By Emma Whitford
The Department of Homeless Services is quietly finalizing more than
$98 million in contracts that would turn five apartment buildings
currently part of the notoriously mismanaged cluster site program into homeless shelters, and maintain six more as cluster sites for at least the next three years.
These privately-owned buildings, located in Brooklyn and the Bronx,
have more than 300 apartments between them and are either partially or
entirely occupied by homeless families. Rather than convert them to
low-rental housing and provide residents with tenant protections, as
Mayor Bill de Blasio pledged last January, DHS is planning to maintain them as family shelters (a tactic referenced in the mayor's February homelessness game plan).
Advocates say this will reward negligent landlords who already benefit
from the cluster program's large payouts and lax oversight.
"The city is rewarding harassing behavior," said Scott Hutchins, a
member of Picture the Homeless who has been homeless himself since 2012.
There are currently 449 open violations across the eleven buildings, according to the city's shelter repair scorecard for July, 75 of which are immediately hazardous. A recent report
from the Department of Investigation found the Giuliani-era cluster
program to be the worst maintained in the shelter system. Yet the city
has paid as much as $3,000 per month to house a single family in a
cluster site apartment. When de Blasio announced his phase-out last
January, the City said it was spending $125 million a year on the
program.
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Source: Gothamist (via The Empire Report)
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