Editor’s Note: The following is the 12th of a KCP investigative series by reporters Kelly Mena and Stephen Witt on how New York City is taking paid off properties from longtime small property owners, including black and brown seniors, and giving them to connected non-profit and for-profit developers as gentrification sweeps across Brooklyn.
Congressman Hakeem Jeffries (D-Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, Bed-Stuy, Brownsville, East New York, Canarsie, Mill Basin, Coney Island, and South Ozone Park and Howard Beach in Queens) and City Councilman Robert Cornegy, Jr. (D-Bedford-Stuyvesant, Northern Crown Heights) were at the front lines last night as a packed room of local residents and homeowners voiced their frustration and anger over the city’s controversial Department of Housing Preservation and Development’s (HPD) Third-Party Transfer (TPT) program.
The emergency Town Hall at the Billie Holiday Theater in Bedford-Stuyvesant’s Restoration Plaza, follows the continuing KCP series, which has found HPD seizing of four completely paid off properties – three of which are black owned and one of which is a co-op building in which six working-class Latinos own.
Jeffries and Cornegy starting the evening were quick to note that the seizures are taking wealth out of minority communities, in particular from families and individuals who are contending with current real estate pressures due to gentrification.
“We clearly need an all hands on deck approach to the TPT program that in some cases has been abused in instances where individuals have had their properties snatched from them in an inappropriate fashion. We do need a broader understanding of how the program works because there was intent attached to the program that was intended to benefit residents of the community,” said Jeffries.
Cornegy went on to mark his belief in the program while at the same time noting possible failure with the process.
“While I feel like there are strong misconceptions about TPT, I am here to cry out for my community for more transparency, for communication and ultimately reform of the program. I will continue to work with the city to continue to refine the tools to make sure we are casting the right net in terms of who we reach and then making sure the resources and outreach are effective as possible,” said Cornegy.
Cornegy, is facing particular pressure as the NYC Council’s Chair of the Housing and Building Committee, which was charged with oversight over the last round of properties entered into the program.
The latest round of takings under the de Blasio administration took place last November just a month shy of Christmas in which 64 properties – predominately in black and brown neighborhoods in Brooklyn – were seized as part of a foreclosure judgement on the same date.
Homeowners at last night’s meeting demanded answers and a commitment from the lawmakers in their fight to win back their properties and more importantly their communities from the city.
In particular, Lamaar Jones, a finance graduate of the prestigious HBCU (Historically Black Colleges and Universitys) Morehouse College, and whose family owns one of the buildings taken under the TPT program, confronted the Councilman, asking for his specific course of action against a program he feels is “creating distress” rather than relieving it.
“Why is it taking so long and why is there such a deafening silence in what is happening with this program and I’ve spoken to a number of individuals in the TPT program and again tone deaf. Whatever the intent was, it’s not working. I am at a loss at why there hasn’t been an immediate response to something that is clearly not working,” said Jones.
However, Cornegy went onto explain that he believes the decline in ownership across the borough is a three-pronged issue with deed theft and fraud; tax lien and sales combined with problems with the TPT Program that is creating a panic in local residents.
Cornegy recently came out supporting calls by Public Advocate Letitia James and Republican candidate for Attorney General Keith Wofford for a freeze on the program to allow HPD to address these concerns and to ensure that the agency has adequate safeguards in place to protect homeowners whose properties enter the program.
“It feels like we are under siege because of gentrification and I am fighting. I think that there is pandemonium around TPT and I think it’s important that we slow down for a second because there are some internal mechanisms that have included properties like Marlene Saunders that shouldn’t have been there and once you see that there might be some internal mechanisms at work that need to be evaluated and I am trying to work with HPD on the root to that,” added Cornegy.
But Leila Bozorg, the Deputy Commissioner for Neighborhood Strategies for HPD, defended the program, noting there was a lack of misinformation and continued the narrative from the administration that the homes in the program are only taken in cases of “extreme health and safety issues,” even going so far as calling the program a “success.”
“I think this issue hasn’t come up at this scale because the program has been largely successful to date in meeting its goals of getting severely physically and financially distressed properties in turning them into affordable housing for the tenants,” said Bozorg.
Bozorg comment comes just a week after, tenants at 25 MacDonough Street in Bedford-Stuyvesant learned that they might have to vacate the building in two years due to the new “sponsors” under the TPT program bringing in their own architect and engineer for a possible complete renovation.
“The TPT program is slated to handle distressed properties but none of these properties are distressed. The city is overreaching and the response– the denials and silence– are indicative that pretty much if they want to take something they will,” added Jones.
Any homeowner who believes they have been erroneously placed into TPT can contact the Public Advocate’s office by calling 212-669-7250 or emailing gethelp@pubadvocate.nyc.gov.
