New York State’s rent regulation laws expire in June 2011. If they are not renewed, more than 1 million rent-regulated apartments are at risk of becoming unaffordable. We need to extend and strengthen rent regulation laws so that New York City remains affordable to the middle class. Working with a broad coalition of reform-minded allies, I will push for reforms that prevent the year-by-year loss of affordable housing, and keep New Yorkers in their homes and in their neighborhoods.

State laws also have a role in ensuring the safety of our housing stock. To ensure fines really stick for the most dangerous violations, I am advocating for new State legislation that will establish firm minimum fines for the most serious class of housing code violations—conditions like peeling lead paint and lack of heat. If a series of heating violations for $500-$1,000 were issued by HPD, a landlord could no longer walk away paying anything less than $500 for each, as is customary today. Mandatory minimum fines could also generate additional revenue for the City.

State Senator Liz Krueger will introduce legislation in the State Senate later this year to establish mandatory minimums.

In addition, my office will work with stakeholders citywide to examine other long-term reforms that will encourage landlords to better maintain their buildings. We will push for a system of administrative tribunals similar to those in Chicago, Washington, Dallas and Boston. Administrative tribunals treat housing violations like parking tickets: a landlord can pay the fine or contest it before a tribunal which will process the case in a matter of minutes.

These reforms can ensure New York City’s housing is both safe and affordable.

To put our online tool, NYC's Worst Landlord Watch List, in the hands of more tenants and help flag problems before they sign a lease, my office has partnered with Craigslist, which now links to the Watch List from housing listings on their New York City site. Craiglist.org is the seventh most visited website in the United States and the initiative has already tripled traffic to the Watch List website.

We are also enhancing NYC’s Worst Landlords Watch List, making it a one-stop-shop where a tenant hunting for an apartment can not only look up the records of one building, but see every single building owned by the same landlord. Through the enhanced Watch List, I will work to make City data on buildings much more coherent and accessible.

In addition,my office will use NYC’s Worst Landlords Watch List to shine a spotlight on the network of brokers, building managers and lenders that help bad landlords thrive. These actors provide financial backing for deals that put buildings into financial distress and support a system of building neglect. Through media pressure and investigations into the worst actors, we will start holding these partners to a higher standard.

When tenants join together, they have a much better shot at forcing a landlord to make repairs. In the last two months, organizers from my office partnered with community organizations and knocked on hundreds of doors in Watch List buildings.
By August 30, 2011, the one-year anniversary of the launch of NYC’s Worst Landlords Watch List, my office’s Community Organizing department will have led organizing activities in dozens of buildings. The goal is to secure repairs and remove 80 building from the Watch List, or 20% of those currently listed. By partnering with community-based organizations, our organizers will knock on thousands of tenants’ doors in 2011 and engage in new partnerships with the following advocacy groups to help identify problematic buildings in their neighborhoods.

My office is partnering with South Brooklyn Legal Services to launch an innovative pilot project to connect tenants in Brooklyn to pro bono representation from private sector law firms in repair cases. We will recruit private law firms to take on cases pro bono, while South Brooklyn Legal Services will provide the firms with training and supervision. The lawyers will be recruited from major law firms, where associates can use Housing Court cases to gain valuable in-court experience.

Beginning in June 2011, the partnership will field a team of lawyers who will each handle one case per month through the end of 2011. Tenants will have a single lawyer working their case from start to finish who will offer them legal advice and represent them in court proceedings.

There are 11 tax incentive programs set up to help landlords, ranging from 421-a tax abatements for creating affordable housing to exemptions that offset the cost of repairs. Another dozen programs offer low-interest loans to replace outdated water, heating and insulation systems. HPD programs like Preservation Participation Loans, Home Improvements and Small Owner Repairs range from $10,000 to $200,000, depending on the number of units per building and affordability restrictions, and they help landlords make repairs without having to take out high-interest loans that will jeopardize their building’s financial future.

My office will work to connect more landlords in need of these programs by engaging them directly and providing information for how they can obtain support. Using a landlord tip guide developed by HPD, my office has compiled a comprehensive Landlord Toolkit that details key support programs for landlords. This toolkit has been, and will continue to be, distributed to every landlord on NYC Worst Landlord’s Watch List. In addition, my office will work with HPD to distribute this toolkit to all applicable landlords in its database.

Our Constituent Services Department has also established a Help Desk to guide landlords to these programs and increase participation. The Help Desk will help landlords clear resolved violations from their record, liaise with tenants to coordinate times to make repairs, and help landlords correct errors in City records that could cost them unnecessary fines. The help desk can be reached at gethelp@pubadvocate.nyc.gov or 212-669-7250.

While housing programs like Section 8 can be better leveraged to pressure bad landlords, we must also ensure that these programs do not punish responsible property owners. More than 31,000 landlords participate in NYCHA’s Section 8 housing program. And while Section 8 is a critical safety net for low-income tenants, it can also be a burdensome—and occasionally costly—program for landlords. One of the most frustrating parts of the program for landlords is NYCHA’s annual inspection for hazardous conditions. If problems are found, landlords are given 30 days to make and verify repairs before their Section 8 payments are suspended. The process requires landlords to gain access to a tenant’s apartment, make repairs and provide proof to NYCHA that they are in compliance.

A significant portion of the 30-day period can be taken up by mailing forms and waiting at length for NYCHA’s response. As a result, landlords who have made repairs on time can still see their Section 8 subsidy suspended. And once suspended, it can take months to restore payments, putting otherwise good buildings into financial distress. I will work with NYCHA to reduce the necessary paperwork and agency response times so that responsible landlords are not penalized. I will also advocate for changes to the system that make it simpler for landlords to demonstrate that repairs have been made, such as letting a licensed contractor certify repairs.