Could we solve the city's growing homeless problem without a shelter system? According to a report being released today by Picture the Homeless and the Center for Community Planning & Development at Hunter College we totally could. In a survey of just 20 of the city's community districts the groups found enough vacant housing to put up 199,981 individuals. Hey, it worked for the homeless guy squatting in Ann Curry's UWS townhouse... more ›

According to the Wall Street Journal, Occupy Wall Street is down to their last $170,000 after raising more than $700,000 this fall. "If we keep spending at the rate at which we've been doing, we will probably go broke in a month," a member of the accounting group tells the paper. Where did all the money go? Housing, feeding, and clothing lots of people. On Saturday, the movement voted to freeze all spending except for bare necessities: housing, food, and clothing. more ›

Remember those pesky Artist-in-Resident laws down in Soho? You know, the ones that say only "artists," as defined by the Department of Cultural Affairs, can live in the 200 or so buildings that were converted from commercial to residential use? The laws have been hampering real estate deals for some time, and now a group of concerned neighbors wants to abolish the AiR laws forever. more ›

In order to get big tax breaks and permission to build bigger residential towers, two big condos on the Williamsburg waterfront agreed to throw the rabble a bone by building "affordable" rental units for low-income residents. Those who won the lottery for the units built by Northside Piers and The Edge pay as little as $398 a month, while the condo owners bought their apartments for anywhere between $385,000 to $2.9 million. And with that price tag comes amenities that the low-income renters don't have access to. Now some of the renters are becoming bitter! more ›

A new feature in Craigslist lets apartment hunters steer clear of bad landlords. The new link, found at the top of the apartment listings, leads to a website created by Public Advocate Bill de Blasio's office. It currently lists more than 320 landlords and more than 400 buildings that have been cited for housing code violations. Currently number one on the list: one Lisa Dreshaj, who has racked up 2,047 infractions with her four buildings, including 656 class C violations, which are considered "immediately hazardous." You can also vote on ways to hold landlords more accountable on the site. Public dunking booths, anyone? more ›

Fourth quarter 2010 housing sale data for Manhattan is in and the results are...just fine. Though there was a slight dip in the median sales price quarter-to-quarter (different reports pegged it between $825,000 and $845,000) those numbers are still up from last year. Meanwhile a bump in "trophy properties" helped push up the average sales price to somewhere between $1.37 and $1.48 million, as much as 14.4% higher than last year. Not bad considering it was actually the borough's most active quarter in twenty years and everyone has been fretting about a "double-dip." more ›

We're all super pumped about the results of the 2010 Census. Who isn't dying to find out that white people still live on the Upper East Side? But some just can't wait for the results to come in to start writing their angry editorials: the Daily News points out today that in the 2000 census, New York was America's third most racially segregated city, after Detroit and Milwaukee. And as far as they can tell, the results of the latest survey will come to terrifyingly similar conclusions. more ›

Yesterday at the Rally To Restore Sanity and/or Fear, attendees were treated to several collage-like montages of media talking heads listing all the things we need to be afraid of, including flip flop, bedbugs and hurricanes. There's one new thing to add to that list: conspiratorial lesbian-controlled low-rent apartment buildings! more ›

Yesterday, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio launched a new online slumlord watchlist, in an attempt to hold landlords accountable in a way they never have been before. "When you or I get a parking ticket, we have to pay. When a landlord gets a violation for a health and safety problem, they ignore it in many cases and then they ignore it and then they ignore it again," he told the Daily News. more ›

Public Advocate Bill de Blasio launched a new slumlord watch list today, with 153 wastrel landlords included to begin with. "We want these landlords to feel like they're being watched," de Blasio said. "We need to shine a light on these folks to shame them into action." more ›

A team of New York architects has designed a vinyl, octagonal structure they hope to set up in Haiti to help those left without housing after the January 12th earthquake. The 166 square foot structures are designed to withstand wind, hurricanes and earthquakes, and can be mass produced for about $3,000 each. HaitiSOFTHOUSE project manager Rodney Leon said, "There are people who are in these vulnerable conditions every day that can't live in those situations very long without getting sick. So we wanted to find something that was somewhere between a tent and a permanent house." more ›

