Bills Passed to Help Tenants of New York Three-Quarter Homes
Corey Bates lost his apartment when the rent was increased. His work hours were cut. So in January 2015, he jumped when a nonprofit agency referred him to a program called Back on Track that promised him temporary housing and a permanent home in six months.
There was just one catch: Like everyone else, Mr. Bates, then 32, had to go to an outpatient substance-abuse program every day for treatment that he said he did not need. He stayed for more than seven months, sleeping on the top bunk in a four-bedroom Brooklyn home crammed with about 30 men, some of whom were drug addicts who relapsed to be able to keep their housing, Mr. Bates said. Only gradually did he realize that no permanent home was coming.
Mr. Bates had fallen into the netherworld of unregulated flophouses known as three-quarter houses, the subject of an investigation by The New York Times in 2015.
On Wednesday afternoon, the New York City Council passed, on a 47-0 vote, five bills that are intended to help tenants of three-quarter houses, like Mr. Bates, get stable housing, and to curb many problems in the industry, such as interference in tenants’ medical care.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/01/nyregion/bills-tenants-protection-three-quarter-homes-new-york.html