Last Tuesday, an appeals court ruled that the city of New York could stop making payments for its “Advantage” program, which had provided rent subsidies for the recently homeless in New York City by making payments to landlords. The end of the program leaves both renters and landlords wondering where the rent will come from, the New York Times reported.
Now, the city’s Department of Homeless Services is trying to find ways to help those who had been served by the program find ways to remain housed. But landlords too have been victimized by the end of Advantage, as they “entered into good-faith relationships with the city,” as the Times put it, and now cannot depend on their renters to be able to pay their rent.
Ferdo Shkreli, a landlord in the Bronx, said he has been forced to evict some former Advantage tenants, but that it has upset him. “You get very emotionally involved with some people,” Shkreli said. He has even paid some tenants’ rents for them, he told the Times. “There’s this myth in the air in New York that all landlords are millionaires. We’re not.” [NYT]