul it, and ensure we are targeting the right actors,” she said at the rally.
The Third Party Transfer Act was established in 1996 but paused in 2019 under concerns of unfair enforcement that primarily affected Black and brown property owners and tenants.
During Eric Adams’ tenure as Brooklyn Borough President, he said the Third Party Transfer program was well-intentioned but “racist.” But current Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso stood with Sanchez at the City Hall rally in support of the reworked version.
The city is too often forced to pay for emergency repairs and act as “an adjacent landlord while these other landlords continue to get rich off the rent of these tenants,” Reynoso said at the event.
He said the new third-party program must target “extreme cases,” such as buildings with 600 to 700 violations, while others in less distress can receive other assistance.
“At some point, we failed, the city failed. To allow for any building to fall into that many violations is an example of when government doesn’t work,” Reynoso said. “Those are the ones we need to intervene in immediately.”
‘Worst of the worst’ landlords
As the new bill’s lead sponsor, Sanchez said the former Third Party Transfer system “did not work in the context of modern New York City.”
“While many building owners are trying their best to do right by their tenants, there’s a small subset of owners that are chronically negligent,” using the city “as a piggybank” for emergency repairs, she said.
The city’s power to foreclose on negligent owners has been curtailed for several years, but Sanchez said the Safer Homes Act will now target the “worst of the worst of the worst.”
So far, the bill has gained strong support from Council Members representing the Bronx, including Amanda Farías, who spoke at the City Hall rally, and dozens of others throughout the city. It requires just one or two more votes to achieve a veto-proof majority, Sanchez said at the rally.
It is also supported by housing organizations, including REBNY and Open New York, who said the new act will create a fairer process for owners and tenants alike.
Among the renters who came to City Hall in support of the Safer Homes Act was Angelette Waring, who has lived for more than 50 years at 2051 Webster Ave., a property with 529 open violations. Of those, 143 are Class C, meaning “imminently hazardous.”
Waring said at the rally that her 100-year-old building has become “a frightening place to live.”
After she and her neighbors rallied outside their building with Our Bronx on Feb. 10, she showed the Bronx Times around her apartment, which had no cooking gas, holes near the radiator bases and bedroom floors so uneven that a pair of dumbbells could roll several feet, among other issues.
Since then, Waring said conditions at her apartment took a turn for the worse in late February. At the City Hall rally, she said that a crack in her bedroom ceiling gave way in the middle of the night, sending debris crashing down and leaving a gaping hole. While she was not injured, the experience was “traumatic,” she told the Bronx Times.
FDNY had to make repairs to Waring’s apartment and the one above, but she said she’s heard little from the management company, JLP Metro Management.
Having been in the same apartment since childhood, Waring said the building’s current condition has become “embarrassing.”
“I’m not expecting any favors. Just do the basics,” she said.
Reach Emily Swanson at eswanson@schnepsmedia.com or (646) 717-0015. For more coverage, subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram!