In 2005 55 homeless people lived in Times Square, last summer there were five, and today there's just one lone holdout. His name is Heavy, and clad in a red knit cap he can be found drinking coffee, stationed beside a black and red suitcase. For years he's fielded daily offers of housing, but he won't budge, reports the Times. Heavy isn't aggressive and doesn't panhandle much. “He is a sweetheart,” said an 82-year-old woman who's lived in the area for 44 years. Still, representatives of street outreach nonprofits hope he'll someday surrender his Times Square quarters. “I just have this dream that all of a sudden something will snap, and he’ll say, I’d love to have housing,” said one. more ›

At least $350 million of federal stimulus money—and at least $65 million of annual subsidies—will be directed towards 21 New York City housing projects to pay for much-needed renovations. The major allocation of cash will allow workers to fix facades, roofs, heating systems, elevators and other problems in buildings where 20,000 New Yorkers reside, according to DNAinfo. Some tenants feared the stimulus money was a sign the buildings would shift away from low-income housing, but Mayor Bloomberg told the Daily News: "Nothing is going to change, except for the better." According to the Lo-Down, he added: "While other cities are blowing up public housing, we are preserving it." more ›

With a local Community Board vote expected later this month, the developers behind the Domino Sugar Refinery project invited the media on a tour of the Williamsburg site yesterday morning. While we had hoped that the tour would afford us Wonka-esque access to the vast refinery interior, the almighty insurance companies made damn sure the deteriorating structure remained off-limits. But they sent over some interior photos today, explaining that "the majority of the buildings are filled with large machinery, much of which spans multiple floors. Also, the majority of the buildings do not have solid floors, and instead, machinery is connected to walls and pillars with cat-walks and metal flooring." Enough—can't you see you're torturing Jake Dobkin! more ›

A man found guilty of multiple rapes and robberies in Brownsville was sentenced to 430 years in prison today. Boker Thomas received the four-century sentence after being found guilty of trailing seven women as they walked into elevators, stairwells and apartments in public housing projects and raping them or robbing them, according to the Daily News. more ›

Why live in a Bushwick trailer park when you can live in a Williamsburg shipping container? The folks over at Curbed say shipping container architecture is a "Bigfoot" in the city's development circles, meaning it's "endlessly discussed yet rarely seen." Though it's been used in commercial applications — like the modular Subway sandwich shop installed atop a crane at the World Trade Center site — this narrow two-family home at 351 Keap Street in Williamsburg might be the city's first residential use of the environmentally-friendly, cost-conscious building material. Back in 2008, the Office of Emergency Management held a contest to design temporary housing for the thousands of New Yorkers who might be displaced in the event of a catastrophe, like a direct hit from a Category 3 hurricane. Most of those designs utilized shipping containers, so these Keap Street residents aren't just setting trends, they're braced for the end of days! more ›

The number of real estate sales in Manhattan is up over the past three months, offering a sign of hope to homeowners who have watched the number of deals drop and the median sale price of plummet by 21 percent since 2008. The Times reports that the uptick in sales chipped away at the inventory of unsold apartments. Prices stayed about the same or dropped slightly — though two major brokerages actually reported increases in the average and median sales prices, according to Curbed. Some insiders fear the market has hit a plateau before another plunge, but others think things are starting to turn around. "Considering where we came from, the results this quarter were much better than we could've imagined a year ago at this time," said Jonathan Miller, who created the study. "There are a lot of challenges ahead for housing, but I think the worst is behind us." more ›

In an apparent first, six women posed as victims of domestic violence in order to jump to the top of the wait-list for government subsidized apartments, officials say. Over 127,000 families are on the New York City Housing Authority’s waiting list for Section 8 vouchers, which can be worth thousands of dollars a year. Qualifying tenants who get the vouchers pay 30 percent of their adjusted gross income toward the rent, and the government picks up the rest. And these women, who were all arrested over a period of four months, almost got away with it! more ›

[UPDATE BELOW] Around 10:30 this morning, activists for the homeless cut through a fence and seized a vacant lot at 115th and Madison Ave in East Harlem; they say the property is owned by JPMorgan Chase, which is a "recent beneficiary of billions in taxpayer bailout money." The occupation, organized by the group Picture the Homeless, has drawn over 100 activists to the lot, and they've been busy turning it into a festive "tent village," with a casita, a stage, banners, barbeque grills, and two dozen tent structures—inspired in part by Depression-era Hoovervilles. On their blog the group says:

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Bad news for squatters and survivalists: Instead of just letting abandoned condo developments turn into illegal havens for trespassers, the city is starting a $20 million pilot program to turn unsold condominiums, unrented apartments and stalled construction sites into affordable housing for middle-income families. Yesterday Mayor Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn announced the plan, called the Housing Asset Renewal Program (HARP), in which the city will negotiate with developers and banks to turn the unoccupied units into affordable housing. more ›

