In April 2023, as a bitter debate raged between landlords, tenants and policymakers over how to bring vacant, low-cost apartments back to the rental market during a severe housing crunch, Mayor Eric Adams and city officials stepped in with a solution.<\/p>\n
If property owners were willing to renovate worn-out, rent stabilized apartments that were sitting vacant, the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development would reimburse them up to $25,000<\/a> as long as they agreed to lease the units to low-income tenants with housing vouchers.<\/p>\n The Unlocking Doors program was billed as a way to address the \u201cwarehousing\u201d of empty apartments that landlords say are too expensive to repair after longtime tenants leave because they can\u2019t make enough back in monthly rent to cover the costs.<\/p>\n But nearly two-and-a-half years later, just one property owner has completed an Unlocking Doors application \u2014 and then opted not to go through with the process to get the money. Another submitted an incomplete application before dropping out, according to city data.<\/p>\n City housing officials say the lack of participants is proof that warehousing of vacant, rent-stabilized apartments isn\u2019t as big of a problem as some have made it out to be \u2014 despite claims to the contrary from landlord groups and some tenants who say they live in buildings full of empty apartments. Landlords say the program comes with too much uncertainty and will lock them into unprofitable rents for years to come.<\/p>\n The Department of Housing Preservation and Development, or HPD, is now sweetening the deal by doubling the potential reimbursement to $50,000 in hopes of finally enticing some owners to put the units back on the market.<\/p>\n \u201cHPD\u2019s data is clear: There are very few vacant low-cost, rent-stabilized apartments. However, every home that could potentially house New Yorkers is critical,\u201d agency spokesperson Matthew Rauschenbach said.<\/p>\n The data on warehousing is unclear. And conflicting accounts have created some confusion around just how many apartments are sitting empty as New York City faces a housing crisis.<\/p>\n A 2023 report<\/a> from the city\u2019s Independent Budget Office found that about 13,000 rent-stabilized units were vacant and held off the market for more than a year. A more recent accounting by HPD showed<\/a> fewer than 2,500 empty apartments had rents set below $1,000 per month.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, the prospect that any number of low-cost units are sitting empty has infuriated many renters and tenant advocates. It has also served as an effective tool for landlord groups, who say they could immediately bring the units back to the market if the state changed laws limiting their ability to raise rent.<\/p>\n To qualify for the Unlocking Doors program, landlords must own apartments with rent capped at $1,200 a month for a one-bedroom and no more than $1,400 a month for a three-bedroom. Deals like that are rare in the city and typically only come about when a longtime tenant moves out of a rent-stabilized apartment after living in it for decades. Under state law, landlords can only increase rent on such units by a relatively small percentage each year, or after completing repairs and getting state approval.<\/p>\n You’d rather go to the mob and get the money.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Humberto Lopes, a property manager and owner of roughly 200 apartments in Brooklyn<\/p>\n If $25,000 wasn\u2019t enough, can the promise of $50,000 motivate landlords to rehab apartments they say aren\u2019t worth the cost to rent out?<\/p>\n Property owners who spoke with Gothamist were skeptical.<\/p>\n \u201cIt sounds fabulous but who the hell knows what they\u2019re going to hit you with,\u201d said Jack Ndreu, a landlord with three buildings in the Bronx. \u201cMaybe you go through all this stuff and the new mayor takes it all away, or they take the tenant\u2019s voucher away.\u201d<\/p>\n Ndreu said he had never heard of the program but that it could benefit a \u201csmall pool of landlords\u201d with empty apartments priced below the threshold.<\/p>\n But because it requires landlords to spend their own money for repairs up-front, he questioned how some smaller property owners could afford to wait for the city \u2014 notoriously slow at making payments \u2014 to come through with the reimbursement.<\/p>\n \u201cIf it benefited the landlord, everyone would know about it,\u201d Ndreu said.<\/p>\n Humberto Lopes, a property manager and owner of about 200 units in Brooklyn, said he was also suspicious of the \u201cred tape\u201d and the extra rules and regulations.<\/p>\n \u201c\u200aYou’d rather go to the mob and get the money from the mob because at least you know you pay the interest and you’re gone,\u201d Lopes said. \u201cGetting money from the city is one of the worst things [because] you\u2019re governed to get the money, you’re governed to fix the place. And now I have to rent to who you give me.\u201d<\/p>\n If this is a real problem, why aren’t landlords taking the option to solve it?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Samuel Stein, housing policy analyst at the Community Service Society<\/p>\n Lopes, who organized a landlord town hall with Adams earlier this summer, said he is keeping four apartments off the market because he said it would cost up to $80,000 to renovate them. He said some owners may be enticed by the new $50,000 reimbursement amount but that the city needs a \u201cvalidator\u201d to show it works.<\/p>\n \u201cThey need someone going through the process and actually doing it,\u201d Lopes said.<\/p>\n That validator won\u2019t be the city\u2019s biggest rent-stabilized landlord lobbying group. Kenny Burgos, the head of the New York Apartment Association, which has urged the state to relax and repeal laws limiting rent increases, denounced the program in a statement to Gothamist.<\/p>\n \u201cUnlocking Doors is another example of a government program that is disconnected from the reality building owners see every day,\u201d Burgos said, adding that landlords fear that tenants who use vouchers to help cover monthly rent could lose that financial support and that the rents that qualify for the program could be too low to cover ongoing operating costs.<\/p>\n\n
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