By Bob Tannenhauser
A controversial topic was discussed in a recent CB7 Housing Committee meeting: the conversion of “distressed” hotels to permanent affordable housing.
A bill designed to overcome current legal barriers to such conversions, called the Kavanagh Bill, is currently pending in the New York State Senate.
An existing law — the Housing Our Neighbors with Dignity Act (HONDA) — already allocates $200 million for the acquisition of distressed commercial properties, i.e. office buildings and hotels, to be operated by nonprofits as supportive housing. Supportive housing is permanent affordable housing with on-site social services, such as case managers and job developers.
Ted Houghton, president of Gateway Housing, a nonprofit offering technical assistance to nonprofits that provide supportive housing for previously homeless people, was the guest speaker at the meeting. Mr. Houghton explained the reasons for the dire need for permanent supportive housing in New York City.
In 1955, there were approximately 93,000 psychiatric hospital beds in New York City. Deplorable conditions led to the closure of many hospitals and, by 2016, the number of available beds had dropped by 97%.
At the same time, many SROs — traditionally the first rung of the housing ladder — disappeared. According to Curbed, “From 1955 onward, the city made laws to restrict the construction of new SROs, and in the 1970s began offering tax breaks to landlords to demolish them or convert them into almost anything else, especially upscale apartments or boutique hotels for tourists. Between 1976 and 1981 those incentives resulted in the loss of “nearly two-thirds of all remaining SRO units,” according to a CUNY report.”
New construction of affordable housing has not kept pace with demand, Mr. Houghton said. “In the past 30 years, New York City has seen an increase in the need for affordable housing by 1.5 million people, but only built 300,000 new units.” The problem has been exacerbated in recent years, he added, by the emptying of prisons and jails, in part due to the pandemic.
The pandemic battered the hotel industry, but has also provided an opportunity to create supportive permanent housing by taking some of the stressed hotels and allowing nonprofits to operate them. The best model for this is the Royal Park Hotel, on 97th & Broadway, purchased by Fortune Society.
Under existing law, the renovations required to compy with city building codes when turning existing hotels into permanent housing are extremely costly, Mr. Houghton explained.
The Kavanagh Bill, would permit the conversion without requiring a change in the certificate of occupancy from hotel to housing, and without extensive renovations. For example, instead of requiring a minimum of 150 square feet of habitable space, certain existing habitable space conditions, and other issues like elevator shaft and door sizes, would be grandfathered in. The new units would have bathrooms and kitchens.
Committee Chair Louise Craddock made clear at the start of the discussion that “we do not want to recreate SROs. We do want to create studios and apartments for people where they can live permanently.”
Ira Mitchneck raised the issue of whether the available HONDA funding is sufficient. The first $100 million, Mr. Houghton explained, must be spent in New York City. The rest can be spent in other areas of the state, as well as the city. The HONDA funds would be seed money to acquire the distressed properties. The balance of the funding required for renovations would come from “contract financing”.
Essentially, the sponsor would get a 30-year contract from the city whereby the city would commit to paying a certain amount per studio. This should enable the nonprofit to obtain the necessary financing, based upon the assured source of income through the contract with the city. Mr. Houghton indicated that the HONDA money whould be used for acquisition costs as opposed to the costly renovations.
As the meeting drew to a close, Sheldon Fine questioned whether permanent supportive housing was the solution for those living in the streets, including mentally ill people or those just released from prison or jail. Mr. Houghton agreed that if you place people directly from the streets into housing, “as a rule, it is not successful. There is a need for transitional housing,” he said. He noted that those experiencing street homelessness seem “more psychotic than I’ve ever seen,” and “we don’t have a housing model for them.”
“There is a need for transitional housing,” he said. He noted that those experiencing street homelessness seem “more psychotic than I’ve ever seen,” and “we don’t have a housing model for them.”
Finally there is recognition that the mentally ill homeless in our midst are in an advanced state of neglect, well beyond what most of us have witnessed before. This also explains the disconnect between a) what upperwestsiders are experiencing on the streets and subways from seriously mentally ill who have been abandoned by the mental health support system, and b)advocates for the the homeless still insisting that the number of violent mentally ill homeless is greatly exaggerated.
The tragic individuals who have been abandoned by the state’s mental health system are violent and dangerous to themselves and to their neighbors. This situation has to named, acknowledged and addressed. Instead it is misidentified as a homeless problem instead of a mental health failure. Every one of those mentally ill individuals on the streets is entitled to support, medication, hospitalization, housing and humanitarian aid. NYS is apparently the highest taxed state in the the country, and yet this problem goes on year after year unaddressed, misprepresenteded, and deteriorating.
It is a disgrace.
As a further comment, many of the psychotic homeless on the streets were I’m willing to bet, perfectly normal human beings who lost their apartments due to evections, demolitions, etc., forced into the unsafe homeless shelters, and then left for the streets, hoping to survive. That is quite enough to drive a normal person to psychotic.
Two people I’ve known were evicted over the years. One who lived in a Central Park community, who I would give money to when I saw him on the streets, who is now ibn an SRO on 45 Street, still stabilized, and passive, and helped with a NYC stipend. The other, just a few years back, whose parents had passed, with diabetes whereby he couldn’t work, going to homeless shelter, where I question whether he is capable of surviving, and not eventually having a mental breakdown.
Try picturing yourself surviving a shelter or living on the street.
Willingness to bet does not equal Facts.
I am not saying you’re wrong. But I am saying that I “am willing to bet” that you are.
Get ready for your small businesses to leave. This neighborhood never ever fights the amount of housing for the mentally ill or homeless. Yes, they need help – definitley but it is unconscionable to put ANY MORE here in the West 70’s to West 90’s. We are ridiculously over-saturated. There are 5 boroughs but no, you all just let it happen, including CB7 and Gale Brewer so check your UWS streets in 2 years and see how many businesses are gone.
IT’S NOT THE RENTS – IT’S WHAT YOU ARE DOING TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD.
You think it’s bad on Broadway now? Have fun with more empty storefronts! BYE!
To concerned small business owner: You are SO right! The now desolate West 70’s/Broadway has decayed beyond help. We’ve tried to move but as soon as buyers walk up the block and see nothing but empty stores with no commerce except filthy Fairway they back out. A once thriving neighborhood has been overrun with shelters, SRO’s, etc. Since when was it legal for bottle machines to occupy a major storefront? With other boroughs having plenty of room, must you place all this on the UWS? Urban planning at its worst; as in the BelleClaire hotel, someone is definitely “on the take”.
Affordable housing or market rate housing yes. But what this actually is is a euphemism for non profits and agencies to make bundle of money and house homeless and mentally ill in family neighborhoods.
And will nurses, police officers and first responders qualify? Teachers maybe? Or just more criminals
“Committee Chair Louise Craddock made clear at the start of the discussion that “we do not want to recreate SROs. We do want to create studios and apartments for people where they can live permanently.”
This is a good solution, in addition to an SRO whereby non psychotics can live before living on the streets will overwhelm them. It’s not either or, as and SRO can contain individual small cooking facilities and bathrooms, i.e., small studios.
Here’s a question that seems never asked: “San Francisco has been trying this for some time with limited, at best, success at enormous cost. What lessons have you, our politicians, drawn from that experience? What would you do differently to make it effective here?”
It isn’t asked because politicians really don’t care. People hear “non-profit” and wrongly assume no basis for criticism and noble intent, and a lot of money changes hands. Politicians make powerful friends and can be seen as compassionate.
It is sad.