Mayor de Blasio:

Last year, the People of New York City elected you to lead us as Mayor based largely on your progressive platform of increasing affordable housing and decreasing inequalities in our City. In your inaugural address, you vowed to “take dead aim at the ‘Tale of Two Cities’” and to maintain or build 200,000 units of affordable housing in the City. You highlighted the “greatest affordability crisis this city has ever experienced” and committed to “change the face of the city forever” by making New York City an affordable place to live. Affordability of housing within the city, near public transportation, in diverse, vibrant and safe communities is essential to the character and longevity of this great city.

 The Brooklyn Jewish Hospital Complex (BJHC) is a nine-building complex in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, owned and operated by Alma Realty.   Alma Realty owns over 700 rent-stabilized units within the complex and over 1000 tenants have made these apartments, Crown Heights, and this city, our homes. We chose to live here based in large part on the promise of an affordable home in a neighborhood where we can build our lives, careers and families.

Several weeks ago, without notice or warning to the residents, Alma Realty stopped renewing our stabilized leases. If we want to remain in our homes, we are forced to sign market-rate leases instead of stabilized renewals. The rent increases are massive, with some as high as 20% in one year. Once we sign a market-rate lease,  there is nothing stopping Alma from charging as much as they want for our units, especially given the exorbitant rates in rapidly expanding Crown Heights.

 If Alma is allowed to deregulate our homes, we will all be forced to find new places to live. And with so few affordable units left in the city, a diverse community of artists, teachers, nurses, and many others will, in all likelihood, be forced out of New York City entirely. Allowing Alma to deregulate our apartments will only contribute to the affordable housing crisis that you, Mayor de Blasio, vowed to fight when we elected you.

 Our landlord has a history of putting profit first and hard-working New Yorkers last.  There are currently more than 1,350 open violations with the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development in Alma-owned buildings across the city. The Public Advocate, Letitia James, has named Alma on the NYC Worst Landlords List for the past two years. And news recently surfaced that Alma does business with a contractor who illegally pays workers different rates for the same work based on their skin color.

 Alma is now in negotiations with the City for permission to build a massive luxury development in Queens called Astoria Cove.  Alma is doing all it can to keep the number of affordable units as low as possible while still winning this massive building contract. As it stands now, out of a total of more than 1,700 apartments in Astoria, fewer than 350 will be affordable to the people who live in the area.

 Do The Math: 350 affordable units in Queens MINUS 700 stabilized units in Brooklyn = 350 fewer rent-stabilized units. This is a NET LOSS of affordable housing for New York City on your watch, Mr. Mayor!

 If you really want to end the “Tale of Two Cities,” then it must end here and now. You must hold Alma accountable in order to fulfill the promises you made to us on the campaign trail.

We Demand:

1) that Alma Realty secure and guarantee the rent-stabilized leases that we tenants signed;

 2)  that you not reward this deceitful landlord with a multi-million dollar building contract;

 3)  that you maintain affordable housing in New York City by not allowing 700 units to be de-regulated;

 Signed,

The Brooklyn Jewish Hospital Complex Tenants Union and its community allies