NYU's Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy has released a massive report examining how the city's 59 community districts have fared during four distinct real estate periods: two upturns (from 1980 - 1989 and from 1996 - 2006) and two downturns (from 1974 - 1980 and from 1989 - 1996). Between '74 and '80, housing prices declined by 12.4% citywide; between '80 and '89 prices increased by 152%; then between '89 and '96, prices dropped by 29.3%; and in the last boom, which lasted from '96 to '06, prices grew by 124.2%. All in all, sales prices citywide grew by 250 percent during the 32 year time span! more ›

The city will spend an estimated $59 million this year to house homeless families in buildings occupied by rent-paying tenants, many of whom say their landlords are pressuring them to move out because housing the homeless is more lucrative. In a process known as "cluster-site" housing, the city pays nonprofit agencies to place homeless families in apartments and provide employment help and other social services. The homeless residents are required to sign in and out, and a 24-hour security guard is stationed in the lobby to prohibit visitors. more ›

Meet Janet Faello (and pop a Zoloft): The 53-year-old divorcee with two daughters in college has been trying since May 2007 to sell her and her ex's Long Island 6-bedroom home. Her initial asking price was $829,000, then $750,000, now $699,000. Care to guess how many offers she's gotten? If you said anything more than zero, you're not depressed enough. Faello, whose experience is emblematic of the current housing implosion, is stuck in the home, surrounded by memories of her failed marriage and steep property taxes. She tells the Times, "I’m not ashamed to say to you, I have had to borrow money from my father." The article paints a bleak portrait of NYC suburbanites who feel like hostages in homes they can't sell. Pending home sales in the Northeast fell 14.5% from December 2007 to December 2008, and are not expected to "hit rock bottom" for at least another year. As one frustrated Connecticut home seller puts it, "Sometimes dreams just blow away." For further reading, curl up with a bottle of pills and George Packer's disturbing article about Florida's housing apocalypse. more ›

The plan to turn the disused Domino Sugar Refinery site in South Williamsburg into a housing complex with nine residential towers, 2,200 apartments and 30,000 square feet of retail space is moving forward despite the economic downturn, optomistic developer Michael Lappin insists. You'll recall how back in June the Landmarks Preservation Commission approved revised plans for the $1.2 billion development, which promised to preserve the site's iconic sign. Of course, that was before everything went up in flames. more ›

Though most of the neighborhood around the Gowanus Canal has not yet been rezoned for residential construction, one development company has just won approval for a big condo project with buildings up to 12 stories high and a public park along the canal. Blogger Pardon Me For Asking sat through a "long and drawn out" Landmark/Land Use committee meeting last night (so we didn't have to). She calls the near-unanimous vote "a sad outcome for the community":

Let me just say that no amount of testimony from concerned residents at last month's meeting, no concerns about pathogens in the waters of the canal, nor warnings that the land is in a flood zone were able to sway a majority of our board members from voting yes for Toll's spot rezoning.

The development company that's pushing for a special rezoning approval to construct several residential buildings by the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn came under fire at a Neighborhood Association meeting in Carrol Gardens last night, with two local architects dismissing the project renderings as deceptive. Chris McVoy and John Hatheway maintained that the developer, Toll Brothers, has provided renderings that make their tallest building—which would be 12 stories and 125 feet high—look more like 85 feet. more ›

If you watch just one Community Board Meeting video this summer, make it this one. Willets Point property owners who've been passionately protesting Mayor Bloomberg's controversial $3 billion plan to rezone the area (to make way for a hotel, convention center, offices and retail stores) have put together this video showing how the sausage gets made over at Community Board 7. Their gripping featurette focuses in on a contentious committee meeting that yielded a yes vote for the city's proposal, despite serious reservations voiced by board members. more ›

Sure, there's a lot of prefab housing on display at MoMA right now, but have you seen any of the modular structures inhabited in New York? Design*Sponge points out a Kithaus in Williamsburg, whose "location required each module to be carried, by hand, through a 3 story brick rowhouse. The builders then added custom decks and wedged it in between warehouses and light industrial buildings to create this compact urban oasis." Prepare to be jealous as you feast your eyes upon the results. If you want one of your own, a basic kit runs around $40K. [via Brownstoner] more ›