Results tagged “tenants”

Under current state law, you can be paying your rent on time every month, and one day come home to find that you've got less than 10 days to vacate your apartment because the landlord defaulted on the mortgage. State Senator Jeff Klein says nearly 600 New York City tenants are being evicted every month because of foreclosures, and they're usually the last ones to know about it because banks are not required to inform them.

A group of tenants living in public housing is filing a federal class-action lawsuit against the city for its failure to maintain elevators. The NY Times reports that the lawsuit notes that the "widespread and systemic failure to maintain the elevators in its buildings in operable working condition" is a violation of disability and human rights laws. Scrutiny of the NYC Housing Authority's care of elevators came into greater focus after a child fatally fell from a malfunctioning elevator last year, but tenants have complained about malfunctioning elevators for years. The Times offers many harrowing anecdotes from tenants, including: "Phyllis Gonzalez, 61...refers to the times when both elevators go out in her building in the Chelsea Houses as 'double-headers.' Ms. Gonzalez, who lives in a 12th-floor apartment and uses a wheelchair because of arthritis and other health problems, recalled the day a few years ago when, during a double-header, she went down 12 flights of stairs, sitting on one step at a time." The tenants are not looking for monetary damages—just for the NYCHA to fix the elevators in a timely fashion and provide for help the disabled and wheelchair-bound tenants when the elevators are out.

A group of residents in a massive building at 3333 Broadway (at 135th Street) are filing a class action lawsuit against the owner of the building, which until 2005 was in the state’s Mitchell-Lama program for moderate-income housing but is now charging market-rate rents. The residents say the owner had not properly notified them of the change to market-rate housing, and they say they're being systematically harassed to move out so higher-paying tenants can move in.

The turmoil at Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village continues, as behemoth real estate developer Tishman Speyer Properties, is flushing out rent-stabilized tenants who it believes do not live in Stuy Town-Peter Cooper anymore.

After stalling their landlord’s attempt to build a parking garage in their courtyard next to the BQE two years ago, tenants and other community activists are still fighting the proposal. Built in 1890, the Riverside Apartments at Columbia Place and Joralemon Street in Brooklyn Heights were regarded as a great advancement in tenement living. Located near the Columbia Place docks, the nine buildings were unique for their running toilets, common courtyard, ventilation, and fireproofing, something unheard of for tenements at the time.