Private sector managers running city-owned public housing developments dramatically accelerated the number of eviction proceedings brought against tenants for non-payment of rent last year, appearing to outpace those filed against residents of developments still run by the housing authority.
Both NYCHA and the private entities managing public housing properties under a federal program known as Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) halted pursuing evictions in spring 2020, when the pandemic struck, and didn’t resume until the COVID–triggered rent moratorium expired in January 2022.
Over that time period, NYCHA had suspended 31,000 pending eviction cases.
In 2022 both NYCHA and the private management companies resumed initiating eviction proceedings against residents, starting with a limited number of filings against tenants who owed significant back rent. But last year both NYCHA and the RAD management firms began to file more proceedings, with the private sector companies appearing to be more aggressive .
The management firms, which currently oversee about 18,400 public housing units under RAD, initiated more than 2,200 eviction proceedings against tenants from January through September of last year, records released this week by the housing authority show.
NYCHA, by comparison, manages about 148,000 units yet initiated 2,300 cases during all 12 months of last year, a review of records obtained by THE CITY found.
That puts the rate of eviction proceedings in RAD complexes at that time at about one initiated case per six apartments — compared to NYCHA’s rate of about one initiated case for every 72 apartments.
‘Living Under a Cloud’
To be clear, nearly all of these eviction notices resulted in tenants agreeing to financial settlements to address at least some of what they owed without actually being physically evicted. In fact, there have only been 34 actual evictions in RAD households and 110 in NYCHA-run developments since the pandemic rent moratorium ended, records show.
Nevertheless the mere receipt of an eviction notice for many tenants — after months during the pandemic when they were told they did not have to pay — has caused much anxiety in both NYCHA and RAD housing developments.
“The person is constantly living under a cloud of being evicted or you have to go back to NYCHA and NYCHA says you have to go back to management,” said Councilmember Chris Banks, D-Brooklyn, chair of the public housing committee. “The fact that they have to live under this cloud that they could be evicted … this to me is a major issue that’s affecting a lot of the tenants in a serious way.”
Banks questioned NYCHA officials about this post-pandemic resumption of evictions during a budget hearing Tuesday. Speaking with THE CITY, Banks said some tenants living in RAD developments have told him, “Management has been very aggressive when it comes to getting tenants to come into compliance. And some of them are dragging them into court. Much more aggressive than NYCHA..”
The issue of evictions over non-payment has taken on new significance given that so many of NYCHA and RAD tenants did not resume their monthly payments when the moratorium ended in January 2022.
Since then, NYCHA’s rent arrears have grown to more than $480 million across 70,000 households. The authority is now struggling with a collection rate of around 60%, far less than the 95% collection rate they experienced pre-pandemic. (NYCHA does not have figures on how much tenants living in RAD developments owe).
NYCHA CEO Lisa Bova-Hiatt has repeatedly emphasized that the authority tries to avoid evictions and has only sent eviction notices to tenants who have accumulated large unpaid back rent over longer periods of time.
On Wednesday in response to questions from THE CITY, her press secretary Michael Horgan stated, “NYCHA’s goal is to keep residents housed and to resolve tenant issues — whether related to nonpayment of rent or lease violations — not to evict.”
And because the housing authority still owns all the properties managed by the RAD developers, NYCHA requires those managers to take the same eviction-as-a-last resort strategy “in order to support tenants who may be at risk,” he added.
Since the rent moratorium ended, building managers and developers who now manage a couple dozen NYCHA-owned properties under RAD have filed a total of 4,084 eviction proceedings against tenants, records released this week by NYCHA show.
The records make clear that the private-sector actors started out slowly, filing 986 proceedings in all of 2022 that resulted in the evictions of just 10 households. Last year, however, the rate of filings increased, with 2,213 eviction proceedings filed by RAD managers just through September. During that time 24 RAD households were evicted.
Forgiving Millions
No RAD developments have experienced as many eviction proceedings as Linden Houses and the adjacent Penn-Wortman Houses in East New York, Brooklyn, records show. In the first nine months of 2023, 763 eviction proceeding cases have been filed by the management company, C&C Apartment Management LLC, an affiliate of L+M Development Partners, a major income-restricted housing builder in New York City.
Before a proceeding is filed, both NYCHA and the management company work to resolve the matter without going to court. At Linden, hundreds of these “pre-eviction outreach” interactions resulted in no court cases, and even with the cases that went to court not a single one resulted in an actual eviction, the data show.
A spokesperson for Stanley Avenue Preservation — a partnership that includes L+M, Dantes Partners, SMJ, and Douglaston Development, that’s performing $430 million in renovations on the two developments — issued a statement in response to THE CITY’s questions about how they’ve juggled the delicate job of trying to collect rent owed without putting people in the street.
They started by forgiving $1.4 million in rent arrears when the moratorium ended in 2022, but since then many tenants have continued to fall behind. They described the hundreds of cases initiated last year as “non-payment cases, not evictions,” and noted the zero eviction result.
“We continue to work closely with our on-site staff and local elected officials to do all we can to help our residents remain in their homes as we undertake a critically needed overhaul of Linden Houses,” the statement read. “Evicting a tenant is never our preferred outcome, and we work closely with our residents and an on-site social service provider to help residents pay their rent, which helps support ongoing operations at the property.”
Another nearby Brooklyn development, Boulevard Houses, had a similar experience. Though Hudson Companies, the private sector firm managing the development, filed 390 eviction proceedings between January and September of last year, only two evictions have resulted in tenants being kicked out.
A spokesperson for Boulevard Together, Hudson’s partnership with NYCHA, noted that the developer forgave $3.7 million in rent arrears from Boulevard tenants. Hudson, which is completing $600 million in renovations to Boulevard, also works with the nonprofit housing group, CAMBA, to provide tenants with financial literacy training.
“We will continue to work closely with NYCHA, the residents, and local elected officials as we near the completion of much-needed renovations for this community,” a spokesperson for Boulevard Together said in response to THE CITY’s questions.