Cash-strapped landlord taking 13 months to fill vacated apartments

One prominent multifamily owner is struggling to fill its buildings, but not because of high rents, low demand or draconian rent-stabilization rules.

Hello, New York City Housing Authority.

Vacancies in the public housing system have soared in the past year, as have waiting times for approved tenants to move in, City Limits reported. The problems don’t look like they will get fixed any time soon.

At the start of last year, NYCHA’s 177,000 units had fewer than 500 vacancies. Last month, the number surged past 3,400. And that does not even count units that the housing authority excludes from its rent rolls, which would push the empty apartment tally to nearly 6,000.

Some excluded units have been promised to a tenant, but are uninhabitable. NYCHA’s official target to get vacated units reoccupied is 30 days. At the start of last year, it was taking an average of 182 days. At the start of this year, it took 399 — more than 13 months.

About 1,000 units are not on the rolls because they are undergoing major repairs, such as asbestos or lead abatement. Those repairs are funded in part by rent collection, which collapsed during the pandemic and eviction moratorium and is being further depressed by the surge in vacancies.

In the 12 months prior to December, NYCHA only collected 65 percent of the rent it charged for the previous year. That was the lowest percentage in its history and is driving a $500 million shortfall, as one-third of the authority’s operating budget comes from rent. It typically pulls in $1 billion each year and needs tens of billions of dollars for repairs.

“Without money, we can’t do anything else,” interim CEO Lisa Bova-Hiatt told the New York Times last month. “We can’t fund the much-needed repairs. We can’t handle emergencies.”

One of the factors hindering rent collection is the state’s Emergency Rental Assistance Protection, which may have given some tenants the false impression that they didn’t need to pay rent. The program only cuts checks for apartments with rent arrears.

But the program’s coffers have been essentially empty for months and even when they had money, the state pushed NYCHA tenants to the bottom of the priority list because their rent obligation is already capped at 30 percent of household income, and tenants enjoy other safeguards as well.

Manhattan Assembly member Linda Rosenthal has introduced a bill that would fine landlords for holding apartments vacant for more than three months. It’s not clear if her bill — which hasn’t gained much traction — would apply to NYCHA.

— Holden Walter-Warner