The Coalition to End Apartment Warehousing released a report titled “Apartment Warehousing: Separating Myth from Fact,” which rebuts landlord claims about lack of funding and provides strong evidence that such warehousing is harming everyday New Yorkers by exacerbating the city’s housing crisis.
This report concludes:
- Landlords are using their ample funds for other purposes instead of keeping their buildings habitable.
- Dilapidation is primarily from landlord neglect. Landlords should make required upgrades while tenants are in their homes, and Albany should not legislate rent increases to reward owner negligence during long tenancies.
- Tenants need reliable public information from the New York State Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR) and the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) about who owns their building and is responsible for maintaining it.
- Individual Apartment Improvements should go back to being temporary as under the 2019 law. Subsequent generations of tenants should not be paying for the same appliance.
You can view the full report here: Click here
“In 2024, landlords were easily able to convince elected officials that they were in dire need of more money even without opening their books to prove their case. Albany gave them a fat IAI increase that has become permanent, which erodes the gains tenants won in 2019. But both the city and state governments have created programs to help landlords in real need which they never avail themselves of. It’s time for Albany to stop giving handouts to landlords while affordable housing sits empty and people live on the streets,” said Cindy Hwang, Cooper Square Committee.