Activists cry foul over violations tally

Activists for the homeless are saying the city is using housing code violation tallies for political purposes. Last week, city officials said Starrett City’s prospective buyer had 8,792 outstanding code violations, which raised “questions” about the landlord. Two weeks ago, however, when the Coalition for the Homeless released a report saying that many formerly homeless people are being placed in apartments with multiple code violations, the city said code violation tallies do not necessarily reflect the safety of individual apartments. more [NYT]